Old bank, new skin...

[tomsdesk]

...crashed through another "you'll get paid if I get paid" last week, and now that it's over I finally have time to ask for some help: so it goes :`) Anyway, a couple of things I want to learn please:

EBS-Cbb.jpg (389.65 KiB) Viewed 9756 times

The roof over the new entry is supposed to be kalwal, but I never found any material or setting that really fit the bill...any suggestions or better yet: an fur-sure answer?

The panels are to be porcelain, which I used from the template menu. I increased the shininess up to 750 but still couldn't get the reflective quality of the real panel: like glass over black (the other option was an aqua tint)?

tn_!wet2+.jpg (133.08 KiB) Viewed 9756 times

Now foolin' around with a night shot (which has lots of problems...or opportunities :`) but I really do want to pursue the wet pavement look. Right now it's close to what I want but a bit much: too reflective and shiny. For paving in SU I use the "concrete-rough" material, but scale it up bit...this one is 12'x12'. In twilight I used the water tut, without changing the SU material and setting the bump at "1.0" rather than ".3"...I also cut the shininess down to "18" but that didn't really help. Any suggestions...?

[Chris]

I think the wet pavement is great! Maybe a little to reflective, yes, but very convincing otherwise.

As far as the black panels, have you tried a realistic glass template, color = black, alpha = about 95? I tried it and it looked kind of like what you described.

[Fletch]

That's my first promo render I've ever seen done in the actual rain...
usually a 'sunshine just after the rain'... but never actual rain.

Here's my Kalwal texture... but I've never used it with Twilight, would need to experiment... but start with the shoji screen material from Ecuadorian. (if you use that mat, you will just not have a texture, but will want to actually build the dividers between the panels... if you know what I mean.)

[tomsdesk]

Chris...tried it and works great, thank you thank you:

!0black.jpg (115.49 KiB) Viewed 9660 times

Now if I could just get the aqua colored one to work...still black?

Fletch, I'll try the material and play some more, thanks...above I used fake emitter with fussed settings and am more pleased.

!0settings.jpg (85.01 KiB) Viewed 9659 times

My intent too is to use the "just after the rain" wet pavement without the rain streaks (just playing around here) but want a little drier look. And of course, the lighting will have to be just right...any hints on that?

Oh yeah, Chris, look what happened when I added some bump to the sidewalk material...big phantom spot? :`)

!0bump.jpg (125.88 KiB) Viewed 9659 times

[Chris]

I think there must be something quirky with one or more of the render settings, like somehow a weird photon is causing a light "splash". The reason I think that is because it's perfectly round, and, like the pumpkin scene, always one sharp corners. X-Ray particles? (just kidding). Are you using an HDR background or png / jpg? Is that one of the Low, Med, High presets or the Exterior progressive?

[tomsdesk]

Spherical sky jpeg Fletch provided, High+ preset.

[Fletch]

try this... start with Plastic shiny and modify like shown.

this is a 'quick' way... a real wet-looking material that is not uniformly wet would make me crack open Kerkythea and the procedurals in the shininess slot, etc.

[Fletch]

for the back-painted colored glass:
build a cube 1" thick with the back and sides painted with the color you want, the front paint it with a glass and set it to be thin glass
you can the reverse the back face and sides to be facing 'in' to the cube and either set it to flat paint, or set it to be mirrored glass... whichever you think looks best. mirrored glass renders longer.... looks pretty good.

[tomsdesk]

Wow...didn't realize I'd been working on this a week till I saw the date on your last response Fletch: time flies when you're having fun :`)

First, I'd tried something similar with the porcelain before...but the back face was 6" away, so at 1" it worked much better but still pretty dark and glassy. Here I painted the back face with a pretty hot fake emitter (400 I think) and then darkened the color by about 10%: just what I wanted, thank you very much! I'm getting the impression that when modeling for a render everything needs to have a thickness to work well...?

!0gem30p12.jpg (113.27 KiB) Viewed 9476 times

The following image is a "bring it all together". The "plastic" road surface worked good (see above), but I still wasn't completely satisfied (worked well on the sidewalk if you can see that little sheen I like so much): here I mixed the three (default, plastic, water...different scales in the SU material editor) in PSP and got close (me never happy with own work :`( still too much like black ice...?

!0bertm3+mix.jpg (135.47 KiB) Viewed 9476 times

Thanks for the grass BTW, really happy with that!

[Fletch]

grass looks pretty good!
the pavement on the second one is really really nice... what settings did you use for that material?
If you had the glass from the image above it, and the rest of the rendering of the second image, I think you'd have a winner here.

The lady in the middle is distracting/blocking view... I'd push her off to the right and closer to the bldg...

sky is gloomy and grainy. sky is very very important in renderings.