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Hi, I'm trying to produce a render of building into photography but the shadows produced using the physical sky and very pale. I'm trying to achieve strong dark shadows to match my photography. What's the best way to achieve this, is it possible.

You can edit the parameters of the physical sky some to reduce ambient light but it's probably easier just to adjust the levels in post.

Best,
Jason.

You can render a separate shadow pass for fine tuning.

.....and finally Curves in PS offer best control to darken just the shadow parts.

Run the render with multilight and low down physical sky.

GREAT

four of most wise users in this forum gives You "cheap" non physical correct answers. SHAME ON YOU GUYS!

@Christine_Cityscape - there is something wrong with you MATERIALS not with lightning.

zdeno wrote:GREAT

four of most wise users in this forum gives You "cheap" non physical correct answers. SHAME ON YOU GUYS!

@Christine_Cityscape - there is something wrong with you MATERIALS not with lightning.

Actually this is not necessarily true (and most likely not) -- we have no idea how the photo they are trying to match has been processed or even what type of equipment it was taken with... both of which potentially effect (reduce) the dynamic range.

You can make yourself crazy trying to match Maxwell output to a photo, but it's a losing battle because Maxwell is not limited in the way that most cameras are... so why not do the easy thing and just adjust it in post to match?

Also the absorption of ambient light by surrounding detail is not often replicated adequately in such projects -- without modeling/texturing all surrounding details accurately it will also be impossible to match ambient lighting conditions.

And then there is the issue of: a completely sunny day with no clouds is a rare thing in the real world -- and unless the original photo was taken on such a day the lighting will not match, since the Maxwell Physical sky represents a "perfect" day.

And on top of all that, since we have not seen either the original photo nor the render we are all speculating based on what we imagine in our heads from the description.

Best,
Jason.

zdeno wrote:GREAT

four of most wise users in this forum gives You "cheap" non physical correct answers. SHAME ON YOU GUYS!

An image would be nice to see what's happening.

I assume we have problem with "scanlinelook exterior" as 90% of exteriors on this forum posted by new users.

Here is quick test to show how important is only materials to balance dark side/bright side of the force.

only .mxms are different and ISO in camera. no postproduction, no multilight, always the same settings of sky&sun

the most reflective white material is well known ARCHWALL downloaded years ago from mxm library and 3 sets of changes. I hope .gif is animated correctly.



ergo - this is very important to push newbies to right direction (understanding materials) not to photoshop.

edit: in my friend OPERA browser .gif is not animated so I post separated images. But it is more fun to watch it in one piece animated.

first: ( very well known pale, uncontrasted, overburnt whitewalled render)

and making it more convincing changing GI solutions



as I said in separated pictures it is not so obvious ... download them and compare animated

Thanks guys, I'd love to show you the render issues but I can't. The best I can do is show you the plate I am trying to match. Its not a perfect day, its a little bit hazy. The Building I'm rendering in is mostly anodised aluminium with marble and the shadows are reading very pale/hardly at all really across the board.

I've matched my ISO/Shutter and fStop to the plate. The plate is completely ungraded.

I have had this probably before, and resorted to fixing it in post, but it would be great to know if I can fix it in Maxwell itself.

According to my sekonic light meter (in spot mode), a sunny spot on the sidewalk reads 2 - 3 f-stops brighter than the same material in the sun's shadow, lit largely by sky alone.

This is mid day in Los Angeles on a sunny day.

Drop the "gamma" and up the "burn" in the render (which is similar to adjusting parts of levels/curves in Photoshop).

Best,
Jason.

Christine_Cityscape wrote:mostly anodised aluminium with marble

Maybe it's an issue of unrealistic reflectivity of some of the materials?

I think the original back plate has darker shadows than the real world due to the limitations of the dynamic range of the capture device. Looks like slide/digital as opposed to c41 for example. When shooting still life in a studio you would place black card out of frame to cut down on the ambient light hitting the shadows.
So in 3d I would create a large black diffuse surface out side of frame to recreate this effect make it Invisible to reflections. Hope these images help .

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/60 ... kwall.jpg/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/18 ... wall2.jpg/

and without

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/528/nowall2.jpg/