[tom]

Which material settings do you want to see ?

I wonder the materials for washbasin, frosted glass that has no caustics and the wall lights. And if possible, can you render it for a short time and send us how SL8 looks like. Because it's weird you have no caustics around at SL17 and I see no light coming off from the lights on the wall. Also I wonder if you have any post effects.

[thxraph]

Pierre,

Your modeling is nice, and your material aren't bad (la serviette moins blanche ), i think the problem come from the lighting. if you use an mxi or a hdr too bright, like white, then lower the shutter to get back the good light intensity, your render will simply come out like the two you shown us. washed.

check your mxi settings.

if you try closing the room, adding a window then light with phisical sky, i'm sure it will come up as it should.

your work tell the many hours you spent on it, you only have this little problem to resolve to achieve a great render quality.

double check your lighting. take care that your camera settings are realist for an interior (shutter/fstop)

hope you find a solution in my suggestions

thxraph

[Hervé]

Pierre, montre nous tes settings Maxwell... tu ne voudrais pas nous faire douter quand même....

[Pierre Caron]

Thanks to all for your comments...some of them are very helpful and give me ideas of what I can do to improve my skills.

I'll try to answer all your questions

The very first images on pg 1 where rendered with Maxwell beta and only the last 2 images were lit with a MXI.

I've checked the towel texture and you are right the map was 2 bright...I changed that.

The caustics are not turned off but the wall lights are (that the reason why the wall and the mirror don't receive light from them) because when I switch them on rendering time increases a lot.

I agree the razor materials needs to be changed.

The images was "photoshopped" since the rendered image was too dark and I had to make it brighter with less contrast. The image will be used for printing and were adjusted for this purpose.

Maybe I should forget the idea of using a MXI to lit the scene and come back to a closed room with light sources...but 2 or 3 days to get a noisy render...

Tom,
Here is a link to the mxm files you want to look at :
http://www.odf-paris.com/site/Temp/Materials.rar
And here is a 800x600 image SL8 after 6 minutes (only the towel texture was changed as suggested)

[tom]

Hi Pierre,

I'm very impressed with your clean result and decided to try it myself with the materials you've provided.

Now questions:
- How can you achieve remarkably low noise at SL8? My scene is less crowded and should clear up faster, no?

- How did you prevented the reflection of HDR on the mirrors? I placed a plane like a room wall. But it should look darker in the mirror. How could you keep the same illumination on the mirror since it's not post processed.

- In your SL8 render, the reflection of basin interiors on the mirrors are noisy but the reflection of background in the mirror is quite clear. How did that area cleared up faster than other parts? If it's the light area of HDR image itself, what's the explanation of gradient shading on it (like it's a reflection of wall)? Can you show the HDR image as well?



Here's the image I see when I reached SL17 (I used another HDR for matching a better hue close to yours):


Even with this simple scene, the behaviour of the glass on the wall is different.

1) How could you remove such a noise in post like this:


2) In my scene there is a transparent shadow and caustic on the wall but that part of your scene seem pretty flat. Did you paint and remove them with noise?

Thanks for helping me understand this because your renders are pretty clean depending on conditions but at the same time they are pretty dull which we don't expect from Maxwell's light propagation (even under MXI). I'm trying to understand what could cause this...

Best regards,
tom

[Pierre Caron]

Hi Tom,
First of all, many thanks for spending some of your time on that.

Answers :
- I get this kind of clean result since my scenes are lit by a MXI and it's much faster setting and rendering.

- I did not prevent anything...the mirrors reflect the mxi.

Here is the mxi (supposed to simulate a kind of closed room) :

Of course the original is bigger

1) I did not have to remove the noise...there was no noise to remove...

2) It could be due to the fact that I removed some contrast (maybe too much) and increased brightness because it was too dark when I printed it.

Now that I look at my mxi I find it has a strange mood and I think it might be responsible of the strange feeling the final render has. One thing is sure...it is very efficient talking about noise and rendering time.

What about the materials I posted ? Do you think they are correct ?

Thanks again.
Pierre

[Mihai]

I'd say the mxi you used gives the scene this strange greyness. Why not use an hdr of a real bathroom? Or at least something more interesting, it would really help your image I think.

[Pierre Caron]

I'd say the mxi you used gives the scene this strange greyness. Why not use an hdr of a real bathroom? Or at least something more interesting, it would really help your image I think.

I wanted something neutral that would not tint the image but it was not a good idea.
I thought about using a real bathroom HDR but what will happen if I render a wash bassin with a mirror and you can see another wash bassin (from the HDR) in the mirror. I'm rendering another "room" to be used as HDR. It will be something like that with less noise

What do you think ?

[tom]

I tried with your map and it's still very noisy at SL8.82. Comparing to your output the noise is distributed. But with this map it's quite normal you don't have caustics and fine shadows. It's rather like a skydome which makes the result seem unrealistic.

...and I still can't get clear glasses like you did at SL17, pretty weird.

[Pierre Caron]

Maybe the map res makes the difference.
Do you want to try with my original mxi (2.74Mo) ?
http://www.odf-paris.com/site/Temp/Studio3x3.rar
Do you think the new one I'm rendering will be better ?

[tom]

No, I don't think it's about the MXI resolution but you should surely change this CG looking MXI with something else as you already mentioned. I don't know if the new one will look better but I'm sure any free HDR out there on the web will be much better than the first one. Your scene benefits from speed of image based lighting but suffers from boring environment. Try it...

[Pierre Caron]

Thanks for your help Tom..
I'll try with other HDR images and hope it will give a better look to me render.
I'll keep you updated.
Pierre

[Pierre Caron]

Here is a quick render (30min) 800x600 reached SL12.8 with my new HDR.
It looks a bit better (There is no caustics again) but I'm creating another HDR less "boring" which I hope will give a good result.
What do you think ?

[tom]

Better...no? Caustics depend on tiny sources of powerful lightsources off from HDR image, maybe your map doesn't have one. I just still wonder how can you make those lamps seem lit but not in the mirror.

[Pierre Caron]

Hopefully the next HDR should give a better result.
Regardingthe lamps I think my white plastic is too bright and/or too reflective. I'm gonna check that.