[frosty_ramen]

I have to present to the owners of the co. i work for a comparison of computing capacity/cost to upgrade with my current computer (Dell Precision T3400, Intel Core 2 Quad Cpu, Q9450 @ 2.66GHz, 2GB Ram, xp 32bit) to a mid level setup ($3500 usd), a high level setup ($?), and price to farm out to The Ranch render farm. anyone have a suggestion as to how i should go about this. currently i am working on a project with 168 rendered images, and i have at least 1,000 images that are currently requested (though they are not rush items).

so any good ideas on how to do an accurate comparison.

thanks
Dan

[frosty_ramen]

Not a single comment....

[Leonardo]

Maybe you can do a graph showing initial cost

"New setup" vs "Ranch render farm"

and how long would it take for the New setup to pay for itself.

You can also make a graph showing how much time it would take to get the work done using

Old setup
New Setup
Ranch render farm

[frosty_ramen]

Leonardo,
I think that sounds like a good & practical idea, thanks a lot.

Dan

[deadalvs]

what type of project is this ?

what are the 168 images showing ?

what the next 1000 ?

odd numbers ..

[frosty_ramen]

I work for a furniture manufacturer, the 168 images are for a clients internet site.
the following 1000 are images of all our products and collections.

[deadalvs]

full interior scenes or just the furniture itself rendered as a single object ?

[frosty_ramen]

Here are some examples, some are "Life Style" shots and some are "Studio" shots.




Comments/Suggestions/Critiques are appreciated, I know I have lots of room for growth, and growth comes from learning from mistakes.

-Dan

[Bubbaloo]

The thing which sticks out on these is the quality of lighting. Lighting quality is what makes Maxwell worth the long render times. Work on your lighting setups and these could be much improved.

[frosty_ramen]

Bubbaloo,
You mean that hot spots are to hot, and other areas on chairs are not well lit? I'm not sure what I should do with my lighting, i am using image based environment and a few emitters. should this be different?

thanks for the critique.


dan

[deadalvs]

i see what type of pictures..

* * *

well for the feedback.

those images don't look too complex since they have not a huge amount of geometry. this is the reason why i'd go for a medium range computer with basic graphics card. should cost you not more than 2000$. with windows xp, vista or beta7 64 bit. and 4 gigs of ram.

to add some more more power you should think about also buying a second computer just for purposes to send renders to and/or network rendering. this computer can cost about 1200 and you'll be ready to pump out those pictures.

as i've seen, the minimum price per project/render on rach farm is 10$. you'll be testing a lot and not just producing 1000 final images, so buying your own hardware will be the best.

* * *

based on your image composition.

try matching the camera perspective better to the one of the background image. the one with the blue sea in the background is not perfectly aligned since the camera looks a little down and the horizon is pretty high in the picture.

also desaturate the backgrounds a LOT ! up to 50% and maybe blur them a little (up to 5 px). this will make the viewer concentrate on the foreground and not on the colorful BG ..

[deadalvs]

and most importantly !

--> match the shadow direction in your composites.

there's only one sun and thus there should be only one shadow direction. you simply have to check the background image which way it's going.

this will increase realism a lot !

same for sun color and atmoshpere settings .. just try to match it as close as possible !

but keep the good work coming ! good start, man !

[Bubbaloo]

The first one is very flat. It almost looks like an alpha... Since the furniture is all black, maybe it would help to introduce some subtle colored emitters.

The second one is also flat. I realize it's probably under a shade, but the scene is very "overcast" when it should be a bright day. Maybe put the sun at such an angle as to get some dirct sunlight and shadows on the scene.

The third one is better, but I think it could still be brighter. Awhite chair in direct sunlight! But in this render your shadows don't match the BG shadows!

[frosty_ramen]

Deadalvs, Bubbaloo

I have noticed that my lighting is not matching the bg shadows, when i use image env. lighting should i also have the physical sun in just to get a distinct shadow (i.e. the 3rd image)? or is their a different technique i should use.

The main problem i have with matching bg camera angle to my rendering angle is the fact that my bosses want particular angles shown on the furniture. is their an easy work around, or should i just add a blur at 5px to ease the effect.

thanks again for the critiques, i don't mind if their are many things to work on.

dan

[Bubbaloo]

With a sunny hdri, you can't get good shadows from the "sun". You should put a sun in the scene to match the position as best you can. Then you might need to adjust the intensity of the hdr.