[koji_maruyama]

(From Koji)
Yeah, just now I hit the Render button and it will take several hours. After finishing rendering I will post the scene soon.
During the rendering time, I will be sleeping in my bed.
In Japan the night sky will soon start to get replaced by the morning sunlight.

[tom]

おやすみなさい

[koji_maruyama]

おはようございます（Good morning !)
But it always makes me a bit down to find it's over 12 o'clock when I get up. The morning has gone...

The rendered image is as below (ISO 100, Shutter Speed 1/1000, Burn 0.8, Monitor Gamma2.2)

The appearance of the blossom looks dark, but the color chart as well as the color of grass look fine.

And, just for a test (just for a test!), I re-rendered the same scene with different setting (ISO 400, Shutter Speed 1/750 the rest is the same).
This setting is the one which I used for the very first picture of this topic.
And the result is as below:


Well, this time the reflecting green color doesn't clearly show up on the surface of the blossom.
It is probably because I recently changed the texture of grass and by using that texture and setting ISO very high, the ground now looks yellow...it's getting a bit confusing.


In the above 2 pictures I am using the grass texture as below:


But at the beginning of this topic, I was using the grass texture as below:


And just for checking, I tried to render the scene with the original texture of grass, and the result is as below.
(ISO 100 Shutter Speed 1/1000, Burn 0.8, Monitor Gamma 2.2)


And, the below is ISO 400, Shutter Speed 1/750, Burn 0.8, Monitor Gamma 2.2)

This time the green color clearly appears on the surface of blossom.

So this may simply mean....
Because I set a high value for ISO (400), the basic color of the 2 grass textures has become very bright and vivid, and eventually one of the two ground has become almost yellow, and,on the 2nd picture of this post, the "almost yellow color" is on the surface of the blossom...
And if it's so, the real problem may not be "How to reduce the reflection from ground", but be "How to make blossom brighter without making ISO value unnaturally high (which will lead a serious reflection of the ground color on the blossom)"...

Hmm...

[tom]

"How to make blossom brighter without making ISO value unnaturally high (which will lead a serious reflection of the ground color on the blossom)"...

OK, don't play with the exposure as it's already calibrated until now. The rest is all about materials. Now, share your settings for blossoms and ground so we can add more realism.

[koji_maruyama]

Good evening, I am Koji.

I made groups of pictures to show the material settings of my cherry blossom scene.

The below is the setting of one of the 2 blossom textures:


The below is the setting of the other of the 2 blossom textures:


The below is the setting of grass texture:


And the rendered image and its setting is as below:

[tom]

OK, let's start with the blossom material. As it would take a long time here to explain one by one,
I created a material for your blossom based on your textures. Please, download this MXM
with the accompanying PNG image and replace it in your scene.

Download Blossom MXM
Download Blossom PNG

[koji_maruyama]

OK, let's start with the blossom material. As it would take a long time here to explain one by one,
I created a material for your blossom based on your textures.

REALLY ?!
Oh...

[tom]

Yes, very easy don't worry.

First, I've designed the material with a single texture using the new "alpha-only" option in texture picker but I think there's a current limitation with 3ds max plugin (or I couldn't figure how to do it) so you may need to replace the Layer Mask with the following image after importing the MXM into max.

Download Blossom Alpha PNG

[koji_maruyama]

From Koji.
In the previous message I said "Really ?!" because you & your NL team is so kind...I wonder how many times I say thank you...muchas gracias.

Well, let me first put the "material setting chart" as below, so as to make it possible for other MW users to follow the guidance which now I am taking from you...
The setting of the cherry blossom material which you kindly made and gave to me is as below:
(In 3ds Max)

And yes, as you said in the previous message, it was necessary to put alpha map for clipping.
Without the alpha map, the rendered scene was as below:


Instead, I also tried to export the scene to MW studio and render from the studio.
In this way, the setting of the cherry blossom material which you gave is as below:


And the rendered image is as below:


The rendered image is still dark, but I think this might be probably due to the models of trees themselves.
That's because when I watch the blossom material by itself, it is really a beautiful thinSSSS, as below.


Probably it is not because of rendering engine, but because there are too many blossom textures clammed into tiny spaces among numerous branches...

[tom]

In the previous message I said "Really ?!" because you & your NL team is so kind...I wonder how many times I say thank you...muchas gracias.

Thank you so much, koji! I really enjoy helping you.

Now back to scene. Of course, we're not done yet. So, I resume with more instructions. The material seems OK, except a few more adjustments and now, I like to see you initial (previous) blossom texture because, it seems like the image canvas didn't match and it made the blossoms look larger and cover a larger area. Could you show here one of your original bloom texture you've previously used?

[koji_maruyama]

Good morning, it's still in the morning, barely.
Yes, I agree, the original texture of the blossom was more small, compared to the one you made for me.
The comparison is as below (Just for making sure):


And I put the original texture I was using at the beginning of this topic, as below.
(Actually the textures were .tiff but I changed them into .jpg, because it was necessary for putting them on this web forum.)









(The original tiff textures contained transparency and the above jpg textures don't have such transparency. But it's okay, I think, so long as we use the alpha map for clipping(or simply photoshopping can make the background transparent.).)

(The alpha maps in the above have white background, but it's okay, because there is a button "invert" in 3ds max (as well as MWstudio) and so the exchange of black part and white part is no problem.)

Well, let me start rendering with these small blossom textures and with your thinSSSS setting.

This forum is really great...
And now it's already in the afternoon...><

[tom]

Well, let me start rendering with these small blossom textures and with your thinSSSS setting.

Cool, I'd suggest that too.

[koji_maruyama]

(From Koji)

The below is the rendered image with smaller blossom textures (as is the case with the original cherry blossom trees) and with thinSSSS.

The Sampling Level is about 15, and it took approx. 6hours for the above rendering. (I thought the rendering time should be long enough for getting the effect of SSS)

I can see some of blossom planes look bright, and I think it's because these planes are catching the sunlight directly from the sun.
(The location of the sun is easy to expect because we have the mirror ball.)

And because the camera is looking up the blossom from near the ground, most of the blossom planes show us the side which are not facing the sun.

And, well, my idea might be just a lay conception, but the reason why the brightly looking planes look very sharp and like needle may be because of the modeling itself of the blossom.
In the above model of trees, the blossom is composed of 2 planes as shown below (from a viewport in 3ds max):


And my idea of bright plane and non-bright plane is as below:


So, in order to make sure what's happening in thinSSSS, let me render the scene again but this time, by focusing a part of the scene as below:

I will post again.

[koji_maruyama]

I am sorry but suddenly the circuit breaker of my apartment room tripped during rendering.


See you, sooner or later.

[tom]

Sorry to hear about the problem in you apartment and I hope it's fixed soon. Your modeling strategy is very good and there's no problem with it, don't worry. The overillumination is due to the directional sunlight so, I have a workaround for you. Navigate to the Environment Settings panel and find Save to HDR button where you can export the current physical sky as HDR. So, save a copy of your physical sky as HDR image with this option and use the image to illuminate your scene instead of Physical Sky. It will help getting rid of those bright parts and also speed up your render.