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By CDRDA
#401408
The image is certainly better quality than when I first started with Maxwell Render! I think this is a great start.

Several things I noticed that are quite contrasting.
  • The counter top material and model is fantastically detailed and really drew my eye to it, especially where you have the filleted edges. In contrast, the washing machine door is faceted and probably needs some smoothing applied to it. It seems like the toilet is also faceted.
  • Not sure about the towels especially at the edges, they look too square... I think the material would benefit from having a smaller tiling as well?
  • The vase material is spot on! Very nice looking- However, the reflection doesn't seem to match... Is this the denoiser removing detail?. Are the leaves reflecting a bit too much light?
  • The lighting on the tiles looks really good, nice roughness. Overall though I feel the image could do with a bit of brightening up. I think in a small room with a high level window, the spot lights should be having more of an impact in the scene.
  • The cyan towels look a bit over exposed in the mirror reflection, which I think is quite distracting. Maybe some grey towels would be a bit more subtle? Perhaps the towel material could also do with some roughness adjustments, using r2 values.
Using multilight you can get a really good balance between the daylight and artificial internal lighting, but it obviously depends on what the image is for. Most of my stuff is for marketing, so has to look light, warm and liveable! Maybe you could get away with some white balance, levels, or curves adjustments in post.

Hope the above helps, as it is always easier to assess someone else's work rather than your own!
#401409
Thanks folks.

Towels, looking into that with a new render cooking.

Plants, ditto.

I 'got' this render purely with guesswork. For example, the ISO is set to '3' or I cannot even SEE a render.

basically I hate video tutorials as I cannot 'see and do' and that is my preffered method. Trying to find a decent but inexpensive laptop/tablet to read pdf etc, In my humble opinion, the so called knowledge bas is less use than a chocolate oven and while some can get video tuts, how many others fall by the wayside? Shirley there is a better way.
User avatar
By CDRDA
#401410
Mike Amos 20220707115154 wrote:Thanks folks.

I 'got' this render purely with guesswork. For example, the ISO is set to '3' or I cannot even SEE a render.
Yeah, you should really be trying to use real world values where possible. ISO for interiors start between 400-800. That will brighten your scene up considerably. The shutter speeds to 65 and f-stop at 2.8 can be changed as necessary depending on if you want depth of field, or not. However, using the locked EV value, around 6-10 for interiors, will lock the ISO and shutter speeds, and adjust even if you change the f-stop. You can only change EV in one stop increments, so for finer control you have to unlock that and specify shutter and ISO separately.

How are you lighting your scene? Using an hdri, or the Maxwell sun/sky? For scenes such as this I would probably add a Maxwell rectangular area light where the window opening is. In SketchUp this creates a material automatically to control the light and I would typically use 3000-5000w to emulate sunlight coming in from outside. Others before me on the forums have suggested placing the light just inside the glass to avoid extra noise that it (use AGS material for internal shots) would create. You can then set your hdri intensity to something near 1-5 if you want to expose the outside through the window.

FIRE is pretty good when adjusting lights usually, although once you have got the lighting roughly setup, doing a quick test render with multilight is the best way to finalise settings.

The internal lights may also need adjusting if you have changed the main camera and environment lighting settings. Also try using real world values for these.

One last tip, make sure none of your materials are pure white, such as for the sink and toilet as this will really affect noise and render times. Max I go to is 230 in the refl.0 channel in the material. If you are using a texture map you can clamp values.
#401417
Thanks folks, just trying to improve somewhat.

I have adjusted a few items, the whole thing was intended to get to render properly, I did bugger all to create good geometry. I kno,w stupid idea.

I reckon my Maxwell render count is now about 8 with these being the only one's I reckon worth looking at.

The setting I meant was the ishutter and not iso. Doing this as a means of dealing with being unwell so I find it hard to see small print etc on the Maxwell render app. I am however not in the Ukraine or Russia so all in all pretty well sorted.
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By Mark Bell
#401418
Hi Mike,

This looks really good. And now, I see, it's a toilet not a bathtub :-) I like the mosaics and the scene composition. Are you also designing this space or just doing the modelling and rendering?

The only two items that jump out as not 'fitting in' are the finish to the washing machine and the vanity top. Unless these are specific finishes to your market perhaps look at something with a smooth, gloss surface?

Oh, and maybe shampoo/conditioner bottles in the shower and ...toothbrush etc.?
#401419
Thanks mate, the relief on the washing machine is somewhat of a 'face palm' moment. I think I must have just altered the wrong tecture somehow. Annoying but recoverable.

The shampoo etc are on a shelf to the extreme left of the render and not visible. A problem with a small space and FOV which would be unusable if it was any wider.

As for the vanity top, it's planks so there is going to be some relief there, balancing this is fun but for me it works OK.

I started modeling and rendering for something to do. cars initially (Which I still do sometimes) but then as I looked at the renders of others, architecture started creeping in. Essentially this is more distraction therapy, with chronic pain and Gulf War Synrome you have to be extremely judicious with pain meds as with any barbiturate, tolerance builds up. I have found that this rendering lark in many ways allows lower chemical use while distracting from the discomfort.

It has not been a simple process and I have found the management less than inspiring, they seem to be more about excuses and denial rather than empowering and promoting which I find completely baffling. I understand nothing is perfect but when it comes to profit, they would make more, if they TAUGHT more. A bunch of so called video tutorials where a cursopr darts about the screen, highlighting text boxes which cannot be properly seen is about tutoring as much as showing someone a brush and a bathroom and saying "Get on with it". I have taught in the army and the NHS and frankly the method of teaching is as important as the contect and content. Neither of which actually TEACHES anyone anything.

Not meant as a rant in any way, I see the role of the customer as encouraging the company to step up and improve, it would not take that much. I am an old git, I thought (As a Trekkie) I would love all the gadgets etc but it did not pan out like that. I held a kindle yonks ago and my first thought was, YUK........ I know, old dinosaur.
#401420
I feel like I am at last getting some decent results, which helps. I still believe more can and should be done to improve results for customers.
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By Mark Bell
#401421
Sounds like you've got it all in hand. The render looks good for a tight space. I guessed timber or some type of off-form concrete for the vanity, maybe just keep tweaking the modelling or Maxwell settings to get a more natural look? I agree, rendering does seem to offer a type of stress relief from other more mundane tasks - once you start to see good results, that is!

With the apparent lack of teaching / training info on line, if you search Vimeo and YouTube going back to around v2 and v3 when Maxwell was at the top in terms of popularity, there actually is a large amount of videos out there. Rendering isn't our core business, but it's used to support planning submissions etc. so we haven't had a need to produce high end images. It's only recently with other offices adopting some of the newer archvis tailored software that it's time to improve to stay in front. I've just checked our Maxwell folder for videos and it''s over 25 GB. This includes tutorials, demo reels, film and TV extracts and a heap of test animations by end users. It's mainly there for inspiration on what Maxwell is capable of with bits and pieces of 'how to' picked up along the way. It would be useful if the Maxwell Help / Altassian reference website was able to output a PDF of all selected links for a topic rather than just keep expanding the topic with more links. Having something to download and go through off line would certainly help IMHO.....my 2 cents worth!
#401428
PDF is a fine media as is the knowledge base method. Problem is that the knowledge base gives an idea of what any particular part of the process works, where you find the method to adjust is pointed at in a link, then another link and another on and on before you get to the starting point none the wiser. Denoise for example, where is the knowledge that there are four little icons in the render window? The fourth 'layer' (Which is not pointed out) selects this. However, denoise must be selected before starting the render.
Altering reflectance, apart from telling us what reflectance is and the pre sets, how? MXM is available but not always present, why?
Adrenaline, a neuro-chemical transmitter, used predominantly in pain transmission along sheathed nerve bundles. Stress, which can be bumped by frustration etc. Stress. I know, you did not make me start CAD or rendering as methods to control pain and you sure as hell did not MAKE me acquire Maxwell, what I saw some others achieve did that. The fact is that the system failed me and made it much harder top get anywhere, there are records of my requests going back years. The use of adrenaline in local anaesthesia is due to two actions on the local anaesthetic agent itself. The onset of action is accelerated and the duration is extended, just by the act of bonding on a molecular level with the adrenaline. When this effect os on a nerve screaming from chronic pain, the level of pain goes up to an exqusite level, pain and rest are impossible and sleep deprivation over years/decades blows the mind. When I asked for specific types of assistance I was told, "I'll tel the mananger". When I point out the flaws of the knowledge base I get told that "Yes we know, we will try to do better in the future".
Nothing is perfect and this I know only too well. I do NOT want to be rude or aggresive, I just want to achieve not perfection, but photo real results most of the time.
No, not really close yet but more progress than in years by chance than help. Video tutorials where a cursor flicks across a screen of indeterminate boxes of gobbledegook is not a tut.
You no doubt believe I am being unreasonable, not so.
Try looking at the so called tuts for twin motion. Some are great but frankly most are of the "Get me on utube 'cos I is 2 stoopid to do anyfing else" variiety.
You can get ahead of the crowd or sit back but if you let slip a lot of people, myself included, have invested for nothing and I have way over invested already. So, are you going to come back swinging and going for gold or, are you going to sit on your other laurels?
I hope you have read this soto voce, which is how I wrote it. As I told my students, read this calmly when you read your notes, take time to digest and then conclude. Or do not bother at all.

Stay well you and yours.
Mike
User avatar
By CDRDA
#401431
Hi Mike,

Seems like things are coming on nicely with your renders. I have also struggled with finding tutorials and information regarding specific ways of doing things in Maxwell over the years. Personally I don't mind youtube videos if they are informative and get to the point! I have a 2 monitor setup, so it is slightly easier to follow along.

When I first started rendering with Mental Ray way back in 2005, I spent a looong time searching for the magic render button/setting that obviously didn't exist! It took me a while to realise that even though my lighting setup was OK, the textures I used were just not good enough. Once I started using 4k textures for the major elements in my scene, as well as decent roughness and normal maps (instead of bump maps), my renders started to improve greatly. 8K textures are still a bit overkill for most things, although I am starting to use these more and more, especially for larger areas, such as floors etc.

I then realised that whilst my textures looked really good, the models I used really lacked detail and detracted from the realism I was trying to achieve. I invested in detailed 3D models such as from Evermotion, Bentanji (have a lot of Maxwell ready models), CGMood (3 free models/day to download), CGTrader etc. Of course a lot of these sites are paid models only, and if you are doing this as a personal thing, then perhaps it is not economical, although there are other sites offering free resources.

You have made a lot of improvements in your last image, especially with the towels and wooden bench. The tiled floor looks to have a nice, subtle amount of roughness to it that is indicative of a non-slip floor. I think the wooden walls could do with a bit more grain strength in the normal/bump map- Nothing much, just something to slightly catch the light. At the moment it looks a bit flat and smooth. Given that is such a large part of your scene, tweaking that material alone will enhance the image.

I found this interesting article on the Poliigon website blog that might be of interest to you regarding interior lighting tips. https://www.blog.poliigon.com/blog/7-mi ... ng-archviz Don't be afraid to experiment with additional lights behind the camera, even though they may not be anything there in the scene.... Architectural photographers spend a long time setting up interior photos with extra lights and can be a great way to highlight individual objects if doing a close-up shot for example.

Marc

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