Parking structure

[tbarnesarc]

Originally Posted by Rod

We have some very nice backgrounds that pBarrelas supplied here: 3D Allusions - Remository
I bet having some balance offered by a few clouds would help. The shadows look very hard to me. I don't use MR, so I can't offer any advice on lighting levels except to share your quandry.

Rod,

Thanks for the input. Yeah I haven't put any background in yet. I am more concerned with lighting, people etc. at this point. Once I am happy with all of that stuff then I shall in a background and do some post work.

[fco3d]

not bad at all, I don't know good are your post work skills but several details can be fixed later for sure,
what I should recommend, is try Shutter speed 50 or 30 so, F-Stop 16 and ISO 100, those are standard camera settings and works pretty good for me most of the time, now your side walk seems to be at the same level or the street??
if not what you can do is, render an AO pass to accent edges, also you can render people in other pass, for instance render your model with Mental Ray and render people with scaline, then you can control better your RPCs.
try first to render only your building, then work in your landscape and background, later you can put your people and cars as need it.
My 2 cents

[neil]

Hey Taylor, you can see this thread. There are few discussions about MR Photographic Exposure. May be it can help you.

MR and Render Settings

[tbarnesarc]

Originally Posted by fco3d

not bad at all, I don't know good are your post work skills but several details can be fixed later for sure,
what I should recommend, is try Shutter speed 50 or 30 so, F-Stop 16 and ISO 100, those are standard camera settings and works pretty good for me most of the time, now your side walk seems to be at the same level or the street??
if not what you can do is, render an AO pass to accent edges, also you can render people in other pass, for instance render your model with Mental Ray and render people with scaline, then you can control better your RPCs.
try first to render only your building, then work in your landscape and background, later you can put your people and cars as need it.
My 2 cents

Thank you Fco3d. That helped a lot with the images. I posted my setting along with the newest round of renderings.

Neil I read that post as well. It helped also. Thank you!

[tbarnesarc]

Here's the other scheme with the same settings,

[neil]

Hey Taylor, change the sample pixel min-4 and max-16 and filter type would be Box and use default width and height setting. If you use any sphere or cylinder as an environment map then you can go for a test without it because you already using mr Physical Sky as an environment map. Well, in Photographic Exposure you can go for 14 as an exposure value. Highlights, Midtone and Shadows you have to experiment a bit seeing the final output, it is up to you .

This is very important to choose right materials with physically correct shaders

[fco3d]

I like the second round fix much better, the colors in the first one look way to strong, now I know this are preview of your images, but I would recommend to pull up a little your FG values at least your FG rays, I think 200 can give you better results, and you wont need your Advance noise filtering that high, now your materials need some work, for brick I recommend you to look in ACME brick online, it is a very usefull free software, it give you a tilable patter with real birck textures, plus it is the actual thing you can order right aways from it.....(ok ACME I want my part for the sales )
in the first image I think your Burn values in the exposure are to high, 0.25 seems fairt to me, but everything depend of your sce of course

[tbarnesarc]

Originally Posted by neil

Hey Taylor, change the sample pixel min-4 and max-16 and filter type would be Box and use default width and height setting. If you use any sphere or cylinder as an environment map then you can go for a test without it because you already using mr Physical Sky as an environment map. Well, in Photographic Exposure you can go for 14 as an exposure value. Highlights, Midtone and Shadows you have to experiment a bit seeing the final output, it is up to you .

This is very important to choose right materials with physically correct shaders

Thanks a lot Neil! I really appreciate the help. The problem is the realistic rendering style is pretty new to me. I just don't render enough to really get into it and learn about it. I would much prefer to more artsy style renderings, but MR kind of forces you to dive into the realistic realm. None the less your C&C has helped me progress.

[tbarnesarc]

Originally Posted by fco3d

I like the second round fix much better, the colors in the first one look way to strong, now I know this are preview of your images, but I would recommend to pull up a little your FG values at least your FG rays, I think 200 can give you better results, and you wont need your Advance noise filtering that high, now your materials need some work, for brick I recommend you to look in ACME brick online, it is a very usefull free software, it give you a tilable patter with real birck textures, plus it is the actual thing you can order right aways from it.....(ok ACME I want my part for the sales )
in the first image I think your Burn values in the exposure are to high, 0.25 seems fairt to me, but everything depend of your sce of course

Fco3d thanks yet again for your insight. I will try those settings and re-post my results. I actually do have the ACME brick app. It's great for sure. The problem with my brick was the gamma utility shader was set too high making it too dark. I also fixed the red paint color on the steel. I was going for a primer red paint and by using the Promat paint shader was able to get the results I was looking for. Anyway I really appreciate all of everyones help with my lack of knowledge in this area.

[fco3d]

Originally Posted by tbarnesarc

I actually do have the ACME brick app. It's great for sure. The problem with my brick was the gamma utility shader was set too high making it too dark.

Gamma Utility shader??
I always just load the image with the default gamma, or image gamma.
I have set up my gamma here at the office at 2.2 but at home I use 1.8
other than that will mess to much with gamma controls here and there.