Rendering Critique

[George Godwin]

An exterior 3D render using PovRay. This render took 1 hour and 30 minutes. For more PovRay render images you can go to http://hof.povray.org/

[Night8917]

Hi George and all others.

I do agree with you that PovRay is a great Ray Trace engine; you can get a very good result from it.

I think the question is; is it a professional tool??

I think the answer is NO, I would think that hobbyists made 99% of the pictures in the Pov-Ray hall of fame and they have the time to make changes after changes to a Ray trace until the picture is perfect, a professional doesn’t have the time to do this.

If you can make 25 – 30, Ray traces with Artlantis during the same time as PovRay makes one, where do you have time to make adjustments to a picture? In Artlantis of course, and even if you make the picture 10 times bigger to get a better resolution it’s faster.

There are so many Rendering/Ray Trace engines out there today and 95% are MUCH faster than PovRay, the only advantage I see to PovRay is that it’s free.

I could show you Renderings/Ray Traces made in many other software’s that are picture quality, but like the Hall of fame 95% are made by the gurus for that software.

I’m sorry to say but in the world of today time is money.

[ank345]

Well, George, this image was rendered with chief that takes 25Hrs ++ , rendered at 960x574 ( can't really reamember ). and my artlantis image is 1024 X 768
i remember a digital photographer's advise, try to snap your photos under expose ( slightly darker then normal ) then it will preserve the quality of the photo to be adjusted in PS. You are the expert in ps....

[George Godwin]

Anders, - I agree that PovRay or any other renderer has to produce good results in reasonably good time. I find that Chief produces quite good renders with low quality settings but I too would like to see a faster, high quality render with versatile and reliably, predictable controls. By and large with a program like Photoshop, a decent render from Chief can be adjusted to look excellent. My point in this thread has been that most renders need adjustments unless one is a true expert at setting up the lighting and other adjustments in the rendering software such as the people using PovRay are able to do. For me Photoshop is quicker and much more versatile to finish an image so long as the render result is of good quality as a starting point.

Alan, - Photoshop can make up for a weak render in most cases and a darker render generally means that detail is not washed out (never to be recovered) due to overexposure from bright lights. Underexposed (darker) areas are generally easier to salvage and adjust to bring back the detail.

Nevertheless, I found that your render in Artlantis was very hard to work with in Photoshop due to the fact that the detail was not available in the darker, underexposed areas which it normally is in Chief renders. The dark, hardwood floor was a case in point. I could not bring it out in the Artlantis render whereas I could bring the floor back easily from any of the Chief renders. The Chief render that you did was much better to work with and Adam's larger image with more pixels (2700 x 1800) was the easiest to work with. The quality and detail was there and the highest quality of output with an endless range of possibilities was achieveable from this large render.

In summary, I would be able to achieve any quality, tone or subtle effect on any part of Adam's 42.6 mb render image due to its basic quality and image data and it would have been worth the time. A lot of 3D artists run one computer strictly for rendering and they would not do it if it was not worth the time and effort.

[ank345]

could it be the 'effects' that i have applied to the textures ( reflective, shiningness,spactacular and so on... ) that affect the adjsutment in PS.
I will try one with the actual settings ...what file do you prefer? BMP, png or jpg ?

[George Godwin]

Alan, - It doesn't matter what image file type. But I agree, it could be the 'effects' applied in setting up the render or the lighting set-up, etc.

[retire45]

Learning a lot following this thread.. My 2c? If a render is to take more than 2 hours, I probably won't do it unless it is specifically being paid for. I export to Cinema 4D which is not cheap but it is extremely quick and is therefore "cheap"..

[alobartn]

I just realized this thread has been going all weekend.

Alan added one light exactly at the same spot near the 'camera' tool and set it at a height of 90" which helped to brighten up the ceiling, and added sun light shining into the windows to make the room brighten naturaly. Nice touch! And thanks for the help. He spent 25 hours raytracing too!

[alobartn]

I export to Cinema 4D which is not cheap but it is extremely quick and is therefore "cheap"..

Rashid,

Do you have to reassign materials in Cinema 4D? Typically, how long, once you've exported from Chief (in what format I've no idea) until you're ready to render? Is the level of detail far greater than Artlantis?

[retire45]

No need to reassign materials using VRML export.. However the materials naming scheme is purely sequential numbers so if you have created materials in C4D a bit inconvenient to do.. I do only exteriors at this point so lighting not as much as an issue with interiors... Starting blank I'd say 45 minutes to mainly setup lighting.. The learning curve much easier to me than other dedicated renderers but I hear Artlantis is known for ease of use. If Artlantis R was around when I bought Cinema, I may have tried it.

[alobartn]

Thanks Rashid. Hey, I'm going to be in Norcross in August. I bet it's hot!

[retire45]

Yep.. Here's the forecast... 88 to 98 everyday, high chance of vicious short thundershowers daily... aaaahh..

[cgirerd]

After seeing all this work on this picture, I thought I'd make a stab at it too, just for fun. It's interesting to see the differences we come up with. In the plan, I just used two lights and only one with shadows. (So I turned off about 6 or so lights to save time, and I also got rid of the bump maps on several textures and changed some other textures) I raytraced screen size (about 1560x1000) with Med. Rad and High AA and it took about 4 hours on my computer. Then I did some touchup in PSE4. If I had more time, I would definitely rework the refer, among other things. I tried using an image, but the handles didn't show enough and I didn't have time to darken them up or add shadows in PSE to fix it. Anyway, a little break from the other work...

Christina

[George Godwin]

Christina, - That is a high quality render done in a good size and in good time. Congratulations.

[Night8917]

Or get the Refrigerator from a good symbols maker



Very nice Christina, soon this scene is going to be perfect
so many people has been involved and given advice.


Take care