First ACA Rendering

[dzatto]

Okay, here's my first ACA rendering. I know there's issues, but it's not half bad for my first attempt. It looks a bit bright, but the time is set at 2:30 PM, so that may have something to do with it. Any comments and solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Settings used were:
Global Illumination - Off
Sun illumination set to 1
Energy multiplier set to 1
Final Gather - Auto
Exposure Type - Auto
Sky - Sky background and illumination

The rest I left as default.

Anything I missed?

[H'Angus]

Looking good You sorted your shadows out then

Looks a little bright in the foreground, but as I haven't done any Renders since way before even Viz dissapeared and wasn't that great at 'em anyway, I can't critisize too much.

What is it for though, to present to Clients or something?

[rdaynard]

Looks good! I thought you said you couldn't render worth a damn! I have two suggestions....Make the windows a little darker....and lower the horizon. Other than that, it came out really well. Did you use sweeps for the cornices?

[dzatto]

Looking good You sorted your shadows out then

Looks a little bright in the foreground, but as I haven't done any Renders since way before even Viz dissapeared and wasn't that great at 'em anyway, I can't critisize too much.

What is it for though, to present to Clients or something?

I think I need to use a darker concrete material. I need to experiment with the sun intensity also. Maybe .75 or something.

It's for a client so he can see what his building will look like. I was just printing a 3D PDF. Either that or doing a 3D DWF. Either way, it looked worse. The boss is happy with the one I posted. If it needs to be better for a city presentation, then we will outsource it.

[dzatto]

Looks good! I thought you said you couldn't render worth a damn! I have two suggestions....Make the windows a little darker....and lower the horizon. Other than that, it came out really well. Did you use sweeps for the cornices?

Thanks for the comments!
I agree with the windows, they look weird. It's supposed to be gray tint, but I need to work on that. I'll mess around with the horizon. Maybe I'll just throw a screening wall behind the building!

As for the cornices, no sweeps. Even better. They are custom structural members. That way, when the design changes, I can trim and miter them however I need to. Works great! It's super easy to create custom structural shapes. I even have them saved to a tool palette for different shapes. You need to try it.

Oh, thanks for your help. It made a huge difference.

[dzatto]

Here's an updated rendering. I took 2.40 hours to render, then I realized that the sky was super dark for some reason. It may have been that the date for the previous rendering was June 1, and I realized that the date for this one was September 1. Oh well, I'm not waiting another 3 hours for a lighter sky! I photoshopped it to be a lighter blue. It's not too terribly bad.

[dkoch]

Keeping in mind that I do no rendering whatsoever, I think that is a great result for a first rendering. You may, however, want to reconsider your choice of plant materials. The small trees flanking the parking appear to be some sort of flowering tree in full bloom, giving me the impression that it is springtime. The trees in the background appear to be well into fall, and just days from dropping their leaves.

[dzatto]

Keeping in mind that I do no rendering whatsoever, I think that is a great result for a first rendering. You may, however, want to reconsider your choice of plant materials. The small trees flanking the parking appear to be some sort of flowering tree in full bloom, giving me the impression that it is springtime. The trees in the background appear to be well into fall, and just days from dropping their leaves.

I noticed the exact same thing while it was rendering, but thought to myself "nobody will notice". I actually placed the wrong trees, they were supposed to be regular, not fall trees. Leave it to David to see that.

[dzatto]

Okay, I just couldn't live with myself and my poor use of trees. Here's the new and improved rendering with:

1. Corrected trees
2. Corrected sky
3. Updated sign
4. I even added a person for the heck of it.

Total render time on my laptop: 3 hours 24 minutes.

Enjoy.

[H'Angus]

What about the number plates on the cars?

Looks much better Dan