House 2

[Roken]

I decided to re-imagine and old scene. Historically, this was originally done in C4D. Once I made the switch (C4D is too expensive for a hobby), I originally did a straight out export, re-texture and light, and render - https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?385785-House&p=2976859&viewfull=1#post2976859) I’ve decided to rebuild in Blender from the start. That’s not to say that I won’t re-use some models (the light fittings for example, I like, but I’ll tweak and butcher every imported model). Up to now, I’ve rebuilt the house using Archimesh. The girl is a Mastiono girl, unmodified, and exists only for scale. She won’t be in the final model.

At the moment, very early days, I’m working on scale and light. Then I’ll start to populate.

I know this is very noisy (1000 samples), and I may raise the roof a little, literally. I’ve adjusted gamma in post. I could clean it up with indirect clamping, but that kills glass (unless anyone knows a technique?). This is still a very early test render. I could up the samples to perhaps 5000 for a cleaner render. Render time was only ten minutes, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world. However, once I start populating, that could go through the roof.

Caustics are turned off, but will be needed in the end result, so suggestions to optimise will be appreciated.

[Roken]

OK, went to the pub, had beer, came home and had ideas about how to optimise this. Beer is a wonderful inspirational tool.

Anyhoo, the girl is gone, not needed anymore. Materials and render settings are untouched. This is purely lighting changes. Once I get the lighting how I want, then I’ll populate.

I didn’t mention in the last post, the first render had gamma adjustments. This is straight out of render, less noisy and equally as bright. 15 minute render time rather than the shorter render, but will need fewer samples when it’s done than the original.

EDIT: Oh, and now I’m able to turn off the overhead lights.

[deckchair]

Is camera on x=90°?
Brighten up outside (windows at the back show darkness)
Play with caustics or filter glossy for fireflies…

[AdamTM]

Quickly:

1. Its a very low ceiling. If the woman is about human size she will hit her head on the ceiling lamp.
2. Are you using light portals for the windows? This will help optimization.

[Roken]

I really have to be careful with clamping (i.e. it’s not an option) but filtering glossy will be. The ceiling is right out of ArchViz and the reference character straight out of Manuel Bastioni, but I agree that the ceiling needs raising.

The outside (HDRI image) just happens to be dark at that angle, but I can’t change the angle because I have it matched to the sun, and the sun is at the angle I want.

However, I’m working on some lighting tricks to keep it visually similar, but will allow me to brighten and darken at a whim. The “Tricks” also help clean the render up at the same samples. I’ll post an update tomorrow to give a clue (and if it works, I’ll post a clay render so that you can see the tricks)

[Roken]

OK, since I had already started to make the changes, I just hit F12.

This is half the number of samples, with both refractive and reflective caustics turned on, render time 7 mins.

The fireflies are gone (though I accept it’s very grainy)

Here’s what I did (not finished yet, but the clay render shows the lumps in front of all exterior glass stuff, each currently has three emission textures, with exponentially decreasing brightness and subtle changes of hue leading from into the room to towards the wall), which maintains the light feel, gives internal lights, to reduce the fireflies, and since it’s texture lighting, I can simply change the intensity. I still have ideas to improve that. Sunlight and HDR light still comes through.

I know, there are still fireflies on the light shades, but hey, that’s caustics at low samples, what do you want?

Clay:

[Roken]

OK, just a quick update. All textures are now PBR materials, I think I have the lighting how I like it. Not sure what’s happening with the table legs, but I can fix. This is at 1107 samples (I set an insane number, turned on progressive, and went to the pub - stopped it when I got home),

Started to populate with what is likely to be the most render intensive assets.

[Roken]

Started to populate. I tried various lighting models, and have eventually settled on emission planes at the windows and the HDRI + Sun. The emission planes have various light path filters applied (no camera, no shadows, no reflections etc.)

The 3 piece is still a WIP. I tried a couple of downloaded models, but they were either ugly, or massively high polygon, so building my own. Took the time to quadrify after starting from a plane (Did I just invent the word “quadrify”?). The leather looks a bot PU to me, too, and I have to figure what’s causing the seam down the back of the chair, but hey ho.

500 samples ATM, on GPU cycles. Max memory was 250Mb, so I have loads of headroom at the moment (4Gb card). I reckon the final render will come in at between 2000 - 3000 samples.

[Roken]

Populating of the first room is coming on. Just a couple more assets needed and it will be done, so figured it was time for a high quality render to check how the lights and materials are coming together.

EDIT: The books have been modified since. See below. They were far too crowded.

[Roken]

OK, I’m starting to worry about this. I figured my first go (in C4D) was generally to scale, and so populated it accordingly. This rebuild IS to scale (and granted, it’s a fake scale since the house doesn’t exist, but the measurements are generally more real world). I’ve found that the original was unfeasibly short in depth, meaning that furnishing was a piece of cake because there was less to furnish.

Since I’ve also decided to remodel the assets, I need to think of new assets to furnish with, so suggestions would be welcome.

I’m thinking a radiator or two to occupy walls, and possibly a sideboard or drinks cabinet at the far end, but at this stage I’m open to suggestions.

BTW, I’m enjoying this enormously. I’ve learned how to create a random multi-shader (the books), and how to randomise the same model in scale (also the books - they were still a PITA tho). If anyone is interested, I modelled one book, UV unwrapped it, and applied a static material for the pages. I exported the UV for the cover, and then went through each of the 16 in Gimp scaling and adjusting to fit to the UV, before bringing back to a multi-shader. Then I duplicated the book using an array modifier, separated each out to it’s own mesh, and used the random transform to scale them all differently. Finally, placed manually.

I only add this because I saw a recent question here, can’t find it, and wanted to show it can be done without plugins. The longest work was matching the images to the UV. This is 16 images, more would be better, but for the purposes of this scene it’s enough. Binary powers more would be better for close up (32, 64 etc)

EDIT: For the record, this is NOT 16 models. It’s one, duplicated and randomly scaled against two axis. Since they all share the same UV, and since all the textures are mapped to that UV, the random scale will always match the random texture. I could add a hundred more, and none would be the same size and texture (unless they happened to be randomly).

Sorry about the lights, it’s lights only from the scene with everything else removed. I don’t take credit for the multi-shader. Found a couple of examples online and adapted, not to mention ensuring that UVs and images matched.

Next render will have some changed textures (floor, bookcase, table, bottle & glass, whisky) since I wasn’t too happy with any of them. May be a couple of days for a high res (it’s around 4 - 5 hours overnight, now).

[Roken]

And a final update here. Although I plan on continuing with the rest of the house, the next render of the living room is likely to be the final render: