Is the copper washed out because the room is too bright. I am going to do some work on the floor. Martin, thanks for your knowledge. Is the room too bright? Thanks
Martin, my intent was not to say that the glass should not have reflections in it (as needed), but that there are several different and possibly much-more-efficient ways to do it. Also, you might well use a combination of renderers to achieve the effect (to produce the source-materials for compositing …), which you can very-easily do in Blender. We all benefit tremendously from the fact that this one product now implements several substantially-different rendering options, all under one roof and perfectly integrated, along with a soup-to-nuts implementation of the total overall workflow.
Obviously, the most-obvious way to do the job is to try to set up Cycles to match the actual physical reality of the situation – which it can do, given enough time, patience, and re-renders. :rolleyes: But there are other alternatives, as I described merely for consideration.
I offered this suggestion specifically because the scene calls for objects-of-interest both “in front of” and simultaneously “beyond” the glass. First of all, unless the latter scene is actually a scrim, that’s now a very complicated rendering situation that is fraught with possibilities for time-consuming re-renders. Furthermore, the various components do not appear to strongly interact with one another. (I still don’t see much action in that glass!) Thus, if the decision is made to consider the scene as consisting of components that can be tackled separately – background, the glass, foreground room, furnishings – a realistic possibility is now opened for a work-flow that can have dramatic influence on the project time-line by transforming “the creation of the final image” into a multi-step procedure in which issues such as lighting and exposure can be handled per-render and final adjustments can be made post-render.
I’m not suggesting what the artist should do here, merely describing an alternative workflow approach that can be beneficial.
I think it is too bright and it is getting greenish tint from the HDRI. In reality highlights tend to be less saturated so when the HDRI is bright I think it needs to be desaturated as well. Right now it looks a bit radioactive to me. This is my opinion though. I would recommend working with reference photographs. I think it is really good way to know if it’s too bright and things like that if you find some interior photographs that you like and then you can compare different aspects of your renders to the photographs that you personally like.
sundialsvc4, I just find your posts misleading. You are using terminology incorrectly in various instances and provide false facts like for example you say that glass reduces hue and saturation, which is not only false in case of saturation but does not make sense in case of hue since hue cannot be reduced in principal, it can be only changed. Dirt on the glass may change the perception of saturation lowering the apparent transparency and introducing it’s own color, however it is not the glass itself and it is most definitely irrelevant in architectural or interior visualization context since visualizing windows dirty is never desirable here. Specular reflections are actually the same as mirror-like reflections in the context of physics and the context of old-fashioned raytraycers that these terms do make sense in is not the context of the situation here with Cycles. While this incorrect terminology and artistic expression is fine in general like for example I have no doubt that it is fine in your life as an artist, it is not something that seems acceptable to me in the context of computer software. It will most definitely only confuse someone who is new to this and stumbles upon this thread. I’'ll be honest with you without sugarcoating it - I have no wish to discuss details of this further and to participate in a debate about artistic expression(and I will not) and I understand you are trying to help, I will however make an effort to point out the inaccuracies and false information in your posts for the benefit of those who might be reading this.
I apologize if my use of the terminology is incorrect or unclear.
Dirt on the glass may change the perception of saturation lowering the apparent transparency and introducing it’s own color, however it is not the glass itself and it is most definitely irrelevant in architectural or interior visualization context since visualizing windows dirty is never desirable here.
No doubt. To me, “grunge” is highly over-rated. 
But also, frankly (IMHO), sometimes so are things like “reflections in glass.” For instance, in the OP scene the outside, being lit by the afternoon sun, is understood to be much brighter than the inside, and so one would not expect many interior reflections that would be noticed by the eye. But you would see an effect on what you see, caused by the fact that you’re looking out of a window. Those “effects” can be very-realistically emulated without “real-world simulating” calculations or modeling, and to equally believable effect.
Specular reflections are actually the same as mirror-like reflections in the context of physics and the context of old-fashioned raytraycers that these terms do make sense in is not the context of the situation here with Cycles. While this incorrect terminology and artistic expression is fine in general like for example I have no doubt that it is fine in your life as an artist, it is not something that seems acceptable to me in the context of computer software. It will most definitely only confuse someone who is new to this and stumbles upon this thread.
Indeed, the terminology as I use it is mostly that of BI, not Cycles. Therefore, a term that I meant to use “fairly loosely” could, indeed, have very-precise meanings (esp. Cycles-specific meanings) that I simply might not be aware of.
What I’m referring to is that you see in the glass – maybe – some light that is being reflected-back by the surface and that the presence of this light generally slightly-suppresses whatever is beyond the windowpane. If you simply need to convey that a piece of glass is there, this is the key effect that you need, whether-or-not there is something perceptibly-reflected. Sometimes what you need is simply a plausible result – “don’t draw my eye!” – and not an entirely accurate one. (Especially with animations.) You want it “good enough,” for your needs whatever they are, and you want it now.
I’'ll be honest with you without sugarcoating it - I have no wish to discuss details of this further and to participate in a debate about artistic expression(and I will not) and I understand you are trying to help, I will however make an effort to point out the inaccuracies and false information in your posts for the benefit of those who might be reading this.
I implicitly understood that this was your intention, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts.
The thing you need to understand is that we can’t stay stuck in the late 90’s/early 00’s when talking about techniques and practices for modern render engines in 2017. The old tricks of the past may not be desirable because it makes the render look false and because the power of PC’s today allow them to handle doing the effects for real. I have mentioned this in response to your posts before, but I don’t an indication that the message has yet been received.
As for grunge being overrated, grunge can become an issue if you overdo it in what is supposed to be a fairly new or clean environment. Some grunge might be appropriate for this scene, but unless the house has been abandoned for a few years, it needs to be subtle.
Now the lighting issue with the scene, it could be due to the user making use of albedo values that are way too high (most materials will not reflect more than 80 percent of light hitting it and very few materials reflect 90 percent or more). A flat HDRI with little variance in color values could also be contributing.
This is a north facing wall and let’s say it is later in the day. I like how the colors are not washed out of the scene. I will work on it more later. Thanks for all the input.
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I happen to be working on something that will have windows visible at the moment. The reflections seem to be playing quite a big part in my scene. It’s on black so that the background can be composited later: 
It’s a bit surprising there are completely no reflections visible in your scene. What did you end up using for the glass? How is the interior lit?
Regardless if being real refraction based or fake transparency based glass, looked straight on the glossy component (based on fresnel) would be very small. With no really bright parts in the scene, I’m not too surprised nothing shows up in the reflections.
I will maybe change some settings tonight. I had the transparency turned down in the third picture of mine on the 1st page., but the reflection was making it look like there was an extra mullion on the outside edge of the windows. That is why I turned it up to 1.000. I will see if I can adjust my lighting and get some shadows maybe tonight. Thanks
You’ve heard this one:
- Q: What’s the one thing you won’t find on a Harley-Davidson® motorcycle?
- A: A fingerprint.
I was once vacationing in Death Valley when they were shooting yet-another car commercial. It was amazing to watch the camera-trucks that are specially built for exactly that purpose. The car was taken to the top of the hill and polished. Then, they drove it past the cameras. At the bottom of the hill, it was polished, then loaded onto the truck and polished again, before being driven to the top and … polished. :spin:
“Dirt and grime,” to me, simply does not belong in a photo. It rarely looks to-scale, rarely looks at all realistic, and does not make the scene more believable. Even New York subway cars are cleaned every day. Likewise, office windows in every building you’ve ever been in.
I wouldn’t desparage BI, or other render-engines of this sort, implying that they are not still “modern.” They are. They simply use a different algorithm, and it is one that I find to be complementary to the one used in Cycles. As I’ve described, “when I think ‘Cycles,’ I think ‘soft box.’” And BI, “‘spot or directional lights.’” The combination can produce some very dramatic effects, for the same reason and in the same way that a real-world studio photographer might use both types of illumination to light a scene.
A soft-box is perfect for filling-in large areas with soft, even lighting. But, “soft, even lighting” can also be very boring. Furthermore, the Cycles algorithm often does not converge quickly – or, at all – on a single solution that does not exhibit error … “fireflies.” So, I think that we should be grateful that Blender now provides us with multiple rendering options that all use exactly the same geometry.
For instance, I make extensive use of the “shadow-only spotlight,” which produces shadows without adding light. If you want to “spruce up” your Cycles renders quickly and inexpensively, try setting-up a scene that uses the BI engine and that is equipped with these lights, to generate a shadow pass. This can be used, “in post,” both to darken an area and to inject a pale (say, blue) wash of color into it. A Cycles render is often too “shadowless” for my taste, and sometimes the most-important thing that a directional light actually adds to a scene is … shadow.
One valid approach to rendering is to tweak a physically-correct render setup to produce a, “by gawd, physically correct” result. But, another equally-valid (IMHO) strategy is to use off-screen (and post-processing) techniques to simulate those results. You’ll never walk into a photo-shoot of a “realistic” scene where what you see on-camera is actually the truth. You can agonize over trying to set up a “physically real” setup to match “a reference photograph,” when in fact that reference photograph was never as it seems, to begin with! Spend a month or two schlepping gear for a professional film-shooter, and watch what they actually do in their studios to get those “photo-realistic” (sic!) images. You’ll find that there is nothing “real” about them.
Why Blender Render then? Why not just render passes and layers for compositing with Cycles? To be honest I am a bit skeptical about this workflow. Why spend even more of my time working on setting up another renderer and on post processing when I can leave the computer to work for me and get more realistic result? Do you use such a Cycles/Blender Render workflow yourself? Would you care to share some results maybe?
Martin, I respectfully suggest that “this is a decision that only the project can make.” There are many tradeoffs, especially if one is dealing with animation.
All of the various rendering options now available in Blender take a different – very fundamentally different – approach to what is basically (at some level, at least …) “the same objective.” And so we have the luxury of choice … without leaving the Blender software environment.
Let me ponder what would be a really good tutorial… hmmm… What immediately comes to mind is something that would be clearly-grounded in classic studio photo technique, because that’s where you most-often encounter a combination of the two lighting-types in a single project. Time to put my thinking-cap on.
P.S.: While I further consider your very-good request, let me re-re-emphasize that this is an alternative technique, and one which represents a purposeful technical compromise. Also, and very importantly, there are two distinctly-separate possible objectives. (1) You might be seeking to enhance what a single rendering strategy could produce on its own. Or (2) You might be seeking to produce “good enuf” results, less expensively, and with more options for tweaking the final result “in post.” And in either case, you need to have your(!) goal-shot clearly in mind from the very start.
Before you start advertising a BI/Cycles composite workflow, there are a few things you need to take into account.
- Cycles is far more than a ‘softbox simulator’, seriously, one look at the forum gallery should dispel that idea.
- The shorter rendering time in BI is often more than offset by the time needed to set everything up, you have to take into account position of accent/bounce lights and materials that don’t hold up in all situations for starters.
- BI and Cycles materials might look odd being in the same scene, Cycles materials are modern and physical while BI materials are legacy and sometimes hacky (like the fake speculars). There’s no compatibility at all (it would look rather strange to see a phong shaded model in the background behind an object with a PBR shader).
- Cycles is getting faster all the time, many scenes can now be rendered in less than half the time thanks to denoising (and further speedups are in master now or will be coming). The setup times and endless test renders with BI are looking less appealing (and that will be a moot point because Eevee will bring realtime raster-based shading that eliminates the need for the old engine to exist).
Again, we need to tweak the terminology to be used here, due to the advances in render technology.
New render. Turned the sun down or up from 3 to 1. Pointed sun at angle thru window. There are more reflections on the floor now.
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I am using pro-lighting and am wondering if I should try a render with no lights inside the room, the hdri and a sun object pointing thru the window. MartinZ and anyone else, what do you suggest? I am going to do a render with cycles sky and the transparency at .900. I will see what that does. Thanks