Advice on Render?

Hi All,

Please find attached a 'rendered' model, I created for a client.

I find it fairly fake looking.

Is there a scientific way of creating rendered images, or is it just a matter of 'playing' with settings, untill it looks right?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Check out this post I made (I'm pretty sure the same settings apply for AutoCAD 2007): http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=35688

Also, create a CAMERA for your view. The reason is so you can set the camera to a Perspective view. The view you have right now is called an Orthographic view, which does not represent for depth perception, making it look more "fake".

Before you get into the advanced rendering, learn to place lights around the object. If not then create a really good natural lighting by simply typing SUNPROPERTIES and turn the sun on. There's a setting in this Palette called Sky Properties, turn this on as well as it will add to the "realism".

Hope this helps.

That's not bad but like you said it doesn't give that real, picture quality feeling for you or your client.

Rendering is an art unto itself. You can spend more time getting the render the way you want it than you'd spend getting the model ready. And there are a ga-zillion different ways to set lights, sunshine, shadows, backgrounds, camera views, etc....you'll have your work cut out for you to learn all this. But to speed things up for you I'd offer this advice.

Set your perspective variable to 1 so it's ON. Then turn on the sun and sky with the SUNPROPERTIES command, or select it from your ribbon or menu. The using 3DFORBIT set the view to something you like and do an rr command. Then sit back and wait for the rendering to complete.

This is not the only way to do this nor is it necessarily the best method. But without taking the time to learn all you will need to get real profecient with rendering, it will get you started quickly.

I dont know if this will help you at all, but here is a thread that took place about 1.5 months ago. This is how I advance myself in rendering. i hope it helps you as well.

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=39175

Thanks for all your advice.

I will put it into practice today, and hopefully get a better result.

I just realised I should have thought a bit longer about the price I gave the client. :-(

Was the price high?

Should have increased the price.

Took me about 2 hrs to model this structure. The rendering takes a good bit longer.

But at least I'm learning as I go along. Currently I'm strugling to get even the grass lawn correct. It shows clearly with a tiled texture. I tried to make the texture seamless in GIMP, tried playing around with scaling, but it still is clearly tiled, opposed to seamless.

Please find attached this 'work in progress'.

Slightly better, thanks to the advice regarding perspective view, still far from ideal.

The colours are there, texture, not really :-(

Alltough my camera view looks fine, ones I render the image,(render settings as per adviced) it looks like a primary school colour book, textures seem to be dissapeared.

Tarmac looks good, doesn't it?

I see some "steps" in the curve of the front door trim. You can correct this by doing two things: set the FACETRES variable to 5 or higher (10 is max but you don't need to go that high) and type 3DCONFIG, click "Manual Tune" and uncheck "Dynamic Tessellation". Do this last setting only for rendering, as this can greatly decrease performance, unless you're in 2D wireframe mode.

*EDIT* BTW, the render is looking MUCH better. Try adjusting the intensity factor of the Sky Properties palette. This can really help the lighting. Also, make sure you turn the DEFAULTLIGHTING variable to 0 (aka off) to let the sun light do it's thing with no interruptions.

I see some "steps" in the curve of the front door trim. You can correct this by doing two things: set the FACETRES variable to 5 or higher (10 is max but you don't need to go that high) and type 3DCONFIG, click "Manual Tune" and uncheck "Dynamic Tessellation". Do this last setting only for rendering, as this can greatly decrease performance, unless you're in 2D wireframe mode.

 

*EDIT* BTW, the render is looking MUCH better. Try adjusting the intensity factor of the Sky Properties palette. This can really help the lighting. Also, make sure you turn the DEFAULTLIGHTING variable to 0 (aka off) to let the sun light do it's thing with no interruptions.

I am glad to see you are making progress. StykFacE is like a master at this rendering stuff. LOL

I am glad to see you are making progress. StykFacE is like a master at this rendering stuff. LOL

No not at all. That's just the very few things I know. One of the best I've seen on here is a guy by the name of mrgrotey. His renders are all pre-AutoCAD 2007 so it was the older rendering engine which is nowhere near as good as it is now. Plus, pre-AutoCAD 2007 it was MUCH harder to create 3D models and create good lighting. Here's a link....

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8121

Seems like a good fake or photo thread! LOL

Seems like a good fake or photo thread! LOL

Yeah, he is really good. Granted, I appreciate your compliments but trust me, I'm no pro. I just know barely enough to make a decent output from the piddling I've done. What helped me a lot is a 400+ page pdf book I downloaded and read about Mental Ray (the rendering engine for AutoCAD). It gave me ideas about concepts and "how to's" but wasn't necessarily about AutoCAD. I just kinda used the same techniques in AutoCAD and found great results. That's basically how I learned how to use the rendering engine better.

Still seem to have trouble with the lawn.

Any constructive comments are much appreciated. First image has been rendered as presentation.

Second image as low quality. Grass seems to be coming out better on the second render.

Thanks

Still seem to have trouble with the lawn.

Any constructive comments are much appreciated. First image has been rendered as presentation.

Second image as low quality. Grass seems to be coming out better on the second render.

Thanks

Your renders are getting better. The second image has way to much bump, the first has a more realisticish look to the materials. One thing you can do is make sure your lighting units is set to 1 or 2, bring your sun down to a more morning height, and give a little bit more shade in the front of the house by rotating your north direction under the geographic settings. I would use sky with background illumination for the renders, I find that adding an image really makes things look cartoonish.

Noahma,

You would use a sky with background illumination for renders. Are you talking about an image?

This is hopefully more or less the finished product. I think I implemented all offered suggestions.

I also discovered that GIMP is very useful to add some finishing touches.For example: I finaly was able to improve the lawn.

Any comments are appreciated.

Noahma,

You would use a sky with background illumination for renders. Are you talking about an image?

its been a while since I have used 2007. I believe it has the newer version of the mental ray render engine. Under your render settings in the pull down menus should be something to set the sun location, and turn on the sky and illumination background. Unfortunately there are no clouds within this system. They can however be added later on through Photoshop or similar. I tend to like the renders produced with that, it makes it appear more realistic.

This is hopefully more or less the finished product. I think I implemented all offered suggestions.

I also discovered that GIMP is very useful to add some finishing touches.For example: I finaly was able to improve the lawn.

Any comments are appreciated.

That looks like SOOO good! Congrats on the progress made!!

Cheers Cadmaster,

There's still room for improvemend. Client seems to be happy with the result.

Now he wants (probably the wife) a couple of interior images.

Wonder what I be doing this weekend. :-(