Exterior render settings

[derek]

Could anyone give me some example settings for a high quality complex exterior render?

 

Think north sea, dark and moody environment but still some sharp lines to the image with some moody shadows in there aswell.

 

I know how i want it to look, im just too new to rendering to understand how to manipulate the settings.

 

So could someone point me in the right direction for lighting, fog and rpref settings.

 

I would experiment more myself if my presentation quality renderings didnt take well over an hour to do!! the machine hasn't got the power to do it quickly either.

[Red333]

Have you tried adjusting your sun and sky settings? If not, pull up your sky properties and lower the sun and sky intensities and see if that helps.

[Bill Tillman]

I hear you bro. I didn't spend a fortune on this machine but it's got some power under the hood by most standards. Still it take a long time for complex renders using the sun and sky background.

 

The other pain in the neck is that to speed things up I've tried to lower the mode to medium, low and even draft to try some what-if scenarios. But this method will make some of the surfaces totally dark with no light on them at all even though it lights up when using a higher resolution. But like you said, I can't wait 90 minutes sometimes to see what I've got so it's start the render, go to sleep and in the morning check to see what I've got.

 

Making a scene like you want with darker shades may be the time for you to use a background in lieu of the sun+sky settings. When I render with a background the time goes from 1 hr 45 min to around 15 minutes, but the desired effects are sometimes not achieved. One day, if I ever get a job again, I will try to invest in one of the higher end quad core machines with at least 8GB RAM. But for now it's this way or the highway.

 

Good luck on this.