Warehouse conversion

[daniel.reutersward]

I very much like the staging in this scene. Especially that corner with the computer desk - it's actually interesting to take a look around the scene itself to see what lives where, if that makes sense.
Everything looks naturally placed but at the same time gives the impression that somebody has taken the care to arrange it all to achieve a good composition.

I prefer the post-processing in the original images.

Really nice, already seen it on FB.
I'm curious about the setting to have clean result like this and your render time.

Whoop whoop well done!
Great atmosphere

Beautiful images.

In my opinion, photography its direct related to our memories, so emulate a very popular film stock works great in order to give realism to a 3D Render and you did it very  good. Not like some over-Post-produced ones.

Thanks for the kind words guys!

I used default settings as far as I remember and the render times were about 3-5 hours per image at 3600x2400 resolution.

[MGDesignUK]

Great images as always - which HDRI did you use?

[daniel.reutersward]

Great images as always - which HDRI did you use?

Thank you! I don´t remember the exact one but I used an overcast HDRI from cg-source.

[michaltimko]

Actually I would love to say some critic over these ones - I can observe you shifted black value up, a lot (like 27RGB values) - which makes these images washed out a bit as there are no values touching pure black as would be natural in such scene.
I tried "fixing" this in histogram and found absolute bangers in these images! This is just my personal opinion/critic - maybe it was your intention.
Jakub

Awesome images! Really like contrast and tonality.

And i tend to agree with Jakub. Blacks are little bit washed out (to my eye). 

[agentdark45]

Nice set of images! Would you mind giving a quick run down of your post processing workflow for the image you showed? It looks extremely dark - I'm quite amazed how much you managed to brighten it up.

Any advantages of rendering darker and then brightening up in post as opposed to rendering something that's closer to the desired final look?

[daniel.reutersward]

Awesome images! Really like contrast and tonality.

And i tend to agree with Jakub. Blacks are little bit washed out (to my eye). 

Nice set of images! Would you mind giving a quick run down of your post processing workflow for the image you showed? It looks extremely dark - I'm quite amazed how much you managed to brighten it up.

Any advantages of rendering darker and then brightening up in post as opposed to rendering something that's closer to the desired final look?

Thanks guys! I like to render out images without any overexposed areas and then bring back as much exposure as possible. I tend to change and experiment with post-production but here´s a short breakdown of the post-production for these images:

01 Raw render, rendered out as a 32-bit exr-file.

02 ArionFx settings.

03 Result after ArionFx.

04 Camera Raw settings.

05 Result after Camera Raw.

06 Final adjustments and final image.

[fLuppster]

Wow, i always tried to get as much brightness as possible in the raw rendering.
But this way looks way more accurate. Thank you for sharing, i will try it this way next time. ;)

[Ondra]

since several sampling parameters in corona are derived automatically from image brightness, you should always render with image exposure close to final result

[daniel.reutersward]

Wow, i always tried to get as much brightness as possible in the raw rendering.
But this way looks way more accurate. Thank you for sharing, i will try it this way next time. ;)

No problem :)

since several sampling parameters in corona are derived automatically from image brightness, you should always render with image exposure close to final result

Thanks, that´s good to know! Will rendertimes go up a lot when rendering images darker? Will try to render with brightness close to final result!

[Ondra]

different scenarios can result in different problems when using too much or too little exposure. Point is, using about the same exposure will give you predictable and optimal results.

[Juraj]

You can always lower your exposure in CameraRaw or just general in PS to have the same starting point. You will just get correct brightness since MIS won't cut too much out of it when rendering at correct exposure.
It's linear file so it doesn't matter.

btw it's the same thing with modern DSLRs like D800 or any other. To recover highlights, it's not longer necessary to under-expose, since the dynamic range allows you to better recover highlights at right exposure, without sacrificing blacks to be too noisy
when under-exposing. You then under-exposure in post-production and then do the color grading.

[daniel.reutersward]

different scenarios can result in different problems when using too much or too little exposure. Point is, using about the same exposure will give you predictable and optimal results.

You can always lower your exposure in CameraRaw or just general in PS to have the same starting point. You will just get correct brightness since MIS won't cut too much out of it when rendering at correct exposure.
It's linear file so it doesn't matter.

btw it's the same thing with modern DSLRs like D800 or any other. To recover highlights, it's not longer necessary to under-expose, since the dynamic range allows you to better recover highlights at right exposure, without sacrificing blacks to be too noisy
when under-exposing. You then under-exposure in post-production and then do the color grading.

Thanks for clarifying! :) Will try to render closer to the final exposure next time!

Does it matter where I change exposure? In HDRI, cameramod, VFB? Didn´t know this so I got a little curious..

[Juraj]

Does it matter where I change exposure? In HDRI, cameramod, VFB? Didn´t know this so I got a little curious..

Myself I am not 100perc sure. but in Vray Vlado clarified it doesn't matter at all. It will simply break your "physical" (mind the "". it means it doesn't matter) setup of shutter speed/aperture.

Anyway, since Corona uses MIS in this way, you have to hit render with already correct exposure. So if you set in correctly in VFB by sliding it up, then hit re-render to sample with correct MIS.
Then the same thing, highlight clamping (reinhard in fact) at 1.0 to keep linear file.

Make sure you don't use CameraRaw twice. Actually you can, but keep it mind, the first time you use it, it will clamp your file, so you won't recover exposure next time you use it.

[daniel.reutersward]

Myself I am not 100perc sure. but in Vray Vlado clarified it doesn't matter at all. It will simply break your "physical" (mind the "". it means it doesn't matter) setup of shutter speed/aperture.

Anyway, since Corona uses MIS in this way, you have to hit render with already correct exposure. So if you set in correctly in VFB by sliding it up, then hit re-render to sample with correct MIS.
Then the same thing, highlight clamping (reinhard in fact) at 1.0 to keep linear file.

Make sure you don't use CameraRaw twice. Actually you can, but keep it mind, the first time you use it, it will clamp your file, so you won't recover exposure next time you use it.

I read, I think a long time ago, that V-Ray could even render faster if you render the images a little darker. Could be that together with wanting to render out the image without any overexposed areas that kept me with this workflow :)

So render at the correct exposure (no matter how overexposed some areas get) it´s mainly to have correct MIS? And to avoid any problems?
I did some tests and it seems changing the exposure doesn´t affect render times, at least not with this particular scene.

UPDATE: I do see some incorrect behaviour now when I render underexposed. I didn´t get that when I rendered out the images before... But the good news is I can continue with my workflow but just add a negative exposure in PS :)

Exactly, I noticed that you can´t use Camera Raw twice, the result is not pretty :D

[Juraj]

I read, I think a long time ago, that V-Ray could even render faster if you render the images a little darker. Could be that together with wanting to render out the image without any overexposed areas that kept me with this workflow :)

So render at the correct exposure (no matter how overexposed some areas get) it´s mainly to have correct MIS? And to avoid any problems?
I did some tests and it seems changing the exposure doesn´t affect render times, at least not with this particular scene.

Ok, each issue separately :- )

Vray does (in bucket mode !!) take into account the intensity to decide how much sampling is necessary, and slightly under-exposed image thus render fasters. But what that in actuallity means, if you need to drastically recover blacks,
they will be noisy, since not enough samples were used.
Vray Progressive, does uniform sampling, just like Corona, so it pretty much doesn't matter. But since Vray 3.0+ also uses MIS (by default on=20, can be off), correct exposure is necessary to keep correct brightness, otherwise the MIS will cut away too
many bright primary rays, not just caustics, the whole image will have lesser contrast with brightest parts simply clamped down.

In Corona progressive sampler, the exposure shouldn't affect render times (as in render speed in rays/s) but since it affects MIS, it can introduce more noise to be sampled. But you won't end up with clamped highlights from MIS (mostly visible in brightest reflection and white walls).