Studio Apartment WIP

[Kristoffer Andersen]

Hey. Unless you get really really good-looking light in the render I'd probably try to use some subtle level tweaking of all the white walls and such in Photoshop in post-production.. Also, I'd make that little plateau with 2 chairs bigger as to me it seems too small to sit comfortably. "Claustrophobic" if you will.

[Juraj]

Oh hell, Joan Cornella :- D That stuff gives me nightmares just browsing it :- D

Anyway, your render is prime example of far high albedo. It could be great scene, imagine strong light coming from that above ceiling, and shadows close to camera. Now it's just flat.

[jjduncs]

Thanks Juraj,

Not sure I agree with the too high albedo, if you are referring to the concrete.

I agree the scene is fairly flat. It's lit by an overcast HDRi through translucent polycarbonate so the light is really diffused. Might have to play a bit more with curves in PS.

Anyway here is another image from this project

[Juraj]

Thanks Juraj,

Not sure I agree with the too high albedo, if you are referring to the concrete.

The lighting shouldn't matter to such a point, but you could creatively alter it. But even then, there is very little contrast that should be there if you use realistic materials. I referred to White walls, not to concrete.

Have a look at quick post :- ) Maybe that better illustrates my point. There need to be more prominent gradients, and distinction between shadows and highlights if you use correct materials with right albedo.

[jjduncs]

Ahh yes I definitely see your point!

The uploaded example looks much better, any chance you could upload the PSD so I could have a proper look at the adjustment layers (if you happened to have not emptied your trash yet)?

I think the walls are about 200 white value with 0.2 reflection and 0.4 glossiness... it could be the high 'highlight compression' value i used to bring back the blown out areas that is ruining the contrast. 

Thanks for you help

[Juraj]

I thought about saving the .psd but I originally did big contrast boosting as camera raw filter so I didn't do that as flexible layer, so the PSD would only show you half. So sorry no :- (
But you can see in the image it's only few gradient masks.

[jjduncs]

No worries,

Thanks for taking the time to have a play with it in PS in the first place!

I've given it some quick levels and curves but will do some masked adjustments and more tweaking later.

It definitely looks much better.

Cheers

[fabioazevedo]

 It might look better, but i don't that was Juraj's point though - to go and solve the issue in post I mean. He only used photoshop to explain his point better, but you should try to get a less flat image straight out of the renderer, correcting albedo values and probably adjusting light as well.
Concrete does look good, so it might be mostly a wall material problem. Some detail wouldn't hurt either to give a touch more of realism.

[jjduncs]

Yeah I realise that.

I think It's mostly the Highlight Compression value I used.

What should the values be for a normal white wall, just to be sure?

[fabioazevedo]

I think it changes if you use a simple diffuse color on the material settings or a map (because of different gamma correction (?), maybe someone can confirm) but I find that values aroud 190 / 210 work well for white walls.
Right now I'm doing some lighting tests for an exterior, with strong direct sunlight from a cgsource hdri, and with a white value of 200, my compression is at 2, and it starts to look quite ok. So I guess that for a diffuse lit interior like yours, compression wouldn't even be necessary, and that's probably why you get the flat look.
There's another interesting discussion regarding albedos on the forum, around the whole pbr thing, check that out as well.