Refugio Residence W.I.P

[PFD]

Hey there.

This is my first post on these forums. My main goal with this project is to explore the capabilities of the new Corona Render Engine v1.0. Because I use iRay and Octane as my primary production engines, this W.I.P will help me define my future investments in hardware and software for my home render farm. At the end I may choose to stay with GPU based rendering or migrate to a CPU based solution. I am also trying Maxwell Render.

I have done some tests using HDRI and Corona Sun but the results don´t convince me yet.

Any advice on improving lighting or material realism?
Please be every bit as critic as you can.

I´m updating this first post with the main view each time I have a new version the second post will contain my main materials and some details.

Thx in advance.

Scene Stats: 3ds Max 2015 Sp3 | Corona Render v1.0 | Primitives 34.3 M | Instanced Primitives 596 M

[PFD]

Here are the materials ad some tests.

[maru]

Looks promising! But for some reason not very realistic at this point. Are you using Corona's sun+sky for lighting? I would recommend you to enable interactive rendering and simply play with sun position until you are happy with the result. You can also change exposure settings in Corona's VFB to see if your image needs more or less brightness. Another possibility is to use some nice HDRI for environment.
About materials - you can do the same - enable IR and tweak them until they look good to you. I can only say the obvious stuff - don't use too bright materials, don't show tiling of the textures, use bump or displacement to add realism.
We have some "how to" articles in out support system that you may find useful:
https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/folders/5000138645

[PFD]

Thanks maru. I´m still getting used to corona´s light and exposure system, it definitely handles HDRI´s in a very different way than iray even at the same values. I am using a modified HDRI with a very strong sun baked into the environment.

Just tried the interactive rendering for the first time and wow this thing is fast.

I´ll take a look at the F.A.Q now.

Thanks.

[Nekrobul]

Looks promising! But for some reason not very realistic at this point. Are you using Corona's sun+sky for lighting? I would recommend you to enable interactive rendering and simply play with sun position until you are happy with the result. You can also change exposure settings in Corona's VFB to see if your image needs more or less brightness. Another possibility is to use some nice HDRI for environment.
About materials - you can do the same - enable IR and tweak them until they look good to you. I can only say the obvious stuff - don't use too bright materials, don't show tiling of the textures, use bump or displacement to add realism.
We have some "how to" articles in out support system that you may find useful:
https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/folders/5000138645

I think the thing with realism is in missing reflections. Also in the lack of reflections on not so glossy things like stone.

And proper displacement and chamfers or rounded corners everywhere.

Also the hilight compression is set too high.

[maru]

I think the thing with realism is in missing reflections. Also in the lack of reflections on not so glossy things like stone.

Yes, you are probably right. That's why it has a bit of this "old video game" look.

[Nekrobul]

Here is crop section from last exterior render. Notice that there are reflections everywhere.