Artefact Four - 3DS Max Renderings and Composition (Part 2)
After re-lighting the scene the Scanline rendering system indeed worked on all of the render elements that will be used for composition in Photoshop. This time round adding to the amount of renders by including; shadow, lighting, a re-render of the scene using Mental Ray, and a specular render. Below is the resulted imagery.
Below are the images stacked in Photoshop, the easiest way to adjust the images is to turn half of them off and work with the second, then vice versa. Once the stack has been complete then any final adjustments can be made.
Below is a step by step account with jpg images to show what adjustments was used to create the final composition The shadow image was first set to multiply, thus making the image very dark to begin with. However once this is set the lighting in the scene can then be added and thus will bring out the colour so objects can be recognised.
The specular image was then included and was set to screen. This allowed the colour of the scene to be identified, note that this makes the shadows look quite dominant for the moment. In the real world shadows have gradients and not always pure black.
To soften the shadows to create this gradient look a linear burn was introduced to swap the initial multiply. Giving a nicer feel to the shadows. Notice that the couch and curtains now have also been brought out.
To enhance the shaded areas further (but not making them totally transparent) the lighting render was then issued a soft light blending mode. However this should be done carefully to simulate the distance of a light, for example it is not needed if a light is fairly close to an object as the shadow created would be quite dark. At this instance the other rendered layers were not need in this composition as they did not enhance any of the image when they were brought in so were rightfully not used. Below lays the final composition of the living room.
The final task of this artefact was to ask an audience of their opinions of which image like the best out of; - The composition
- The Mental Ray Rendering
- The Scanline Rendering.
Initial Mental Ray Rendering
Initial Scanline Rendering
A pie chart to show the number of people that preferred which final image.
The results can be seen that an incredible 0 people preferred the Initial Scanline image whilst twice as many preferred the newly created composition. The comments made are also useful to have so this can be adapted in a future project. Many people who preferred the mental ray image liked the look of the rug and a lot said that the shaded areas are more realistic due to the softness of them. However this can be easily amended in the composition by reducing the shadow amount and altering the light to compose the shaded areas. Most of the people who preferred commented on the shadow cast by the table in the centre, due to the table surface having a glass material the light passes through this but does not with the wooden frame.
Evaluation
In the last two artefacts Mental Ray has been undoubtedly come across as the best output for renders. For this artefact pure mental ray renders did not perform as the software would not enable the output needed for making a composition in Adobe Photoshop. However combining Mental Ray and Scanline renders, one can create output that perhaps not outright better 3DS MAX renders but enables the user to create adjustments easily and quickly for specific output. Using the render elements area of Max a user can chose what renders to use for the composition. Whilst using the default Scanline Renderer the output takes far less time to be created than using Mental Ray. But once again the benefit of creating a composition of these renders is the fact that they can be easily amended. For example if a shaded area needs to be darker, or the diffuse colour needs to be higher in contrast they can be altered in Photoshop using the layers that were created with the 3DS Max renders.
Conclusion
Using software to create post rendered images can be a benefit to the outcome of a render, to take this further software’s such as Shader, Zbrush and Photoshop can be used not just to enable a more realistic outcome but can also be taken further to create imagery for film or games. For example something as simple as changing the lighting effect could dramatically alter a composition to create covers for DVD’s or posters for different Medias and genres.
