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Critique Wanted

Anonymous
Not applicable
Feedback / Insight of peoples opinions on how to improve upon this image would be appreciated..... Dwight?
eg. pro's & con's

(AC9 & Art R with a little p/shop)

Thanks,
Peter

Critique.jpg
28 REPLIES 28
Anonymous
Not applicable
Very nice...
I didn't know that you could make so good renders using Artlantis.
How many years of experience do you have?
Anonymous
Not applicable
thanks WhiteMan,

About 2-3 years with artlantis.
Dwight
Newcomer
This is technically excellent, possessing the ideal commercial composition for a dwelling for a person with new money - a cold-hearted shark, say, who cons old ladies into parting with their life savings so he can build a waterfront home. This is because the image is "cold," being a psychological barrier to appeal (except to the aformentioned financial shark person).
Of course, i am being overly-theatrical with my response, but i'm probably not alone at the subconscious level.

Consider these ideas:

1: The background brings a suggestion of high haze or overcast sky, but the shadows are perfect and sharp, almost as sharp as the sunlight in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Of course, everyone knows that it is ALWAYS sunny in Perth, too. Had a lovely time there last April visiting relatives and my old college chum Paul Sims. He invented the famous video game (joke). I'd soften the light and try to fill the soffits with light energy because they appear sinister. Will remember Perth because of the enthusiastic seminar audience.

2: Those bricks, as the dominant textural elements in the image, are way too well-defined. The mortar should be greyer and the units smaller. View the image small as you've previewed it - the anti-aliasing of the smaller image "videos" the pattern, making it stick out - a sure sign that a texture is too strong. For instance, the soffit boards recede as a texture should. Can you help the bricks a little?

3: The light is cold. Subsequently, the foliage is bluish. Can you make the sun light more yellow? Yellow light would make me think of a person who got rich raising bunnies as pets for orphans rather than a person who ripped-off geezers.

4: Another sinister aspect of this image is the blackness of the interior. What's going on in there? Are they cleaning their guns or torturing the bunnies they stole from the philanthropist down the street upon whose house friendly yellow light falls? "Hey. I like the light on his house. Let's go steal it!" I'd be boosting the interior light AND increasing the transparency of the glass. I know that you guys are using that special heat-repelling glass that looks bluish and dense, but that is not the stuff to put into a rendering. A house like this is meant to show off the resident - help your client understand the exhibitionistic aspects of the design.

5: It is just a prejudiice of mine, but i likes me the dark foregrounds, eh?
In my image reply, you'll see that i textured and darkened the street paving. You could also use a street tree's dappled shadow to ground the scene. I l ike the shadow approach because it implies a world going beyond the model. A further foreground problem - one that we see all the time and is really hard to fix - is that continuous street of pavement forming a barrier to the eye. I'd be breaking-up that continuity with dappled shadow or a parked vehicle (in shade).
Dwight messes up a perfectly good image.jpg
Dwight Atkinson
Anonymous
Not applicable
thanks dwight,
I like the foreground shadow suggestion.
I cheated the interior with dark glass as i didn't model anything internally
to save time, but you're right it would look much better if i did
Those poor bunnies, i should really try to save them!!

Cheers
Anonymous
Not applicable
After such deep and qualitative analyzing from Mr. Dwight, I had to put one pic from one of the projects I'm working on now and hope I ll get some of world class critique too.

I wanted to save time (u wouldn't belive it , no one wants to save time today ) and rendered it right in archicad - LIHGHTWORKS, after a very little material correction. Dwight, I know u r lightworks "guru". I never rendered in archicad before.

There was one parallel topic for the rendering time qestion, Ill put it here:
This picture is originally size of 3300x2500 pixels and rendering time was 35 min. That is very good for a rendering that size, right? In any other specialized program (like artlantis) would it take longer - right?

I like the "depth cue" in lightworks - works really fine, but there are some problems, if u look at the picture the bottom circle road (at the small passenger bridge) is elevated 5m belove zero (that is the only way passenger, car and train traffic could be solved withouth crossing) and you cant get that feeling cause there is no radiosity. Of course, shadows could be added in photoshop but that means more work than get the project rendered in artlantis. Is there something what could be done?
Dwight
Newcomer
What's your story?

Your chosen art direction is a soft, pastel dream rather than a photorealistic rendering, so there's not much to say about technique. The shapes and relationships of the structures are well-elaborated, but photoreal aspects are missing - largely in part due to the lack of model detail necessary to convince the eye. However, to properly detail this project would be a stupendous task. This looks like a modeling exercise rather than an urban design. At least i hope it is.

As for rendering time, making reference to the pixel output size is of minor significance relative to the rendering speed of the application. It's all about polygons in the model and the rendering quality features selected. You can always tell this because when you ask for a rendering, the system works for quite a while without producing any image. This is because it is resolving the raytracing "solution." Then it renders the solution. The more polygons in the model, the longer this solution and its subsequent rendering. This model appears to have a very few polygons relative to a real project, except in the trees.

In improving rendering the task is to study photos similar in aspect to the rendering planned. Seeing a photo would help you fix problems like the over-prominent parking slot markers and other over-detailed elements.

My observations are:

Impending disaster: the airliner is on a collision course with the balloon. Airliners at low altitude far from an airport are sinister. We fear that the pilots are chanting. Besides, everybody knows that terrorists cannot resist destroying spheres painted with orange and blue stripes. Like a red cape to a Spanish bull. Many illustrators place entourage elements without considering the implied story. Also, considering the fog, the airborne elements are distractions. RULE: Be logical or leave it out.

Landscape: The larger trees might be the right height, but their parts are way out of scale. Since the foliage has the only roughness in the scene it makes the trees too prominent. Your best foliage is on the left in the mid-ground. With a model having schematic detail, perhaps you should use translucent spheres on sticks to represent trees. Uniformity counts.

Light: Very incongruous shadows. Can't explain why. Airliner has oversharp shadow, foreground elements shadow too diffuse. I suggest using the sun sun shader rather than realistic sun. This will produce a more uniform shadow that will help in expressing the different levels of the scheme that you complain about. Light and shadow inform.

Color: The colors and geomentry of the bright green, ochre and orange fields adjacent to the project are distracting. Add more fog or suppress the field colors. While i have previously observed that "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WHITE!!™" so often that it is a well-known slogan, your work inspires me toward a new slogan that ridicules grey. We think that asphalt and concrete are grey, but there's a range of color in those materials that can please the eye. I'd make the road surfaces darker and rougher, or lighter.

Surfaces: Roughness adds gravity, slickness look plastic. Rough, GOOD. SMART. Shiny, BAD. STUPID. For instance, in North America we have trucks dangling mudflaps with chrome silhouettes of reclining, long-haired women. I think that the chrome women are supposed to be lures for real-life "shiny" women. Shiny gals look at the man in the pick-up truck, see the chrome silhouettes on the mud flaps and are attracted. They say "Look!! On the mud flaps!! Shiny women! Let's meet that guy, I think he's a doctor."

Entourage: Remove cars totally like the Japanese do for their architectural photography OR add more cars to explain that there IS some life to this place, even if the cars are blocky. Make an accident at one of the traffic circles. That would be photo-realistiic.
Dwight Atkinson
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thank you for excellent - world class - critique. I agree with all your ideas.
Impending disaster: the airliner is on a collision course with the balloon. Airliners at low altitude far from an airport are sinister. We fear that the pilots are chanting. Besides, everybody knows that terrorists cannot resist destroying spheres painted with orange and blue stripes. Like a red cape to a Spanish bull.
...in North America we have trucks dangling mudflaps with chrome silhouettes of reclining, long-haired women....They say "Look!! On the mud flaps!! Shiny women! Let's meet that guy, I think he's a doctor."

I like your cirtique style. You are combining your stand-up comedy skills with the seriousity and boringness of architectural critique and that focuses peoples attention much better on your thoughts and makes them easier to understand. Excellent. Keep the good work on.
Make an accident at one of the traffic circles. That would be photo-realistiic.
I have vehicles in my library like police, ambulance fire vehicle, car wagon... I thought Ill never use them, you gave an excellent idea for some accident scene.

Your all other ideas are also very good, Ill try to implement them!
Anonymous
Not applicable
Well, first of all, you have to say which program did you use, then some informations about rendering time...
I think that project is very big, so getting realistic render is much harder then in small projects, but it is possible. As I sad, you have to say what program did you use. Also, shadows could be better...
Is the model done in ArchiCAD?
Where did you find models of planes, trains...

About trees, cars I have to say that I completely agree with Dwight
Anonymous
Not applicable
Peter, after Dwight's comments I can only add that modelling the interior will not be of much help, because on a bright sunny day window glass always looks dark. To see what is inside the room you will need to put an extra lamp inside.