!Restored: Critiques Wanted Please!

[Anonymous]

This is the courtyard entering a dentist office I have just finished. Let me know what I can do to make it better. I used Artlantis 2.0, and a couple of touchups in Lightroom.

Justin

[Anonymous]

I have finished an exterior streetside rnedering. Please let me know what you think.

Justin

[Dwight]

-- You have the technology down, but what about this image sells us on the design? Would the client frame this shot for his office?

-- problem with windo reflection - that annoying black horizon show up.

-- Ambiguous composition seems accidental.

-- Strong sky warning of alien attack detracts from building.

-- Good narrative: wonderful budding romance between single parents: chance meeting at corner - turns out they have been emailing each other for years.

-- Watch out for identical treesinarow.

[Anonymous]

Dwight,

You are totally right! I dislike the composition more and more as I look at it. I will have to rethink a little.

This building is a little difficult to get a good camera shot on, any suggestions?

Justin

[Karl Ottenstein]

Art aside ...I agree with Dwight... some tech comments:

The image does illustrate the reflections of the Heliodon Sky - not only in the windows, but also the car hood.

It seems that the antialiasing setting was too low (or else there is a bug) - the top edges of the building, and the reveal lines are jaggy, suggesting the setting was on 'low'.

Besides Dwight's comment on the trees (at least mirror some of them)...the people cut-outs demonstrate a problem with choosing imagery vs models for entourage: one needs to choose images that correspond to the scene lighting, or modify the sun angle to match the images. E.g., little girl with dad has sun on her left arm.

Road is too smooth, freshly-paved-and-never-driven-on looking. Needs a better shader and maybe some oil-spill images/etc applied. Dosch has some street element images - I think a few samples for a free download on the Artlantis web site, but the site isn't working for me right now. Here's their ground shader collection (there is a version that is configured for Artlantis) - you can see old, cracked asphalt, and well as elements like drains that can be applied to the road surface:
http://www.doschdesign.com/products/textures/Ground.html

The black distant ground can be partially mitigated by enabling the Artlantis infinite ground and applying a shader to it. But, the reflection will still look odd - just not black. 😉

Cheers,
Karl

[Dwight]

Some views were never meant to be.
In some ways, this view is bad because it shows a featureless part of the building. Take a hint:

- select a more flattering view, or
-- fill your boots as an architect and do some articulation for the nation: why they made decoration. Do something at the parapet [there should be a tiny overhang for rain - to keep the walls from streaking] or over the windows. Dentists can afford this.

As for the infinite ground issue, besides applying a shader to the infinite ground, you should make a large cyclorama far away with trees on it and a masked sky. This is the best way to bridge sky and ground.

This points out some of the essential modeling elements [featured in my upcoming book] that make a view convincing - chamfers, flashing bits, the basics of good building technology. For instance, anyone making concrete walls in the foreground of their rendering where the edges aren't chamfered [easy: custom profile] is a piker. When buildings lack the essentials, they look like computer models. Can't fix that.

[Anonymous]

-- fill your boots as an architect and do some articulation for the nation: why they made decoration. Do something at the parapet [there should be a tiny overhang for rain - to keep the walls from streaking] or over the windows. Dentists can afford this

I won't enter into a design critique as I don't know the client, the budget or the design goals. IMHO square edged parapets are just fine.

My initial reaction was that the angle of the camera appears to be nearly at 45 degrees to the corner. Your eye doesn't know which side of the building is meant to be more important and so the view becomes static and lacking in drama. I would tend to move the view to the left where there is what looks to be a courtyard/entry of some sort with a rotated sunscreen (hard to see).

The rendering is almost symmetrical with the people, cars, trees and landscaping being nearly the same on both sides of the corner. The sky I kind of like, but it might look better rotated so the cloud "rows" came more directly at you and not following the angle of the building so closely (don't know if that can be done).

I think it would help to have more contrast in the overall lighting, and have one side of the building being much darker or lighter than the other. It seems like it is a little bit of an overcast day. If the road were a bit darker and the building and sky were lighter and had a little more color it would help to settle the building down and give more contrast between the sky and ground. I do like the fact that the overall coloration is not over saturated like so many computer renderings we see.

Anyway, it looks really pretty good to me and I think most clients would certainly be impressed and pleased.

Just my .02.

Don Lee

[Anonymous]

Here is an update of the exterior. I am working on some parapet details per your suggestions Dwight.

Thanks for all the criticisms on the renderings.

Justin

[Dwight]

Now you have sold me on the monolith! With the little bit of horizontal banding it has the detail to convince! Lovely sheen on the panels!

There's two problems:

A fire hydrant in the middle? This is the kind of move that gets you a two-tone up the tuffet.

A black, driverless car? Stand back and see that this is the dominant element in the scene [and should not be], but does add drama, in that the woman might save the man and child from the runaway car and romance will ensue. Unless it hits the fire hydrant and they all just get wet.

[Anonymous]

Sorry to join the mob.

Do something about those trees. They are out of scale and in two years time people walk with their heads into the branches, the trees will be pruned by traffic. the branches will scratch the building.

Sjaak

[Dwight]

We did already beat him up about repeating trees, but this situation illustrates another classical problem: you never see the building once the trees grow.

I suppose we could try and put a row of staked saplings there, instead. They would be believable since the viewer knows that he is looking at a brand new building since there aren't grime streaks on those shimmering wall panels yet, there being no parapet overhang and all.