Then say it was done in a rush, and don't blame LFS for it - we all know how the models are. I've done tons of renders and none of my reflections look that bad. Yours however look like the car had 3/4 of the polys reduced.
You need to pay attention to lighting and how you add the reflector - do it enough times and you'll be able to come up with better renders in same or even less time depending on final overall quality. But in this case. Same time or faster, for sure.
Last edited by r4ptor, .
Reason : typo
That's like saying F1 sucks big time - because you can't go rallying in one. Sure there's limitations, but if you want to become the artist, then it's your job to present the render in a workable way.
Pro photographers do this and they don't have to worry about lowres cars or whatnot. What they do is to plan how they want their light and reflections on the subject as well as pick the right angles and so on. Don't just do a quick job, hit render and expect good results. The renders may not be good even with a gazillion poly model, because there's much more to visuals than polycount.
Get over it. The car being low res is much worse than that tiny "error".
It's possibly a too interpolated GI solution. I'd fix it in Photoshop.
I finally have more time now, but I need to spend it on doing absolutely nothing 
I spent the last 3 months on some tedious 3D work and now have to do anything else than 3D.
Ps. your facebook link doesn't work.
I spent the last 3 months on some tedious 3D work and now have to do anything else than 3D.Ps. your facebook link doesn't work.
Caek! 
You have some extreme darks in most of these. Makes me wonder if your monitor might be too bright.
Experimenting is the best way to learn. Keep doing that. I like the Evo render (side view) the best.
Experimenting is the best way to learn. Keep doing that. I like the Evo render (side view) the best.
Stills can be looked at closely while animations run at 25 or more fps, so quality per. frame isn't as vital nor noticeable.
Lowering meshsmoothing density would be a major factor too if you are running low on memory - try the lowest quality just for fun. You could also, on top of mesh smoothing tweak, use VRMeshes. This feature is designed for memory hungry meshes when you don't have enough mem.
Not sure how shadow rays in VRay works, but reflection rays can also easily be limited to, as mentioned earlier 2 or 3 - think of it this way: Seing a reflection in a reflection in a reflection = 3 reflection rays. That's actually quiet a bit. Sometimes too much sometimes not. Depends on how big, flat and clean reflection surfaces you have. But again, 2-3 should be fine.
Re: not going to see it anyways - Look at poly amount this way: The closest rim and tire covers an area less than 150*160 pixels. Thats 24000 pixels. And since these meshes take up most of the polys I'm guessing a single wheel has something like 700k tris... or lets just say 500k - still, forcing 500k tris into 24000 is just never going to work. There's no gain in doing this. You can have 50k and see it looks better than 25k, but 500k is just too much.
Just try a few things - your render time was "only" 30 mins, so it should be OK to work with. Take long coffee breaks
Lowering meshsmoothing density would be a major factor too if you are running low on memory - try the lowest quality just for fun. You could also, on top of mesh smoothing tweak, use VRMeshes. This feature is designed for memory hungry meshes when you don't have enough mem.
Not sure how shadow rays in VRay works, but reflection rays can also easily be limited to, as mentioned earlier 2 or 3 - think of it this way: Seing a reflection in a reflection in a reflection = 3 reflection rays. That's actually quiet a bit. Sometimes too much sometimes not. Depends on how big, flat and clean reflection surfaces you have. But again, 2-3 should be fine.
Re: not going to see it anyways - Look at poly amount this way: The closest rim and tire covers an area less than 150*160 pixels. Thats 24000 pixels. And since these meshes take up most of the polys I'm guessing a single wheel has something like 700k tris... or lets just say 500k - still, forcing 500k tris into 24000 is just never going to work. There's no gain in doing this. You can have 50k and see it looks better than 25k, but 500k is just too much.
Just try a few things - your render time was "only" 30 mins, so it should be OK to work with. Take long coffee breaks
I'm guessing the majority of the polys are in the rims and possibly tires as well.
But even though the amount is (IMO) overkill, render time wouldn't change drastically - that's of cause assuming there's enough memory to render the scene without any degree of swapping.
More things have to be tweaked - it's very much like when racing, you need to nail every single turn to be fast, not just a single turn - in 3D, you must tweak as broadly as possible to get lower render times.
Certain things have bigger impact though, such as lower anti aliasing quality, limiting rays such as reflection rays down to 2 or 3. I'm not sure exactly how mesh smoothing works, but if it has quality levels like 1, 2, 3 etc, then I bet 2 would be sufficient for a distance like this - even 1 might do the trick.
No need to have 2 or more polys if they share just a single pixel.
But even though the amount is (IMO) overkill, render time wouldn't change drastically - that's of cause assuming there's enough memory to render the scene without any degree of swapping.
More things have to be tweaked - it's very much like when racing, you need to nail every single turn to be fast, not just a single turn - in 3D, you must tweak as broadly as possible to get lower render times.
Certain things have bigger impact though, such as lower anti aliasing quality, limiting rays such as reflection rays down to 2 or 3. I'm not sure exactly how mesh smoothing works, but if it has quality levels like 1, 2, 3 etc, then I bet 2 would be sufficient for a distance like this - even 1 might do the trick.
No need to have 2 or more polys if they share just a single pixel.
Hm.. in that case they look like very poor photoshop brushing job :P
Looks awesome (skins as well)
Front light removal needs more work though 
3ds Max is very popular. This means there's tons of free tutorials floating on the web for it.
If you are starting from nothing then it's going to be a steeper learning curve, since you'd need to learn about many things just to be able to create simple renders - if your main interest is to do just LFS renders, and not so much what else 3d brings along for possibilities, then you can give Key Shot a try. It's still 3d, but simplified for quick setup and renders - basically you load in your model, apply materials, chose backgrounds and lights and off you go. Same steps as what you'd need to do with 3ds max, but as said, it simplifies things.
If you are starting from nothing then it's going to be a steeper learning curve, since you'd need to learn about many things just to be able to create simple renders - if your main interest is to do just LFS renders, and not so much what else 3d brings along for possibilities, then you can give Key Shot a try. It's still 3d, but simplified for quick setup and renders - basically you load in your model, apply materials, chose backgrounds and lights and off you go. Same steps as what you'd need to do with 3ds max, but as said, it simplifies things.
I wouldn't mind doing so but I'm very busy these days and also have other renders waiting in line. I often spontaneously find some time here and there but I'd like to inform you that worst case scenario would mean, that I won't be able to look at any render for you (or anyone) for the next 2-3 weeks.
TSome renders for Tiger Express Motorsport
Click for highres
Click for highres
Last edited by r4ptor, .
It doesn't matter if there's literally a light behind the car or not. the point was that it looked like there was one - and sure, there can be one, its not like the sun is the only source of light on earth, but it added to the confusion.
I like the setup.
The biggest thing ruining it is the lighting - your light setup gives a confused impression of the lighting such as the shadows that doesnt match with the strongest lightsource, the sun (even though its setting) and you have light on the back of the car as if another car is parked behind it - but it's not working as it should. You probably should have moved the light further away, to get a smoother falloff.
The bright white reflections upo front are simply too white - on a red car - with a yellowish sun. Doesn't match at all. Should look softer too.
also remember that you don't HAVE to cast shadow from all lights. there are 2 shadows that I could see and they just add more to the confusion.
I can't say for sure. I found it to be easy but I've read people who come from Maya or Max may have more difficulties adapting to it. You could give it try and see how it works for you.
But in all honesty I think you will be better off with Max. It has a greater user base and thereby more stuff such as free models and tutorials.
Edit: no, you cant use your existing program specific files such as .max. You would have to save them as obj or fbx and redo material and lights etc.
Firexter:
Last edited by r4ptor, .
Thank you all for the nice comments.
Bose321: I use Autodesk Softimage along with mental ray as the renderer. I can highly recommend it however it could have been done with pretty much any 3d application - with more pain
Bose321: I use Autodesk Softimage along with mental ray as the renderer. I can highly recommend it however it could have been done with pretty much any 3d application - with more pain
You are asking for a complex render and while I do not mind it, I do mind that the skin isn't in better quality. The skin looks like a 512px version scaled up to 1024px. If you are going to ask me to do something like this then at least provide a good quality skin - at least 2048px.
I mean no offense by this and I hope you can see my point. It's no fun for me to do this because I can already tell the end result will look bad no matter how good background I find or how much time I spend on it.
I can still have a look at it, but if it's not working sufficiently enough then I'll skip the render.
I mean no offense by this and I hope you can see my point. It's no fun for me to do this because I can already tell the end result will look bad no matter how good background I find or how much time I spend on it.
I can still have a look at it, but if it's not working sufficiently enough then I'll skip the render.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG