Looking out of a room

[Erick]

I'd like to make a render, where you're looking out of a window.

What I do is, I set up the room and place a square/backplane with an outdoor image map on it, outside, in front of the window.

How is the recommendation, to go on from here, please?
I can set the backplane to emit light, and/or using surface brightness and/or using cast illumination, or ... neither =)
I set the backplane to not cast shadows and to be visible by cameras.
What glass mat. is recommanded for the windows, please?

Are there any other tricks and tips I can try and play with?

[face_off]

Using a background image will not get you a particularly realistic result. You are better off using a HDR environment map in the Octane Environment, and it serves as the background image, and provides the lighting. For glass, use a specular material and set the IOR to 1.3-1.4.

Paul

[Erick]

Thank you, so far.

[Erick]

I noticed, that it's not so easy, to find the right HDR Image for the background.
Espec. when you want something like a close(r) city view or neighbourhood.
The quality should be decent, to get a somewhat ok result.
Is there a preferred size/aspect ratio of the image?

[wimvdb]

You can also use your own background image. Set the prop (plane with the image) to not cast shadows, then use another HDRI to do the actual HDRI lighting

[face_off]

I noticed, that it's not so easy, to find the right HDR Image for the background.

True. One of the challenges with the type of render you are trying to do is getting the correct images for the background. Sometimes it's easier to just increase the Aperture so the background is blurred and then the image quality is less important.

Paul

[TRRazor]

I'm usually using a combination of both the methods proposed here.
I use an HDRi for the lighting.

Then I take a one-sided plane and remove the tick at "Drop Shadows".
I assign the same HDRi to this plane and stretch / fit the image in place so that it shows the area I want to be visible in the shot.

I used this procedure in this shot here:

[Erick]

Ooh, I like, TR.

Thanks for all the replies

[mlru]

I usually turn the backdrop into a texture emitter on a very low value, emitting the background image.
Turns out very nice especially for things like city scapes at night