Octane images not realistic enought?

[mbetke]

I wonder since months from time to time why Octane don't look realistic to the last bit when it comes to architecture exteriour renderings of residential buildings. At least it looks fairly unrealistic if I do the photo compairson with images on Arch-Daily or so.
It even lacks a bit when I compare to simple exteriours made with Maxwell, VRay or Corona. For each of them you can find great images. It seems Octane misses the final touch, the final light ray to catch all the small imperfections a photo has. On other fields it performs great. Product shots look great

So I startet to test with a recently submitted image to a client of mine. A sunny image, mostly ordered by my clients. I really like the output, client loved it. All good. But as an artist I think it looks to cartoony. If I look out of my window the houses I see look more..."spectral"...and vivid.

Ususally I use Pathtracing and a HDRI for lighting. Then give it a final touch in Photoshop adding CA, a bit of blur here and there, and some curves plus vignette. Nothing special. Shouldn't it look the same on other Renderers too?
I tried rendering out all elements but I don't like the workflow. I get a long better when I tweak materials in interactive mode and render out one image mostly.

First thing I notice is that Octane renders out better results with cloudy lighting conditions. I don't know why. They just fit. Also images with lots of reflections tend to look more realistic. Like cars in the scene along the building.
I also start to get insecure about using 3D scaned people. They fit in perfect and it is fast but there seems to be wrong something with them. To test it I started to put in 2D people again in my sample which seems to be more "real" for the human eye if they are placed in properly.

I didn't come to a conclusion. Maybe other Renderer offer a more spectral approach. If they are all unbiased why do they not look the same? Is it the physical camera stuff the aboove metioned offer to produce the imperfections of a real lense? Maybe its just me and I do something wrong but I don't know what. I focus on materials and references a lot, I get high-res vegetation for my projects all the time and try to put in some imperfections like the real world. It's not possible everytime when bound to clients and their taste.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

EDIT:
To illustrate what I mean here are some links to images I think looking like a photo:
https://corona-renderer.com/homepage/wp ... ddon-2.jpg
https://corona-renderer.com/homepage/wp ... hlegel.jpg

Here it lacks a bot of materials but the skymodel and sunlight is just perfect: https://bb3d.files.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... ssade2.jpg

[prodviz]

I think a lot of this is post work.

You can do a lot more with this, with more time, but I had a quick tweak with your raw render, to be a little more in line with one of the ref shots:

[linvanchene]

- - -

To reach the next step of simulating reality Octane would need to simulate a physically correct atmosphere system similar like e-on vue.

The book "Realism in Vue" (2011) by Dax Pandhi explains with a lot of illustrations on 300 pages the foundations of realism.

-> Some of those practices could also apply to other render engines as far as they offer similar features.

update / edit:

Misunderstood the intention of the topic creator.

-> removed more detailed offtopic comparison with e-on vue.

[Refracty]

To have a fair comparison and deeper investigation you should render out the same scene and HDRI with Corona too, without post work.

[mbetke]

Your processing of the image looks nice. Seems to be some more post work.
My intention was not to do two scenes and compare them. It is just a general thing I noticed looking at renderings and photos from different engines.
Octane is a piece of great tech and I love to use it every day. I just try to get better.
Eon Soft seems to be more aimed at landscape visualization. But their atmospheric system is great.

Maybe I will check out my scene with another renderer too.

[glimpse]

I don't think this has anythign to do with Octane Render itself & to iterate that, let's dig for some random pictures from Facebook group (where a bit mroe movement happening at the momnet =) Here are all of the pieces architecture related.

Other things on people & card. This is a quick workaround for our brains to capture the scale & put the object "house" in right scale..- I like "bussy images" (aka older MIR style), but more than that someOne like Peter Guthrie, Bou\dary keep to impress.

talking about Archdaily & other sites in the same caliber - there's tons of valuable information out there that speaks volumes about composition, architectural photography & even high end photography. Here's one work form PG featured over there. I guess there were very little who from first sight thouh it's a render..

Let's get a bit to c&c part. Overall Your shots are liek 80% & between all what You can see in realestate market those are far from bad (You happy, client happy, that's it =) why to bother, but.. somethign inside say that it's not right. Here's my take:

* perspective. Vertical distortion is rarelly welcome in archphotography (just in some cases). Avoid if possible, but don't forse too much, as Eyes will notice that soemthign is not right.. - this is one of the most important thigns that breaks the illusion & In Your case perspective is not very forgivin'.

* composition..think that always plays a bit.. but for this exact shot You've fired to Your own foot. To close & You make viewer feel uncomfortable..liek forceing him to go too close. A bit more relaxed vied with not so wide angle lense might give better results.

I know that clients do not want or even wish t show too much around, as there might be nothing ..but framind creativelly might help to fill the view without zooming to Your object uncomfortably.

* white balance. &..balance between all colours. Our eyes do not work picking absolute values..but rather relative. If You shift even single colour in image too far, too saturated..again..that breaks entire image. Tasty well balanced light will make even the box on a plane to look real. If You miss that, then try to compensate adding all the details.. You'll get only so far..& hit the same wall.

* CA, & ther imperfections.. why? I mena why to braek all the thigns that Photographers fight & try to achive with simple cheats? You can get no so wide angle lense, place some trees in front & in the back of focus point & use depth of field to give a bit of depth, move viewers attention to focus on important bits (and avoid unesecary details in out of focus areas). Till 3rd7th seems that CA became overused piece..-but hsi strong point was light not all the cheats..

& there are other things along those lines..- long story short, It's a nice work, but You will not make it any better if You focus too much on Render engine, OctaneRender here has nothing to much to do with this. Let's bring some images from OctaneRender..some of them are lightly touched others mainly straight from Octane..few links:

probably one of the best pieces so far I've seen. . https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater it's just amazing, here are more infor with link to forums https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

I'm not sure about lighting, but.. details here put everythig nelse to second place: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A ... =sAQF-wLmq

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater - interior shots & details

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater - reflection here really kills this image. Even if those assets are not in the shots, but reflections are..instant drop, but the colours are fine more or less

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 920&type=1 - not sure I liek the details & concept, but You can say too much about mood,..it's there & the balance is workin'

another, nicelly balanced piece.. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

some insanelly great mood over here as well https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

for some reason this one seems to be atractive:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater & another shot of the same project https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

& there are much much more..thus I do not see fault of Octane over there at all..& noOne said You need to make shot full of models (cars, people or so..) trying to compensate lighting imperfections making bussy shot - think it's counter intuitive & i nthe end..I do preffer simpel shots of architecture - no people, no mess.. jsut straight to the point. Reason we don't see thsoe too often? well, 'cos it's hard to make them look good. Liek to play beautiful wong without too much of fancy moves..

[prehabitat]

If I put my architect hat on several things stand out:

-Staging/framing of the shots; all three examples you gave have foreground and background which help show the viewer where they should initially focus within the image (with the exception of the sky less one, although I would argue the building catching it shadow counts as background here).

-Foreground: in all three 'better' examples the foreground grass is a textural (also seem to be believable fractal-like distribution of varying grass blades), with the black A-frame building wth stormy backdrop being the best foreground of all examples. By comparison your example has no grass in focus (enough for the viewer to connect with detail/texture/realism of it) and the hedge is far too manicured, perfect and uniform to serve the same purpose. Doesn't need to be grass, but the building should be grounded.

-Architectural drama/spirit. (Talking just about the building now). The buildings in all the 'better' examples have an inherent drama in the form, in the shadow/light play on the form and in the colour. By comparison your example is conservative in form, light/shadow and colour (hard to compete with Villa Savoye)
... Also relating to the above, and staging/framing further up: the proportions of the building within the frame. Not saying that you need to go back to rule of thirds, but there is a presence conveyed by the way the proportions of the building is placed within the frame of all the 'better' shots that is difficult with your relatively narrow & tall building in its (relatively) small square frame...
EDIT: agree with Glimpse on this point too: widen the frame up to capture more of the background...

Please keep in mind I am biased towards modern(ist) architecture.

I hope the above helps: not really tangible advice in there, just observations..

[mbetke]

Interesting red. Thanks for your time and feedback!
I know about vertical lines. I just didn't do it for the cloudy images.
It is also hard to sell my clients a wide camera far away from the house for better composition. Most buildings I visualize are not on open space but near a street with a 500square meter property and buildings all around. It has to stay in the planned enviornment because otherwise people could think the building is on open space buy it and sue the real-estate agent because building looks different than bought. If there is a hedge there I need to show it. This just as a bit of background. Maybe a typical German thing...at least for the clients I work for.
For example my last client was not okay about placing the camera a bit more to the left so a part of the building would be cut off but have a better coposition. On two other shots of the same set the building would be full on screen anyways. Really difficult some times.
But I aggree that I will need to get more into architecture photography, maybe color-balancing, post-editing and not placing to much stuff into the image and keeping it simple. In terms of detail it's a nice selling point for my business. I offer price X and client gets 3D people, 3D grass, and high details. Others offer mediocre photoshopped 2D people, simple enviornment and bad lighting for same amount. So guess who gets the job?

Well I don't complain. I just think images like Peter Guthries -to stay within Glimps examples- look more "complete". I'm not talking about indoor renderings. There is no difference here if I look at Octane renders or other Renderer. It seems to have something to do with the sky calculations. But maybe I'm wrong. I'll investigate further.

[stoiqa]

Worked on a hyper real project recently, octane was fast and images were rendering super fast, to me it just missed something to trick my eye is real(client was happy though),

Im looking at the provided examples, and none of them fool my eye to think thats real.

If Im doing renders that dont have to compare them with real world, and they are in the realm of "creative environment" then its fine, if I try to fool my eye with left and right comparison of a real product, then i have a hard time getting there...I thought is just me, glad to see someone else bringing up the subject.

Then again for a small shop trying to deliver on time and stay on budget, nothing even comes close.

[Rikk The Gaijin]

So, by your logic, if a painter can't make a good paint, it's because the colors he is using are not good enough?