Some new work

[bubs]

As a tip for this kind of scene.... If the scene is taking an age to render because of the 'fog' you can render out a normal scene without fog and then a separate hack of a 'Volume Light Pass' by making all your materials oren-nayar with total black colour, and making lights & standing objects 'invisible to camera'. You can then use the resulting render on an 'screen' layer in Photoshop to achieve the light dispersion effect. This is not how I did the last render, but just an option. Here is the 'Volume Light Pass' render I would get on the above scene.

(Maybe this might be properly integrated as a pass at some time in the future...)

[Nikolaj Knudsen]

nice trick - the silhouette on the last image looks awesome

[Oscar J]

Sweet trick bubs, will have to try that some time. Really nice work on the concrete, as per usual.

That guy standing there looks rather short by the way. Nothing wrong with that, just saying.

[bubs]

I thought that too when I first saw it, but it's actually a trick of perspective, because the horizon line is level with the landing, it looks like he's short... He's actually exactly 6ft but standing further away than the perspective suggests...

[Oscar J]

I think it has more to do with that his head is too big for his body actually.

[thesquirell]

Bubs, I want to know your secrets behind those nice concrete textures! Looks really nice!

[bubs]

I think it has more to do with that his head is too big for his body actually.

it's a 3D scan of a real person! Poor guy!

Bubs, I want to know your secrets behind those nice concrete textures! Looks really nice!

thanks mate! No secrets just high res textures and maps... The one on the steps is from arroway, the rest I made myself from the internet. Anything in particular you want to know?

[thesquirell]

It would be smashing to get to know how you control your exponent, the gammas of the maps, IORs.

[bubs]

I really don't have any hard and fast rules or settings, I normally play about with values until I'm happy with the result... but FYI on the last scene;

Wall Concrete - IOR 2.4 / Albedo (Map Gamma 2.2) / EXP (Map Gamma 2.2 / B 100 / C 5) FRES (Map Gamma 1) / Bump (Map Gamma 2.2 / B 0.0002)
Floor / Steps - IOR 1.2 / Albedo (Map Gamma 2.2) / EXP 300 (No Map) / Bump (Map Gamma 2.2 / B 0.0005)

These wall values might well result in too shiny a finish for a lot of scenes, but in this dark one I thought it worked well. As a general rule for that sort of 'satin sheen' from semi-polished concrete I normally use a high(ish) IOR with a low EXP, but like I said it's always trial and error...

[thesquirell]

Thank you for sharing! I just got caught up with some old threads where I read that you can get more control over your maps if you use high gamma value (4), esp. for exponent, etc., and got a little bit carried away. Your texture work looks amazing, Bubs.

[bubs]

quick shot I did for fun, mainly to work on the vegetation, as this showed a nice contrast between a neat lawn and a wild meadow.

[Pibuz]

Wonderful work on the vegetation bubs! ..a little too...green-ish maybe?
...there is a lot of denoising here, isn't it?

[bubs]

...there is a lot of denoising here, isn't it?

Not a lot, just on the windows, forgot to check Arch Glass so they were still really noisy, and as this was only a quick test I couldn't be bothered letting it cook longer! Lazy lazy... might do a region render and drop better glass in.

[thesquirell]

For a quick run, this looks amazing. The grass/vegetation looks a bit uniform (maybe adding some effector to the population would fix this), and yes...I always cry when I see your textures. Don't know how you do it, but you are texture guru, my man. From the simple stone to everything else.

[bubs]

The grass/vegetation looks a bit uniform

You really think so? I thought it was OK actually, i think I'd struggle to get it much better in SketchUp without starting to individually place plants... which I have neither the time or patience to do! Here's a close up more of the vegetation