Little country church

[the cad man]

Drew this one up this morning.  I'm pleased with the overall result.  Internal renders were terrible though...with Advanced being jet black and Basic was washed out and far too bright...[sigh]...so much to learn.

Comments, advice and suggestons always welcome.

Gaz

[the cad man]

A night render, after making the roof shingles larger...the smaller ones repeated so often they looked like carpet!

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Garry,

Excellent work - looks really good!

Internal renders were terrible though...with Advanced being jet black and Basic was washed out and far too bright...[sigh]...so much to learn.

Re internal Advanced render:
Presumably you inserted some lights but did you turn Daylight off?  Basically lights go out if the sun is on, so if not a lot of light comes directly in though glass, the render may be black!    The new version of Envisioneer, out shortly, has a new function for internal advanced rendering call Ambient Light. Hopefully TFP will inherit this in it's next version, as it has the potential to solve a lof of current rendering issues.

A night render, after making the roof shingles larger...the smaller ones repeated so often they looked like carpet!

I agree with you re the shingles!  I did wonder about the stonework also - does it look a bit 'rough' if you know what I mean? Maybe changing the texture size will help. Did you try it with one of the 'Castle Stones'? They usually look great on that type of building.

By the way, how much 'cheating' did you do in TurboCAD? 

Allan

[the cad man]

Good morning Allan,

Presumably you inserted some lights but did you turn Daylight off?  Basically lights go out if the sun is on, so if not a lot of light comes directly in though glass, the render may be black!    The new version of Envisioneer, out shortly, has a new function for internal advanced rendering call Ambient Light. Hopefully TFP will inherit this in it's next version, as it has the potential to solve a lof of current rendering issues.

Okay, yes I left the sun on, and no light came in through the windows because they aren't windows but shapes with stained glass textures dropped on them!
TurboCAD uses Ambient lighting, among many others, and it's a really useful light source.  I look forward to those upgrades.  TC also has the ability to change a light to any colour, and with any intensity which would be nice features to have in TFP.

I agree with you re the shingles!  I did wonder about the stonework also - does it look a bit 'rough' if you know what I mean? Maybe changing the texture size will help. Did you try it with one of the 'Castle Stones'? They usually look great on that type of building.

Actually, what I found is that the shingle pattern repeats to look like carpet only when I reduced the size of the picture to upload here, the original doesn't suffer from that annoying trait.
"changing the texture size"...okay that's my next lesson...is there a link to explain how to do that?  All these things are simple once you know how...but finding the answer isn't so easy!  When I typed "window sill" into the search engine to find your tutorial on making those all I found was my own questions on the forum!   

I didn't see the Castle stones, I'll try it out and see how it looks, thanks.

By the way, how much 'cheating' did you do in TurboCAD? 

As mentioned above, the windows are solid objects made in TC as I still struggle with drawing objects in plan view that need to be vertical...how do I match the vertical window shape when drawing horizontally?

The belltower is entirely made in TC and the crosses on the top of the church roof.

One other question, (again if you have a link where you've already answered this would save you re-writing all this for slow old me!)...I can reduce the wall heights for the outhouse, which to my eye looks too tall, but the roof won't drop down or be moved down...and floats in the air...

Sorry for the barrage of questions...

Gaz

[the cad man]

Made some adjustments as suggested...increased the scale of the roof shingles, used one of the Castle stone images for the walls, also added a path to the outhouse and opened the door, added two more small Nana plants by the outhouse and changed the sun angle.  I think the changes do improve the scene.

Gaz

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Garry,

Lots of questions as you said but most of the answers are simple - mostly just where to find things.

Okay, yes I left the sun on, and no light came in through the windows because they aren't windows but shapes with stained glass textures dropped on them!

See Windows / Custom for all different shapes. On Appearance tab select Glass. Click the 'glass' image and scroll down to Stained Glass and Double-click it. You would have to set it to partly Transparent (click Display at bottom of dialog) to get light through it but intenal lighting should illuminate them realistically anyway. Making it Emmissive would help too. See image.

TC also has the ability to change a light to any colour, and with any intensity which would be nice features to have in TFP.

So does TFP. Hundreds of bulb types to choose from, wattages and colours. That said I find it best to use one bulb in all fittings and adjust individual brightness (if necessary) by changing the 'colour' to different shades of grey or moving the light itself further away from the fitting (eg away from the wall for a wall fitting, or part way between the ceiling and floor for a ceiling fitting). Results are more consistent with the same bulb.

"changing the texture size"...okay that's my next lesson...is there a link to explain how to do that?  All these things are simple once you know how...but finding the answer isn't so easy!  When I typed "window sill" into the search engine to find your tutorial on making those all I found was my own questions on the forum!   

On the Appearance tab, when you select a surface you will see a Mapping button. There you can override the size of the texture (just in this model) and move it across the surface (eg to position stained glass in the centre of the arch) and also the angle of the texture.
Doubleclick the texture to change its shine, transparency etc but that is a Catalogue change and will affect the texture if used in future projects. This post has many of these things illustrated and many other things you may find useful: http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,1227.0.html.

The problem with the forum Search is to find the key words that people have used which vary from country to country and the TFP terms (eg Mapping to 'adjust' the texture).

As mentioned above, the windows are solid objects made in TC as I still struggle with drawing objects in plan view that need to be vertical...how do I match the vertical window shape when drawing horizontally?

Windows are very customisable in TFP (see Custom windows in the Catalogue) so it would be very rarely you would have to make one. The Gothic arch is the only one I have had to do. In that case it was just cut out of a rectangular piece of Floor and placed in a rectangular 'Opening" in the wall.  See this post:http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,763.msg5037.html#msg5037

...I can reduce the wall heights for the outhouse, which to my eye looks too tall, but the roof won't drop down or be moved down...and floats in the air...

Generally other buildings in the same project should be on a different Building Location, where any different wall height would be set and hence where the roof would sit. The roof is placed at the Wall Heights setting in Building Locations, regardless of how high you make the wall under it. You could set up an Outhouse location and right click Duplicate to locations but you would have to insert the roof again for it to pick up the new settings. Simplest thing now may be to select the Outhouse roof and change the Support Height on the Support and Details tab.

Hope some of that helps.

Allan

[the cad man]

Fabulous, thanks Allan, a wealth of information for me to digest!  I only saw the two bulb options (100W and 75W), but knowing that I can change light colours and intensities multiplies how creative I can be...too cool!

I'll see if I can redo the outhouse with new wall sizes...that giant dunny has been bugging me!

It'll take me a while to try out all these "new" (for me) skills, thanks again for your patience.

Gaz

[Doug.S]

I was about to make a suggestion about the night scene; that the moon looked oval not round and the background image seemed to be broken or stretched or something with a line thru and texture changed.

Then I saw the last picture and maybe the two are related?

In last picture, everything is seemingly tipping over falling in to the scene; most likely caused by a wide angle of view setting for the camera close to the scene.  If that was the intent to simulate a ultra-wide angle 35mm camera view then OK....but an architectural photographer usually tries to eliminate that effect (there are special lenses)....but in TFP if you use a narrower view and move the camera farther away from the scene, it will render without the stuff all falling over looking.  Or you can use Photoshop to correct lens distortion or perspective distortions.

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Garry,

Obviously you posted at the same time as me:

Made some adjustments as suggested...increased the scale of the roof shingles, used one of the Castle stone images for the walls, also added a path to the outhouse and opened the door, added two more small Nana plants by the outhouse and changed the sun angle.  I think the changes do improve the scene.

Yes I agree, the chages do improve it. Looks great!

I notice you have a double fence in the foreground - was that intentional?

I think, as Doug has also just suggested, that moving the camera further back, using a narrower View Angle and raising the camera to eye level would probably look better. I nearly always render with Camera Height and Target Height at eye level and the View Angle as 50-60 degrees which again is normal eyesight. With these settings things look more real. Not always achievable inside however, without removing walls or making them transparent to get the camera further back and then introducing all sorts of rendering issues, so wider angle is needed at times inside. Sometimes a good effect is achieved with odd angles outside too as in your image and it is quite typical to see photos of tall buildings such as this with a wide angle view so I assumed that was your intention.

Re the lighting: Be cautious using many different light bulbs. I have found that one can affect the other and you do not get what you expected. To get all lights to show you need Advanced render at Quality 5 or it does not complete the full process and some lights can get missed. Test with a small image (I usually use Current View Size and expand it on later renders) and use level 3 but do the finals at 5. It will be great when (if) we get Ambient Lighting in the next release. (Looks like a new Sky Dome may be coming too, so we should get reflections of the sky in water and windows - again if it flows on from Envisioneer)

Allan

[the cad man]

I was about to make a suggestion about the night scene; that the moon looked oval not round and the background image seemed to be broken or stretched or something with a line thru and texture changed.

Then I saw the last picture and maybe the two are related?

In last picture, everything is seemingly tipping over falling in to the scene; most likely caused by a wide angle of view setting for the camera close to the scene.  If that was the intent to simulate a ultra-wide angle 35mm camera view then OK....but an architectural photographer usually tries to eliminate that effect (there are special lenses)....but in TFP if you use a narrower view and move the camera farther away from the scene, it will render without the stuff all falling over looking.  Or you can use Photoshop to correct lens distortion or perspective distortions.

Hi Doug,

The distortion of the moon may be due to the fact that I use a VERY large wide-angled screen and the proportions distort the background image.  As to the perspective, I have rendered the  picture with a "normal" (20 degree) angle as well as the wide (60), and personally (personal taste) I preferred the distortion of the wide angle which over-emphasizes the height of the bell tower, so you were right when you suggested that I may have done it deliberately.  I may post another 20 degree render a bit later after I finish playing with all these "new" settings.  But thanks for your observations.

Gaz

[the cad man]

I notice you have a double fence in the foreground - was that intentional?

Not particularly,  I just chose one that I thought would be appropriate for a little stone country church...I might try a different one.
Gaz

[the cad man]

Got the outhouse to better proportions by following one of Allan's suggestions and duplicating it to the second floor, changing the wall height in the settings and elevating it down.  I added a privacy wall at the front and moved the gravel path around it.  Added a gutter to the church.  Bit by bit it's improving...what next?...viewing angle and fence... whew!

Gaz

[the cad man]

20 degree viewing angle...looks more like what the eye would see, but personally I think it's less interresting and from this angle I can't see the paths et cetera.

Changed the privacy fence to a single picket fence...I do like it better as I can see some detail through it.  What do you guys think of the changes?

Gaz

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Garry,

It is a hard building to get it all into the picture. I think 20 Degrees is too narrow as it tends to make the part of the model further from the camera proportionately larger than the front and this is starting to happen a little - notice how the roof pitch is almost horizontal whereas it should slope down towards the rear moree as on your earlier view. However to get it all in at 50 degrees would be hard due to the height/width ratio (unless you do the whole street of course!  ).  I must admit the previous angle gives it more character. Maybe somewhere between the two is the best, with the Target Height slightly raised to get the steeple in.

I would like to see a view in the grounds, for example,  through the front gate looking towards the steeple (if it can be seen from there), or further around the corner, so the shapes and shadows of the buttresses and lower arches of the steeple can be appreciated. These would be eye level of course. Potentailly they could be very effective.

Allan

[the cad man]

A view from the front gate at 45 degrees...