YJR Inc. -
YJR Inc.
undisclosed, personal tweaks
3ds Max, vRay, Photoshop, Photomatix
Hey Gang!
I haven't posted up much in months and months, but I wanted to get your opinions on something that I have been thinking about. I had an older model of a waterfront development that I was improving for a big portfolio piece. The job was huge, and a little rushed, so the finished product that we gave to the clients was less than stellar. I mean, it was OK, but it was no where near as nice as I wanted it to be. They were happy tho, and actually paid us, so I didnt complain.
Anyway, back to the situation at hand. I got to thinking about NPR images and my total inability to produce a decent one as I was tweaking the lighting. Then I remembered that craze a little bit ago, and maybe its still going strong, of people taking HDR photographs and filtering them into this hyper-realistic image that looked awesome. It was pretty far from photo-real, but still awesome. Here is one of the more realistic ones that I could find:
I wanted to try and mimic that look while not making it look like I was ripping frames out of 300. So I snagged some tutorials, got some software with the last of my eating money, and tried some things out. First off, this was about how my image was looking straight out of vRay with only some light tweaks to the color:
And this was the version that we sent off to the client. You can see that we did some photoshopping to get the sky right, and a few other things:
Finally, this is how my image running through the HDR process has come out at this time:
Sooooo, my question to you guys is this: Is this a good idea? Or am I just wasting my time on something that is only a passing thing and won't be of any use to me? Your feedback is [obviously] important to me. Thanks in advance!
- matt
