Here is my first try at some 3D architecture/environment work. Any thoughts, crits or ideas on the images.
http://www.cpoconnell.com/images/Large/houseThree.jpg
cpo
like it, not sure if you;re trying for some photorealism. if so you might be oversaturated and its giving a cartooy feel.
other than that I works.
just remeber when doing aritecture work, its important to show the building more than artist representations of shots throught trees.
I like it,m though it lacks something.
Don't feel a mood off it and I'm not sure why.
Hi cpo,
It's great, amazing for a first go.. and personally I like it when stills are slightly oversaturated (but I don't think many people do).
Same here, I'm not too fund of the trees, I don't like P.E in general.
Well done.
I like oversaturation when its got its place, but when you try and make something look a little real. Oversaturation kills it making it seems cartoony is all 
I saw a guru from A|W give a Hypershade demonstration once that might be useful here.
For a similarly low-lit scene, he created a version of the texture which was full colour, and another version which was black and white. He then used a surfaceLuminance node to drive a blend between the two, so that the brightly lit areas were fully colourful, and the dim areas were less saturated.
This produces an extremely natural-seeming effect (because human vision is more colour sensitive in bright light). Might be worth a try.
Good work, thanks for sharing.
-Steve
Hey, thanks for the suggestions, very helpfull.
I will try the surfaceLuminance thing, though Im not sure I fully understand.
Is there a link or how to some where?
I looked at the A|W site and couldnt find.
Sounds pretty cool too.
Thanks again
cpo
I'll go into a little more detail. It's not the most intuitive trick in the world, but once you try it out you'll see how neat it is.
Create two versions of your image, as I described. Now hook those files into the input 1 and input 2 of a Blend node. Then use the outColor of the Blend node to colour your texture.
Now create a surfaceLuminance node, and hook the output of that into the blender attribute of your Blend node.
That's the simplest setup, which doesn't provide you any further control over the blending. Wherever your surface has 100% illumination, it will render as 100% the colour version. Where there is 0% illumination, it will be 100% the black and white version. There will be a linear change between the two.
I recommend you use an intermediate utility to give yourself more control over this. Stick it between the surfaceLuminance node and the Blend node. You could use a setRange to change the range of it, or better yet you could use a curve to give yourself complete control over the behaviour of the blend (using Set Driven Key, etc.).
Get to know and love your Hypershade.
Good luck!
-Steve
yes alough acualy rendering 3 passes would be the most tweakable option!