Thanks Nektares. Sometimes it's worth spending a little extra time tidying up the triangulation in order to get a nice smooth mesh after applying Artisan - especially with shaes like this.

I'm trying to learn some different workflows and I'm pretty much a beginner, so can I ask a dumb question?

I'm not familiar with Artisan, but is its main purpose in this project just to further subdivide the coarse triangular mesh (the thing you call a proxy(??)) ? Or does it do stuff like convert triangles to quad faces or perhaps do some sort of clever UV mapping? Basically, why did you use it?

It seems the material you used for the chair and table wouldn't necessarily need any clever UV mapping (?).

And would your proxies, exported directly from SU to Thea have been too faceted in the final render?

Thanks.

Yes, Artisan further subdivides the proxy and creates a smoother mesh. It does have a paint tool, but I didn't use it on this project (I used SketchUV instead). The proxy models would be too faceted in Thea but I could have possibly used Thea's subdivision functionality to do the same thing. The only drawback is that it would mess up the UVs applied to the models.

In theory you don't need any UV mapping for smooth plastics, but in reality these materials have surface imperfections and scratches etc. so UV mapping your models and recreating these imperfections will result in much more realistic materials and renders.

Check out Bertrand Benoit's recent materials tutorial. It's V-Ray orientated, but the same principles apply to Thea.

Thanks Hieru! Answered my questions perfectly. Hope you submit some more projects in the future. Great examples and great inspiration.

You're welcome DavePSB.

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A little more progress:



I've added displacement to the decking, but I'm still not convinced. I either need to improve the displacement map or model the planking. I've also done a little work on the decking material.

I've added the hard landscaping for the view through the hole - I'm not sure why it still looks like a background image. I suppose I need to see what it looks like with vegetation.

I'm trying to make my mind up about whether I should stick with a rendered finish for the wall (with the hole) or go for raw concrete. Any suggestions?

I keep trying to get the perfect wood material - still not there yet, but a quick simple one is to add a "coating" layer, then add some roughness to it in order to turn down the glossiness. Also, in the basic wood layer, you can try using the same diffuse bitmap in the reflectance slot. The planks themselves need some sort of "life". I have also got interesting results using a version of the diffuse wood bitmap in the bump channel of the coating layer. The wood materials that come with Thea are obviously a good starting point.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Here is the latest version of the scene:



I've mostly been working on the textures and adding the vegetation. I've completely overdone the floor material and need to dial things back though.

More of a lateral progression for this image. I think I prefer the sculptural aspects of the above image, but this was an interesting exercise nonetheless.

I just thought I'd share my solution to a problem I encountered with these renders.

For some reason I was getting an unwanted horizontal artifact towards the edge of the planking, where it meets the wall. It's more noticeable in the mirror wall scene.

It turns out that this was somehow caused by softening all of the floor edges in SU - as needed for subdivision.

My workaround was to bevel the problem edge. Before & after images:

Thanks for taking the time to post these little sub-tips along the way. Its interesting and educational to watch the evolution.

When I have played with displacement in the past, I have usually manually subdivided the mesh, or I suppose you could use a plugin to do that for you. I note that you say you smoothed edges in SU (for subdivision?). I've not tried that, and I don't know if it would make any difference, but I wondered if you had tried unchecking "soften coplanar" in the Soften Edges dialog box. Perhaps at the edges where you noticed the artifacts, Sketchup softened two planar faces and somehow messed up the normals? Just a thought.

Regardless, I think conventional wisdom is that most prominent sharp edges should have a bit of bevel or rounding added to them - even if they are quite sharp in real life. It increases the realism of the render. I have tried that on wooden furniture pieces and it makes quite a difference. So your beveling solution may have killed two birds with one stone.