More realistic rendering?
 

Hi, I'm new here, looking for help!

I normally build miniatures for film work, but with the turn of filmmaking to digital, I'm forcing myself to learn 3D in order to keep up with the industry. I have picked Maya, as it seems to be the industry standard (and I'm on a Mac), but I see a lot more photorealistic renders coming out of 3DS Max. Is there really that big of a difference between the programs and their supported renderers? And if so, why would the industry standard be Maya if Max looks better?

At any rate, I am stuck with Maya (can't find Max for Mac), and wondering how I can make my renders more photorealistic? I attached a photo of a scene I am working on. The textures are all from photographs of an actual model I built for one of the jail cells. The hallway seems like it is almost there in realism, but there is just something about it that screams CG, and I can't figure out what that is or how to fix it. Any suggestions? Any specific info/other screen shots you need to know/see about it? It is rendered in Mental Ray.

Thanks in advance for any help!

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...g?t=1265219950

This is the actual miniature
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...g?t=1265220253

maya is the standard because well in my mind it is because of its interface and ease of use. Better rendering results dont matter because 99% of vfx studios render from 3rd part rendering engines the largest one being renderman.

Well rats, that won't help me in this situation. I'm stuck working with whatever Maya has to offer.

Hi Jpar, welcome to SM :) Max is windows only, unless you're going to run bootcamp and I don't know how well that will work out. The thing with Maya is that it is very customizable and extendable. Most of the realistic Max renders floating around are done in Vray, and it's designed to relieve the user from a lot of the manual setup, for example handling gamma (which is vital to realistic images). MR for Maya is very capable as well, it's just brunt of the setup is on the user, which allows for more control,this can be a good thing or an inconvenience depending how you look at it.

Your scene looks really good but I think the lights are the culprits. Lights with quadratic decay behave more like real world lights, but require high light intensities and without an exposure lens shader on your camera, you'll get such horribly blown out areas it'll make you sick. Look into "linear workflow in Maya". Be warned, it may piss you off. But it's not all bad news, scripts make it easier, so if you a buddy or the internet can conjure them up, it should be ok.

Okay, thanks for the advice. I seem to remember now some of those people with the photo-real Max renders mentioning Vray. I'm still new at CG, and being self-taught, some things are still beyond me.

jpar, forgive my giving an opinion. But best you learn to walk before running. I think you will be a lot more benefited by learning Mental Ray and using shaders and textures before thinking of Vray. Lights are very important, and you need to get your feet wet with them. Not that there is that big of difference in the usage of shaders and textures in Vray and Mental Ray. But a lot more training available for Mental Ray than Vray.

Just a thought!!