I've had a go at it but I haven't found windows that would match the same style and I'm not sure how do the brick arches? I'm guessing some sort of overlay image?
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Re: Recreating industrial loft scene
SH3D is not a modelling tool. It is great for layout and planning, and mockups, but requires a bit of imagination to visualise your model in the real world. You will never get anywhere close to the source with SH3D - it simply isn't powerful enough.
A simple example is the arched window frame. There is one in SH3D libraries, but the internal dividers are different to the one in the source, and so are the colours. You can change the colours by modifying the objects materials in its properties. However, changing the actual geometry requires a different program which may take a lot more investment of time to learn and produce models that match your needs.
If you look at the wireframe images of the source you will see that the bricks in the walls are individually modelled, probably using powerful modelling tools to speed that up vastly. When you draw a wall object in SH3D it creates a single object and slaps a texture on it, and it is not flexible enough to get the effect shown in the source.
In theory you could model every brick using the cube object in SW3D, but by god it would be tedious. Probably quicker to learn a proper 3D modelling tool.
In my stuff I use SH3D to plan and test the layouts quickly. When I wanted to do a quality render/light study I used the SH3D as the layout reference, and remodelled the space in Blender. The models and textures are far higher quality, and the rendering result is far better and yet faster to do.
It shows the principle of window-making. You should replace the MTL-file of the half-round window with the one of the glass box, but I'm too impatient to figure out how to do that.
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Re: Recreating industrial loft scene
I guess I'll have to learn Blender but is there not a way to improve the lighting options and texture features to allow some complexity closer to Blender but maybe not as mind blowing.
It feels to me like Sweet Home 3D is so close and just a few more features could make photo realistic renders a possibility.
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Re: Recreating industrial loft scene
I don't think Sunflow (the SH3D builtin Java based renderer) will ever match the Blenders Cycles renderer. Based on the Sunflow example gallery images, the render output could be better. With no offence meant to the author, the material/texturing system in SH3D is very basic. Big changes to this is probably not something the author wants to lose his sanity to.
The other thing you will notice if you do start using Blender is that the rendering speed is much faster than Sunflow, for a better image, and Blender 3.0 when released will be even faster with the improved Cycles-X engine.
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Re: Recreating industrial loft scene
I'm using Yafaray to render 360 virtual rooms and I'm pretty happy with the results but lighting and some more realistic models could make a difference I think.
I find that decent 3D models from the warehouse and some high quality textures can make a big difference but I'm no good with lighting and I don't like my ceiling work lol.
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Re: Recreating industrial loft scene
Have a look at the posts from Cecilia before judging what's possible with SH3D...
I have seen Cecilia's stuff and it is indeed impressive, and probably at the upper limits of what I've seen SH3D/Sunflow achieve. I hate to think how long it takes to get those results based on how long my renders comparatively take. But those images are still not "arch viz" grade. Floors are typically flat repeating textures. No grain, no convincing sheen that varies with the grain, no edges catching the light.
The Yafray renderer looks capable of much better renders (depending on the source inputs) but I never got it working.
From the Sunflow website I see that the renderer can get somewhat closer, but the renderer itself is not the limiting factor for achieving the OP's source material in SH3D. It is the limited ability to modify models, and the limits of the surface texturing, with no control over bump, normals, roughness, metallicity, specularity, transparency, displacements, volumetrics. An image with these constraints will never be "arch viz" level.
What you can do is model/modify and assign materials to objects in a different program, and then try to import. However the materials of other programs will not fully import into SH3D.
Again, I'm absolutely not taking shots at SH3D. I think SH3D is excellent and has helped me immensly when figuring out how to fit rooms, fittings and furniture into the envelope of my house. But when I wanted to do a study of how natural daylight lit one of the spaces, both through the day and across the year (Solstices and Equinoxes), I moved to Blender.
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Re: Recreating industrial loft scene
Your issue with Yafaray is probably related to the amount of memory allocated to SH3D. There are posts on here for setting the memory allocation higher. I find Yafaray just works perfectly once the memory allocation is high enough.
