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analysis of the capabilities of SH3D in comparison with Blender
Hi. Dear sjb007 kindly provided his own version of the render in Blender for research. An excellent program for modeling and visualization, the picture is very realistic, according to sjb007, everything took 20-30 minutes, including the selection of models. Impressive speed and very impressive rendering result. At the same time, dear jb 007 expressed doubt. that the same result is possible in the SH3D program. I tried to get closer to the original. This is the original picture of the author.
What are the difficult moments in this picture? 1. Very bright sunlight, a spot of light on the floor is very contrasting with the shadow area of the floor and walls. This is a weak point in SH3D, I immediately decided to work in the maximum lighting level mode in order to get this maximum contrast for myself. 2. Matt lacquer on the parquet. The reflections are very diverse in color, but very realistic. A difficult task to repeat. 3. Parquet boards have beveled chamfers, which give a complex play of shine and shadows along the edges of each board. A great challenge. You need to try to do everything in SH3D. yes.. I will post my research in portions. First explanations and thoughts, then a picture.
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Re: analysis of the capabilities of SH3D in comparison with Blender
First, I modeled a parquet board using the Generate 3D shape plugin. The size of the board at the base is 16cm x 120cm, the chamfer width is 0.4 cm, the height of the visible part of the board is 0.2 cm. The table for this board model is like this
I exported this model to OBJ, and set the gloss parameter Ns 128.0 for each face, which is the maximum. Why the maximum, if it is written everywhere that this parameter can be made up to 1000? Because the SH3D program does not provide such an opportunity. Ns 128. (if I'm wrong, please correct me). It's okay, we're working on it. And imported it back as a Model. From these boards, I assembled parquet on the floor, assigned different areas of texture to each board for the top (scale 150% and moved along the X axis 10-20-30-40%, the boards turned out to be different in texture). I made a room similar to the original with an opening to the street, placed the light. To maintain the contrast of sunlight and indoor lighting, I assigned a very low power of 0.3% to the hemispherical towers, such towers inside room 7, the color is orange. The lighting level of the stage was set to the maximum so that the sun worked as brightly as possible. I put a hairy carpet (ready-made model). The carpet was illuminated from above with additional flat hemispheres with a power of 3% (5 pieces). I put a hairy carpet (ready-made model). The carpet was illuminated from above with additional flat hemispheres with a power of 3%. I made the first render of 5000x2813 pixels, 3 quality levels.
The contrast of the street light and the interior light did not work out, this is the maximum result. I tried to complement the sun with groups of lamps, but the result is bad. Blender won cleanly here. In SH3D, the brightness of the sun is limited, if you could add the brightness of the sun, you would get a contrast like in Blender. What happened at the third level of quality? Very sharp reflections, without soft borders, as in semi-matte varnish. But all light surfaces are reflected, just a glossy varnish. If you make the edges of parquet boards with another lower degree of gloss, the result will not be so interesting. The reflections will simply disappear altogether.
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Re: analysis of the capabilities of SH3D in comparison with Blender
The next render was done at the fourth maximum quality level. On standard settings, shiny surfaces do not reflect space. But what is reflected there? It turns out that only lamps are reflected in glossy surfaces!!! Yes! All balls and hemispheres will appear as visible luminous objects, although they are not visible! It's not like in real life, when objects should be reflected in the parquet varnish. It can be used! And simulate the reflections of the surfaces of light objects by simply replacing them with lamps. It's a difficult job, but in some places it can be replaced. For example, I placed a huge flat hemisphere on the street, size 232mm x 184m. It is this flying saucer that creates a white glow in the glossy parquet boards. The more powerful the lamp, the more its reflection. I picked up the power of the hemisphere-UFO 32%, blue color. It is she who gives a faint shade in the reflection of the blue color. The color of the sky is also important! If the sky is not a color, but a texture with clouds, then clouds will be reflected in the varnish. Everything needs to be taken into account here. But the rendering time increases catastrophically. 10 times! The third level of quality is 1.5 hours, the fourth level of quality is 14 hours, horror.. But it looks like a matte varnish)). Although everything reflects poorly, it is not realistic.
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Re: analysis of the capabilities of SH3D in comparison with Blender
I did the following experiment for super gloss varnish. I exported the entire floor to OBJ and assigned transparency d 0.2 in the MTL file. But when importing it back, I assigned a height of 0.3 cm instead of 0.2 cm. Therefore, this transparent crust has become higher than parquet boards, like a real glossy varnish. The effect of such a layer is very strong, the reflections are maximum, and it is impossible to make them smaller)). the mode of the third and fourth quality levels are almost the same, only the time is monstrously different (10 times). But on the fourth level, the carpet is better, more fluffy)
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Re: analysis of the capabilities of SH3D in comparison with Blender
and now I come to the most interesting part. The ZMK 2.7 render plugin (authored by Enko Niito) has the ability to change some settings. I've tried everything))). And I found an interesting combination with minimal rendering time. Here she is.
I have studied the combinations for both Sunflower and Yafaray. Yes, my favorite is Yafaray, it is the fastest and highest quality engine. In the standard setting of the third level, you need to change only one line to "silk". It turns out like a long fourth level, but 10 times faster. A matte varnish that you can work with. Faint normal reflections are already appearing there. Of course, they are very weak, but unfortunately there is nothing else. I added a fence made of spherical columns to the solar triangle on the wall. They now give reflections in the parquet, replace reality. That's a little better.
now you can arrange the sofas)) and a palm tree)).
That's all I've managed. But I am very glad, I have learned a lot about the program.
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Re: analysis of the capabilities of SH3D in comparison with Blender
Imagine me giving you a standing ovation!
You have gotten remarkably close to my challenge image considering the limitations of SH3D as I understand them.
I think you nailed point 3 (bevels), with the caveat that you had to add geometry to replicate the effect.
I think your analysis of point 1 is spot on. More realistic sunlight would require a much, much brighter sun object, and probably the ability to adjust exposure levels.
Point 2, you did an amazing job of getting closer than I thought possible. Reading your report, it took additional lighting to fake bouncing the non-sun part of the sky off the floor. The two bits where it falls short is the comparative brightness of the section in direct sunlight to the rest of the floor, and the reflected light of the side of the opening bouncing off the floor. I think point 1 may have some blame here, but I think also where you have changed to "directlighting" is very relevant. Real light bounces, illuminating and colouring everything it hits. It's hard to spot any effect after 4 or 5 bounces, but it is so important, especially to things like your walls picking up that wooden floor warmth. I'm curious though if by changing the shininess shader to silk, if it is still possible to get glossy/reflective surfaces in the same scene? I might try an experiment or two.
Something I failed to effectively demonstrate in my image (so you get a free pass here too ) was the rough/smooth grain of the wood seen in the lower left of this image. I mentioned it in the other thread, and I know Blender can do it, but I didn't find a satisfying example material in my quick search. While I think the Yafaray render engine might be able do this, there is no way to feed that in to the renderer in SH3D. (100% Sunflow can not do this.)
Thank you so much for sharing your source file. It was very... illuminating! (Ba-dum-tish! ) It's a heavy file, and makes my 3D view very, very sluggish. This is due in no small part to the rug model with 2 million faces.
As promised, I'm posting mine for people to compare and play with if they wish. (All materials/models are from BlenderKit.)
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Re: analysis of the capabilities of SH3D in comparison with Blender
Thanks sjb we need to continue this wild festival)). I tried to replace the roughness with a very thin transparent plate made of a bubble wall panel, it turned out interesting, but only if it was two or three boards. As soon as I scattered these miracle panels all over the floor, my computer stood up and said loudly: "But this is already without me." Point. It's impossible to make an easy scene with all the crazy ideas. There is a very strong barrier((. The crazy panel I flattened it to 1mm and glued it on top past the chamfers. Serious stuff, 11 MB I am now carefully feeling another render mode, it seems promising to me. Pathtracing. Reflections begin to appear there, but time increases and grain appears. The grain is removed by this parameter, highlighted in red, but if you add it, time is still added. I'm trying to come to an agreement)))
There's a yellow board over there. If you close one eye and squint the other, then you can barely see the reflection in the gray cube)))). We can consider this a triumph for today. The festival continues.