Advise best render technique for exterior color realism: raytrace or pb, sunlight setting

[GeneDavis]

Client wants to see exterior colors and I've done all her versions of combos of siding and trim.  What is best for rendering true colors?  I have the sun set for location and time zone and the north arrow is true.  

 

Raytrace?

 

Physically based?

 

And should sunlight lux remain at the OOB 100,000?  If not then what?

[robdyck]

IMO, physically based. Sounds like you've got a bit of a learning curve ahead of you though.

[GeneDavis]

Chief is pretty short with tutorials on raytrace videos.  Kind of amazing.

 

But they do say that for exteriors, physically based is not what to do.  CPU raytrace is what they say to use.

[robdyck]

1 hour ago, GeneDavis said:

CPU raytrace is what they say to use.

Then you should do that. Chief really knows their stuff when it comes to renderings!!

[GeneDavis]

Not helpful, Rob.  I'm not a downvoter, but . . . 

[basketballman]

1 hour ago, GeneDavis said:

Not helpful, Rob.  I'm not a downvoter, but . . . 

Not sure what he did wrong; please elaborate ??

[scottharris]

For exterior renderings, I have found better results using the CPU raytrace v. PBR.

[Kbird1]

On 6/17/2023 at 7:31 AM, GeneDavis said:

But they do say that for exteriors, physically based is not what to do.  CPU raytrace is what they say to use.

 

Actually PBR-RTRT is not bad in X15 since they added the Denoiser, for me that is a game changer for RTRT , 500-1000 samples , and the Denoiser cleans up the Glass etc.

 

You do need to play with the sun still, try 10,000 and lower so as not to "burnout" the background, if just using a color like a very light blue to simulate sky, this will show as the background being very dark  ( grey / black ) , you may also need to disable Refraction , depending on Reflections wanted  ( or not ) etc too along with the reflective properties ( roughness ) of your materials and a number of other settings as well.

 

The big caveat here is that the Colors will rarely look like the Color Chips from BM, SW etc of the average computer Monitor or even some expensive ( oversaturated ) monitors so make sur eyou have a disclaimer about that on any renderings.

 

Mick.

 

 

[DeLayDesign]

In X14 I relied heavily on the CPU raytracer, only because the PBR has issues with shadows not showing up from 2D plants but they do show up with CPU render, so in that regard CPU worked perfectly especially if you add in corrected sun properties and turn off the lights in the home when you run daytime renders.

 

That being said, in X15 I started using 3D plants more - although the texture files the plants come with need to be modified by @ChiefArchitectbecause they come off really "bright" when the "sun" hits them.  The grass tool is one of my favorites because it adds another layer of realism to the design, except - grass doesn't load in the CPU render.  At least it didn't the last time I tried it; so I'm forced to use PBR.

 

[Kbird1]

14 minutes ago, DeLayDesign said:

except - grass doesn't load in the CPU render.  At least it didn't the last time I tried it; so I'm forced to use PBR.

 

Chief confirmed in another Thread that the new "procedural grass" I think he called it, only works in PBR Views and will never work in the CPU RT.

 

* Nice Images though, hopefully those "sold it for you  

 

M.