Thea Rendering - what am I doing wrong?

Came in the second time - Big model 179MB !

Here is a Thea render, I didn’t spend too much time or do a whole lot to the model.

A few notes:

Unless the reflections on the window are critical it is sometimes better to remove the glass as the light calculations going thru glass can be a burden on render time.

The cabinets were at a default material, it’s better to apply a material so that it can be controlled. I applied a high gloss white and roughened it a bit. Then the walls and ceilings can be done in a light grey, they will still read as white but will make some contrast so the cabinets pop.

Also, it is good to make small gaps around cabinet doors, drawers etc.to define the doors, otherwise a line in sketchup doesn’t render and will otherwise look like one continuous surface. You can output a monochrome with linework Sketchup image and then overlay that in Photoshop to add a bit of that detail too.

Try to use the Thea materials where possible, otherwise go into the material editor to add reflections, bump etc. Sketchup textures dont always translate well as they dont have any reflection/bump properties. Enscape does automatically attempt to give relevant properties providing the right word is in the texture name.

I also added some fill lights inside the room with a couple of ies lights as if from the glass globes on the ceiling, otherwise the scene is trying to light to whole room from sunlight and bounce. Even in real life, this would be a high contrast scene so would need some lighting added to fill.

I also used “Filmic” not “standard” as it renders a bit more realistically.(exposure/tonemapping)

I did use the sun in the first instance but without ambient light. Sometimes for interiors it’s better to make your own sunlight source as its more controllable. 2 nd one shows that kinda look.

I’d also note that there aren’t too many “one-click” render solutions. I’d liken rendering to a musical instrument. Rarely can a novice pick up an instrument and get a good tune out of it, rendering is somewhat similar and requires a lot of learning and practice to get good results. I’ve used this for years and am still learning nuances. Understanding textures is important as well as photography, you’re kinda in a black hole and have to apply lights in the right positions and balance them in values and quality to make the scene look real.


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