Making Scene More Convincing in Octane

[Adept 1]

Hi! I am working on an animation that I am having take place indoors. I have been modeling and texturing part of the scene, and have been fairly happy with the modeling, but the renders just look a little off. I am going for a fairly realistic look, at least enough to sell it in a busy animation (not too focused on the scene/still shots) but the lighting seems funny and it just doesn't look right. Is there anyone that is more experienced at stuff like this that can help give me some tips on what to change or any tricks or techniques you use to get your scenes to look more realistic? Thanks!

 

Renders: 
https://gyazo.com/706f520f2ab234cccc0a2826382b3e0b
https://gyazo.com/7e1e4e6d91a4f8c7430e545889b266d1
https://gyazo.com/cce280abf5b034ff7775053f5c2ed354
https://gyazo.com/717fcfe970997da761a7da39af96daef

 

Keep in mind this is still a wip so I am still adding new things such as dirt on the floor and more clutter on the ground :)

[EAlexander 19]

Overall, it feels dim.  Which kernel are you using?  Try switching to Path Tracing if you aren't already and you should get more light bouncing around.  One thing that really stands out to me is that a lot of your corners are sharp 90 degree edges which don't actually existing in nature.  With a mathematical 90 degree corner, the light doesn't fall naturally and you don't get highlights on edges.  Try spending some time beveling edges - this will help some.  I feel like post processing can help you pull a lot more lighting into this, so think about how you want to treat it after it's rendered.  Just some Curves adjustment layers can go a long way or even playing with exposure right in your octane camera.

[Adept 1]

13 minutes ago, EAlexander said:

Overall, it feels dim.  Which kernel are you using?  Try switching to Path Tracing if you aren't already and you should get more light bouncing around.  One thing that really stands out to me is that a lot of your corners are sharp 90 degree edges which don't actually existing in nature.  With a mathematical 90 degree corner, the light doesn't fall naturally and you don't get highlights on edges.  Try spending some time beveling edges - this will help some.  I feel like post processing can help you pull a lot more lighting into this, so think about how you want to treat it after it's rendered.  Just some Curves adjustment layers can go a long way or even playing with exposure right in your octane camera.

Yeah, these were in DL, and I tried switching to PT and saw a large improvement. Ill go try beveling some edges and see if that helps. I knew that 90 degree corners aren't physically correct, but I had never thought of how it can highlight edges, and that subtle thing could make a difference... Thanks! And yes, I was planning on doing some post editing in After Effects when I finish rendering the animation. I'm not sure how experienced you are with Octane, but switching to PT does slow the render time considerably, so do you know of any ways to fix this but keep the noise levels down? Here are my settings: https://gyazo.com/fed35db13ed48c7cdb2ca2e92284e849

[EAlexander 19]

The settings look pretty good to me - I don't think you can do much there.  Going from DL to PT just takes more math to resolve it.  It's like turning on GI in physical - you can optimize a lot, but you are still going to take a hit on render time.  Make sure your scene is as optimized as possible from a geometry and material standpoint. This is pre-Octane, but still a good read: http://www.mattfrodsham.com/how/#/c4d-scene-speed-index/