lighting help - pls - WIP

[pshupe68]

Here is an image of an interior space I am currently starting to set up. The materials are unimportant at this stage.

I am trying to get a nice balance of light before I get any further. I am having a problem with contrast. It seems too dark where there are no lights and too bright where there are. Specifically the burnt areas of drywall and carpet. I could lower the light source, which is a Vray plane for the middle skylight, and possibly the pots but that would reduce the bounce as well and thus the darker areas would get darker and the problem would remain.



VIZ 2005 with file linking from ADT 2004

I have a number of target spots for the pots with vray shadows and Vray lights, where there are windows or skylights.

BTW - My settings, attached, are pretty high because I just let it run overnight.

Questions:
1. How can I up the amount of ambient light without losing contrast? I found before just adding more fill lights seems to really flatten an image.


2. Should I set up my scene with all lights and adjust so that my whites are over bright and then dial down my white colour in the material? This way I won't have a problem later with whites becoming gray because I can't adjust my materials past 255,255,255?

3. I am using QMC because it seems pretty fast and I haven't used anything else. Would light cache for second bounce be preferable?

Any other comments to help out with this image are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Regards Peter.
image


Vray settings

[Candelero]

Try different colormapping and do some tests with the Dark / Bright values.
Your image looks like Linear type.

Best regards,
nikki Candelero

[pshupe68]

Candelero - It is linear. Is there a rule of thumb as to what the light and dark multiplier do? Seems a silly question, but I did play a little bit with that under linear and it didn't really seem to do too much? What colormapping would you recommend?? Thanks for the quick response.

Regards Peter.

[Candelero]

I would recommend the Expo or even more the Gamma.

For more details, refer to these links:
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...ic.php?t=13724
See the Tutorial section in the Gijs's web.

Best regards,
nikki Candelero

[s0real]

another thing you could try is rendering to the vray frame buffer rather than the native max buffer - that way you can adjust the curves / brightness of the image in the frame buffer before saving.

[siliconbauhaus]

read juju's post here mate

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...0854&start=175

[pshupe68]

Thanks guys - that sounds very interesting. I had taken a quick look at that a while ago but went - HUH? Re-reading it and juju's post it makes more sense and seems quite easy to give it a try. In theory anyway. We'll see. I'll give it a try and post my results. thanks for the help.

if anyone else has any suggestions I'm always open! Thanks again.

Regards Peter.

[pshupe68]

I'm having some issues with both juju's and also throb's tutorials.

I can get through throb's tut without issue but the results are disappointing. It gets lighter but seems to be very washed out. I might try higher settings as I have very low quality settings because I am trying to test quickly.

jujubee's tutorial seems straight forward and a little easier as there is no post work needed but couldn't figure out how to change the vray material slots - right clicks not working as noted, and also confused about the colorcorrect plugin?? Could be a MAX vs VIZ issue.

IF anyone has any insights to my problems I would greatly appreciate it.

Regards Peter.

[powerandrubber]

The color correct plugin is 3rd party and can be downloaded at

http://www.cuneytozdas.com/software/3dsmax/

Just put it in your plugins folder. The right click>copy thing doesn't work for me either, it must be only on newer versions of max/viz. I use viz4 and have to constantly scribble rgb values on a note pad.

[chicoone]

I use Viz 4 too. The Utilities panel/More and select Color Clipboard Utility. Then just drag drop the color there and after selecting CC just drag/drop from there again.

Also, only in the Viz render window; right click over the image does a copy of the color under pointer to a little box. That color can be dragged out too.

Ismael

[powerandrubber]

You just made my day, thanks!

[helpdesk]

I am wondering if you went to using Lightcache if you wouldn't wind up with a better solution..? Just a thought. I am using that mainly for interior work and really works out much better for the most part.

[pshupe68]

I have downloaded the color correct plugin and tested but I am still getting poor results. Even after adjusting the colors they still seemed washed out.

I switched over to Light Cache for secondary bounce and seems to have more colour bleed and a bit better contrast but it is not great still.

I will be doing some more test soon but any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone for their input especially jujubee.

Thanks again.

Regards Peter.

[jujubee]

Thanks - but we owe the 'new' method to Throb, Gijs, and Flipside too.

On that note- make sure you're not double correcting - render to Vray Frame Buffer and don't apply Throb's curve with the method I outlined.