Daylight help please.

[davision]

Okay, here's the deal. There are many problems with this model. But time is running out and overall it's good enough for my purposes. The one thing I want to get right is the lighting. This is part of an animation so I'm going for fast versus great... so no GI. I have a sun (direct light) with a slight yellow tint. The shadows have a subtle blue tint.

There is also a light blue dome light for fill light. Lastly I have a few dim omnis underneath for bounce light. There is no color mapping or any of that nonsense.

As you can see it looks wrong. Rather than tweak this thing all day -- I thought I'd get advice from people who can do this better than I can.

Feel free to critique other aspects of the model -- but believe me, I know there are plenty of problems. The lighting is the biggest annoyance for me right now.

Thanks

[jujubee]

Please post your camera, light, and render settings.

[davision]

I figure the best way is to provide a greatly simplified version of the file.



http://home.comcast.net/~mncdavis/st...light_vray.zip


The zip file has the .max file and a few textures. The file also uses the ColorCorrect plugin for the grass (not included).

Note: I just realized the rendering come from camera 'C Window' at frame 1680 -- (in case you want to reproduce it).

[jacksc02]

without opening the file, you should adjust the angle of your sun. It looks like it is directly overhead. If you adjust the angle of the sun you will get some better shadows from the building.

[DaForce]

The textures may not be helping the situation either.

Anyway, I will have a look at your file shortly.. next couple of hours.

[add101]

there is a way to save irradiance maps and light cache maps for animations. ir and lc aren't re-calculated each frame. there is a tutorial on this method in the help files for vray.
seems kind of wierd to use vray without GI.

nice house.

i just tried taking all the extra lights outs (just kept direct light) and turned GI on, and render went from 1minute 18 seconds to 45 seconds. with a saved map it would be even quicker.
grass looks really bright without that plugin.

if you haven't checked tutorial on saving maps for animation, it could be really useful for this.

[ngrava]

what you have there is about as good as you can expect it to look without using GI. I agree that a little more angle on the sun light will make a much better composition.

[ngrava]

i just tried taking all the extra lights outs (just kept direct light) and turned GI on, and render went from 1minute 18 seconds to 45 seconds. with a saved map it would be even quicker.
grass looks really bright without that plugin.

if you haven't checked tutorial on saving maps for animation, it could be really useful for this.

Yeah, that's the funny thing about GI. You are much better off with less lights then more. Which it sort of opposite of what experienced Lighting TDs at places like Pixar and ILM would tell you.

[davision]

Thanks for the suggestions.

You're probably right about the sun angle. But honestly, my biggest problem with the lighting (other than lack of GI) was the color.

To me, it just doesn't look right -- but I can't put my finger on it. It might be too yellow -- but I'm not sure why since I'm using just a tiny bit of yellow in my sun (direct light). If I lessen it, it starts to get really white and look very artificial.

Somewhere in the balance of a yellow sun, its shadow color and blue in the dome light is the right mix. But I just can't seem to find it.

[priad]

A typical exterior lighting is more yellow than blue.
try try to decrease your second bounce this might help you to catch the good light.
Try also to sharpness your shadows a bit.

PS:my cat is too tired now hehe

[Sawyer]

Played a bit with lighting levels and I removed the textures just used a bump. It may be too light now but the materials are not set so...