interior render example to share

[andybot_cg]

Hi All, I've been trying to figure out how to set up lighting to get clean, quick renders in the current vray (3.4) I think I finally have a scene that's working the way I want it to (my tip - ditch the dome light and add area light portals or softboxes.) I am happy to share this scene file so anyone can poke around/ comment/ ask questions. Enjoy!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...2-packed.blend

Andy

[JuhaW]

Thanks Andy, I'll check it out.

[marcoz]

Something about your hardware?

[andybot_cg]

Something about your hardware?

As in what I use? I've got a pretty old AMD 6 core workstation (3-odd Ghz) and crappy graphics card that I will upgrade one of these days :P I also have a second workstation with the same mobo and 8 core AMD as a slave, and then a Boxx RenderPro with 2x 8 core Xeons (2.6 Ghz). So I have 46 cores with DR (Xeon's are multithreaded)

[glorybound]

I found out a couple projects ago that HDRI dome light and interiors are not a good match. I think they look better, but if you don't have time you should do the window plane lights.

[andybot_cg]

I found out a couple projects ago that HDRI dome light and interiors are not a good match. I think they look better, but if you don't have time you should do the window plane lights.

Yeah, I was fighting it for a long time, since I really like the light cast by the dome light, but it was just impossible to clean up the render. I do wonder if something changed under the hood with 3.4, as I don't recall having as much of an issue earlier.

[glorybound]

The Denoiser has been a god sent for me. I can render with low test settings, but get clean renders from it.

[GarbageDweller]

hey andy!!

Just wanna say again I really REALLY appreciate you posting this!! This has already been extremely helpful for me!! I do have a couple questions. How are you able to get vray 3.4?? I am looking at my vray standalone builds and it appears that 3.3 is the highest version I can get ahold of when I go to download on chaosgroups site. Where are you downloading from? Also for some reason when I render your scene the textures dont show up; are they supposed to? Or can you not provide those textures for legal purposes etc?


Also quick question for you glorybound; can you briefly explain what the denoiser does and how i can use it? That sounds particularly useful to me!

Thanks guys!
Also

[glorybound]

Denoiser is an element. Bascially, in post, it'll remove noise in your image.

[GarbageDweller]

Seems straightforward; can you just attach the denoiser node to a channel slot and it will "activate"? Also what makes the denoiser in vray any different than just using the denoiser tools in photoshop? Does it produce a better result straight out of vray?

[andybot_cg]

hey andy!!

Just wanna say again I really REALLY appreciate you posting this!! This has already been extremely helpful for me!! I do have a couple questions. How are you able to get vray 3.4?? I am looking at my vray standalone builds and it appears that 3.3 is the highest version I can get ahold of when I go to download on chaosgroups site. Where are you downloading from? Also for some reason when I render your scene the textures dont show up; are they supposed to? Or can you not provide those textures for legal purposes etc?


Also quick question for you glorybound; can you briefly explain what the denoiser does and how i can use it? That sounds particularly useful to me!

Thanks guys!
Also

Super! Glad to hear it's helpful. Regards current build, you need to ask support for access to the nightly builds.

The textures are packed in the scene, I think you may need to unpack and make local. Let me know if it doesn't work and I can put a folder of textures online to share as well.

Yes, the denoiser acts as another render element, you just add it in your node setup. It automatically adds a bunch of other elements that enable it to filter out the noise it needs to reduce from the scene lighting, geometry, and textures. Also real helpful for DOF blur.

[GarbageDweller]

Oh yeah! I actually do have access to the nightly builds if you are referring to to the nightlies.chaosgroup website. I installed the newest one there.

As for textures, unpacking the blend file worked like a charm!!

So I did a test render of your scene by default and the result you get looks like your 3rd image you posted with the lights producing the hottest result. How would I go about getting the first 2 results? In particular I would love love LOVE to know how to set up the atmospheric light you displayed in the first render.

[andybot_cg]

So I did a test render of your scene by default and the result you get looks like your 3rd image you posted with the lights producing the hottest result. How would I go about getting the first 2 results? In particular I would love love LOVE to know how to set up the atmospheric light you displayed in the first render.

I don't have the file in front of me now, so going from memory. The fog is already set up in the file. I believe I just have the container "cube" turned off to rendering (see outliner, you can disable/enable rendering for any individual object but clicking on the little camera icon). Make sure the fog nodes are also connected in the world node. (For another goodie, there's also a mesh light object "hidden" in the scene.)

I think I left the GI settings on bf/lc. The other render would have been with irradiance map and lc. Unless it's vice versa I've got a set of preset global render settings I use to switch the render parameters. I can post those when I have a chance.

[GarbageDweller]

ahh ive been super busy and didnt get a chance to respond to this. I didn't realize how simple it was to set up a basic atmospheric effect! I can't wait to try that in my own scenes. Also I found that meshlight on the cieling fan, another useful example of lighting. It's cool that you have several examples of different types of lighting all over this scene!

I have a bunch of random WIPs of interior scenes I have picked up and put down; I'll have to apply what ive learned here to them. Can I ask if you have a portfolio posted up somewhere? I'd love to take a look at other renders youve done!

And by the way, I am still interested in creating some sort of wiki! I will look into that as soon as I can.

[andybot_cg]

ahh ive been super busy and didnt get a chance to respond to this. I didn't realize how simple it was to set up a basic atmospheric effect! I can't wait to try that in my own scenes. Also I found that meshlight on the cieling fan, another useful example of lighting. It's cool that you have several examples of different types of lighting all over this scene!

Glad it's useful! I've got a bunch of different test scenes too, and I thought I'd drop in those bits and pieces into this one scene.

Can I ask if you have a portfolio posted up somewhere? I'd love to take a look at other renders youve done!

Sure, I try to keep this site up to date: http://charlottesvillearchitecturalrendering.com/
Most of the renders on there are done in Vray for Sketchup, but I've got a few Blender projects on there too, like the landscape one with the bridge. There's also a video I did a few years back, this was with Vray for Blender, Vray 2.5 and Blender version was 2.6 something - before nodes: https://vimeo.com/68403736