Boring GI/lightig...why?

[Crayox13]

Hi guys,
I've been feeling lately that my scenes are really boring and look "old". I see these new renders of other people and their lighting really looks like it's coming through windows, my looks as though it's just there. I use standard techniques of either just making white rect lights on windows or using a dome with vraysky or hdri and vray light portal then on windows. All three techniques don't give me what I'm after.
Please take a look at this render of a kitchen or a living room, ok kitchen was a rush job so bad models too, but something else is missing too.

Also, the render of a hotel room, a bit better but still not up to todays standards. Please...any ideas? Am I missing something obvious?
Thanks in advance

[glorybound]

They all look good. I use HDRI's that I can use as a backplate so things look natural. For the kitchen, you might want to over expose things and the other two needs things to see outside. If my HDRI doesn't work then I put some trees and or houses to see through the glass. Since it is going to be over exposed anyway, it doesn't have to be accurate to the scene.

[Neilg]

It's got nothing to do with which technique you're using - the first one your sun isnt bright enough, the ambient light is too bright & even, and the background image is too dark. The second one your floor is too dark & some of the materials need some work to catch the light better. Third one isnt a great camera angle and the sun color doesnt match the ambient light color, your lamps are also brighter than the sun.
It's all down to art direction. make your images black and white and start brushing light and dark areas over in photoshop to make them more dramatic, then think of how to recreate that in 3d.

Edit: your dark materials are universally too dark, and your light materials are too light. they're contributing too much to your overall levels. if they were all pulled closer together your lighting would have more ability to control which areas are light and dark. right now all the light-dark range in your images exclusively comes from materials.
Make some scenes with a mid grey override material on everything and start by lighting that and getting that feeling nice - then reintroduce your materials and adjust them from there.

[prateekvishwa]

after certain stage it is more about post processing. i have seen basic quality raw renders turning into fabulous piece of art by appropriate use of post processing tools. And at that stage IMO it is more of art & creative skills as compared to technical skills. Between your work is good, i dont think it lacks GI etc

[AlexP]

What Neilg said

It also seems you need to decide what the main light source/vibe is going to be.
Is it going to be daytime, lit by the sun? is it going to be moody with mostly lighting from lamps? etc.

If its daytime with sun streaming in, turn off the lamps etc etc.

[particlerealities]

The hotel sitting area looks great - but I see an opportunity to dial back the exterior light to bring more attention to the interior accent lighting. Go for an evening scene, or even completely dark outside - that way we can't see what's outside (and you don't have to worry about perspective matching, etc), and we'll then see the interior reflecting off the glass. Your pendants over the fireplace seem to be completely off. Turn those puppies on! Once the exterior light is turned down, we'll be able to see the shelf lighting behind your book shelves, the can lights washing light down the shelving, the cans washing light over the curtains. I don't know if there's any lighting over the coffee table and/or ottoman, but you might need to add some so that area doesn't get too dark. Maybe add some candle flames to those candles(?) on the coffee table. Whatever's around the corner, make sure there's a little light back there so that doesn't look like a dark cave to nowhere. Is that a fireplace? How about adding some fire! Or at least a fake gas log set. And I just noticed the light cove in the ceiling. All your wonderful accent lighting is getting completely obliterated by the outside sunlight. I'm not really fond of those wall sconces, but I'd like to see the light wash a little further up/down the wall. They look really tiny in the overall scheme of things.

The bedroom scene - I'm having a hard time deciphering the architecture of the ceiling. It looks like some sort of boxed ceiling with 1" thick sides that perhaps has a pocket behind it that wraps the perimeter? If so, is that supposed to be a light cove behind it to wash light down the walls? If so, it's not coming across in your rendering. If it's part of the same rendering as the sitting area view, I'd again tone down the exterior lighting and bring more emphasis to your interior accent lights. The geometry of the headboard is getting lost somehow. What are we seeing outside the windows? Or is that a reflection of the rest of the room behind the camera? The pillows on the bed might look better if they were standing up & leaning against the headboard, instead of laying flat on the bed.

[Crayox13]

Thanks for comments guys. I am now making tests to please what clients want...so I've been reinharding my scenes like crazy
My way was always as camera would see it, they all prefer how eye would see it, plus they would like to see lights light the dayslight scene as if it's night, that's why often my lights are stronger than sun.

I've seen some renders that I absolutely love! Where you can feel where each light is coming from, and I'm trying to recreate those...but I can't find them now for reference.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the problem was using too much reinhard so my scenes got washed out. Will try to fix that.

Now I'm trying that kitchen scene with sun mult 0.1 and dome light with vray sky mult 10 so they even out more. I guess the same would be sky 100, sun 1.

[Ihno]

I'm not an archviz guy so I can't really tell you where to place lights and stuff. But I think the biggest problem might be the diffuse value.

As Neilg already mentioned.
The bright materials seem to be too bright.

I'm new to the low albedo approach. But it gave me instantly better renderings and render times. Also way more realistic feel to the light. And I have the feeling that I have more control over the light in total.

For now my wall white is 0,5 - 0,6. (until someone gives me a mesured value)

Here is a thread about that (listen to lele ):
https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...test-very-slow
Also very interesting: Bertrand's tutorial:
http://bertrand-benoit.com/blog/the-photographic-look/

And better dont touch the color mapping as it changes the way the light behaves.

Edid:
Haha, Just realized you already posted on that thread.

[Crayox13]

Hey, thanks for this. Actually I followed that thread but to be honest I wasn't sure how to apply those things in MAX, and my workflow. I already used lower values for whites, and higher values than 0 for blacks if that's what they meant.
What do you mean by 0,5 - 0,6 like in vray colour float value? Which would be about 128 rgb?
thx...oh and one thing I picked from Bertants tutorial - linear mapping instead of reinhard!! Now I finally have what I was after. I've switched to reinhard a couple of years ago and forgot to look back lol

[Crayox13]

Ok here's the newer render. Now I can finally play more. There is no colour mapping here, so the sun does burn a bit. What is the best way of dealing with this? Like load another layer with lower exposure of the same scene and paint over the burned areas or?
Also, my PS camera raw doesn't want to open exr files. How do you guys do it?

Oh, and this scene has a couple of softlights behind the camera to fill in a bit. Mult 6. The sun and the sky this time are both 1. Exposure is f 6.0, speed 40 similar to real world

Next I'll try with sunset atmosphere....and hdr.

[Ihno]

Yes I mean the float value. Float value in diffuse slot = albedo.
A material with float 1 will reflect all the light, 0.5 only the half 0.25 a quater and so on. ...As long as you don't touch the color mapping at least.

So, yes basically 128 but I rather use the rgb level parameter of the output node or the rgb level of the output section in the bitmap loader (or the vary HDRI loader.)
The reason is: If you declare 128 as your maximum white, you cut off the halve of the colors you're able to use.
While those "rgb level" parameters multiply in float space so the colors won't get lost.

This will give you the ability to still use the whole 8bit space from 0-255 (well from 8-255 because nothing is totaly black) also you don't have to rework all your textures.
For texture less materials I use the vray color node.

Edit: That looks way more realistic, you can deal with the burnouts in post.

[Syclone1]

Its definitely an improvement in your kitchen, If you are going to put a BG image in it then make sure that the camera angle/perspective matches the camera that you are using. The original kitchen looks like its being tilted when looking out side. Also you can slightly blur the BG image as well for a touch more realism. Lastly given that most of the kitchen has the flat cupboard doors I would add more accessories like a small hand towel and a coffee maker maybe to break up the sterile look from the cupboard doors and drawers.

For EXR's in PS Ive grown fond of http://www.exr-io.com/ for editing EXR files. Just download the plugin for your version of PS and you are good to go.

[Crayox13]

Can't believe I completely forgot and misunderstood linear vs reinhard...I thought the change was apparent only after I change the multipliers so I never even touched that. Ihno your link saved this and all other and new scenes I will be doing! I can't wait to remake them! Thanks so much...and blush, so retarded I didn't know that And this now is what I was after all along...it finally FEELS where the light is coming from. Argh...I was getting so frustrated...and after more then 10 years of doing this haha

Also thanks Syclone1 for the exr plugin, will help alot! Until I buy that plug in Bertrand mentioned in his article.

Here's the new version...next, playing with other scenes

[Ihno]

Funny how everything falls into a place when you treat it right isn't it?
I and, I think many others know the feeling of "god, I just did that one thing wrong the whole time" very well.

Very big improvement on that one! I'd love to see the other two after this and the feedback of the others!

[glorybound]

I save as 32 bit and then I can adjust everything in post. It doesn't matter if things are dark or light, I can balance it out in PS.