Boring GI/lightig...why?

[glorybound]

" open exr files" you need a plugin.

http://www.openexr.com

[Crayox13]

So...here's the living room
There still things to fix/adjust but for now I'm just into lighting...though, some fireflies appeared now near the curtains. Will have to see why.

[Ihno]

I dont have problems with fireflies anymore since I started using the low albedo approach.
Might be a problem of your diffuse textures.
Would you mind to post the rawDiffuseFilter element?

[Crayox13]

Of course. Never really used it before. So all this whites should be reduced?

Oh, and now I see you wrote raw....here are both...on raw, some other objects pop up as white.

[Crayox13]

Sorry, just realized exposure was turned on in vfb. Here's without it. Hm, now it doesn't look so bad.

[Ihno]

I don't want to talk too much about things I don't entirely understand but yes, white should be reduced. You've got some white books there and the brighter part of the ceiling should also be a bit darker I think.
In the thread I posted ^Lele^ (hope this summons him) said a matte white paint he measured had 0.6. I wouldn't go higher with most materials.

[^Lele^]

I exist to serve, master! (waves the sulfur fumes away, folds the horns...) ^^

Yep, you can find some hints on the "Albedo" of scanned materials in this thread:
https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...342#post824342

[Crayox13]

When I hover in VFB my ceiling has 0,439 value, so I guess that's ok, if that's what we are talking about. Although, there is a corrected value in red which says 0,694. So to get low albedo I should always check my textures and colour values in diffuse raw filter?

Should I try to use falloff maps more? I mean my walls are usually just white material. Sometimes I add bump.

So the thing is that I used to make scenes as photographs, that was my feel, then clients started saying how my ceiling and walls are grey instead of white (even though it looks natural to me, it doesn't to them). So I started using reinhard. Now I wanna go back...hopefully to mix both worlds. Have white walls/ceilings but also that nice contrast linear colour mapping gives.

Is there a description of low albedo approach, or is it just that what we talked about?

[Ihno]

I exist to serve, master! (waves the sulfur fumes away, folds the horns...) ^^

Thanks for this!

When I hover in VFB my ceiling has 0,439 value, so I guess that's ok, if that's what we are talking about. Although, there is a corrected value in red which says 0,694. So to get low albedo I should always check my textures and colour values in diffuse raw filter?

Must be something wrong with my photoshop or the image compression or something.
However, the uncorrected value is what to look at. The RawDiffuseFiIter is just the blank diffuse color/texture of your materials. Vray tries to roughly keep that value of reflectance in total, even if reflectivity chimes in.

Is there a description of low albedo approach, or is it just that what we talked about?

Its basically this (from the thread)

So, as a general guideline, one should start with very low overall albedos, typically even lower than one would think plausible (white cloth at max 0.6f ? check!), and one will soon find out that going up from a too low albedo is quicker to iterate (faster GI/Caustics!), and much more controlled and pleasant to the eye (too low albedo leads to high contrast, which slowly recedes as one nails the ranges), than doing it the other way around: because of light not extinguishing, and various skews, rendertimes explode, and contrast typically is nowhere to be found, and super hard to retrieve.

So the thing is that I used to make scenes as photographs, that was my feel, then clients started saying how my ceiling and walls are grey instead of white (even though it looks natural to me, it doesn't to them). So I started using reinhard. Now I wanna go back...hopefully to mix both worlds. Have white walls/ceilings but also that nice contrast linear colour mapping gives.

If your clients think your walls should be brighter than physically plausible you'd rather do it in post or with more light.
Because unphysical (especially too bright materials) screw the lighting which will lead to long rendertimes and an overall unphysical look. (and fireflys)
Edit:
Its all about tonemapping the hdri afterwards, and there are manny, manny different flavors of that.

[asifa]

Thanks for this!


Must be something wrong with my photoshop or the image compression or something.
However, the uncorrected value is what to look at. The RawDiffuseFiIter is just the blank diffuse color/texture of your materials. Vray tries to roughly keep that value of reflectance in total, even if reflectivity chimes in.


Its basically this (from the thread)




If your clients think your walls should be brighter than physically plausible you'd rather do it in post or with more light.
Because unphysical (especially too bright materials) screw the lighting which will lead to long rendertimes and an overall unphysical look. (and fireflys)
Edit:
Its all about tonemapping the hdri afterwards, and there are manny, manny different flavors of that.

..Hm this concept is still slightly confusing. I understand how to "lower the albedo" of a Bitmap loaded into the diffuse slot but i often make my material starting by putting a color into my diffuse slot (capture 2)... in this case, is the Value at the bottom or the color selector the albedo value? if not how do i use albedos lower then .60? Screen caps would be appreciated!!

[dean_dmoo]

I'm curious how you guys see this relative to the PG set-up recommended for PG HDRI's where reinhard is advised.

http://www.peterguthrie.net/blog/201...-for-interiors

[^Lele^]

It's from 2014, pre 3.3, so largely invalid, thanks to the change in sampler.
What remains true is that lower contrast images will converge quicker (quite universally so.), but at the expense of range, and visual credibility (see thread title.).