Light Source

[glorybound]

With exterior images I usually place my light source 45 degrees from my camera and rarely behind the camera. I am not experienced with interiors... do you ever want your light source behind the camera? I have an interior with a view looking at exterior windows. I am way back in the room so it is kind of dark where I am standing. It seems that a fill light behind me would work, but I don't want to flatten my image. is there any rules-of-thumb?

[joconnell]

Either buy an slr camera or get yourself a few good interiors magazines. you'll get a far better idea of how people are exposing for commercial interior photos which is really what you're aiming for. I'd try and get a few magazines where they use a similar style of architecture and most importantly building materials as your renders - you seem to get a lot of very warm, medium toned woods used in your clients work so if you can find a few glossy magazines with similar images they'll be a great guide - even some good shots on flickr or whatever.

If you're inside looking out, then there's no camera that can expose that image correctly having detail both inside and outside. For your camera to take a correct photo inside, it'll have to measure correctly for the amount of light inside. The light outside however will be many times brighter and so anything you see out the window is going to be totally burnt out. Expose your camera for what it is you're supposed to be featuring and let the rest burn out as it would in real life, or use reinhard to make the transition a little less harsh. If you've got an extremely long room with windows at one end you're quite right that it'll be dark down the end away from the windows - the materials are gradually absorbing the light bouncing along at each step so by the time it reaches where you have your camera, it'll be a bit darker than by the window. they'll have to take this into account in the real building too so there'll have to be some light fittings to illuminate the dark end of the room. Are there even anything like door ways behind where your camera is that would let light in? And a big soft fill light isn't the worst thing in the world either - it's more general ambient light and can be quite flattering at times when at ceiling level.

[glorybound]

Thanks for the fast reply! I actually have a book shelf of photography book on both interior and exterior, but I guess I wasn't paying attention when reading about interior work, since i don't do a lot of interiors. I thin i am getting it and I'll post something when I get it.

[joconnell]

I'd say see how far you can get with just the light spilling in through the window, and then gradually turn on the ceiling lights toward the back of the room to even it out.

[glorybound]

can you directly tell v-ray how many times to bounce? isn't 2 bounces the default?

[joconnell]

If you use light cache as your secondary, it'll effectively bounce infinitely until it doesn't make a meaningful contribution anymore. For filling a room with light, there's no better option than LC as a result.

[glorybound]

yes. i am using LC as the secondary bounce. I think I am getting good results now

[joconnell]

To be honest I can't see much reason to use any other type of of secondary, especially in interiors - it handles animation very gracefully and while you don't get the crispness of brute force, your secondary bounce is always quite soft anyway.