Sun+Sky+Physcam or not?

[duke2]

Since the beginning i've stuck to this and LWF, but i'm not entirely convinced that it's the way to go. If I want to increase contrast, I need to mess around with several exposure settings. If I want to increase Sun strength, again I need to mess around with several settings and hope it doesn't bust something else.

I haven't really thought this through too much, I'm sure there are so many upsides to this later method of physical accuracy, but I'm curious to know if anyone has stuck with the older methods of standard cameras and a Directional light for the sun?

[Neilg]

I use standard cameras, sun & sky (just because the sky is like a bare HDRI I can overlay cloud images onto) and hardly bother using LWF (Only on a job where i'll be rendering to floating point - which is very rare concept-y stuff).

Manually adjusting the brightness of the sun & sky is all you need to get good light levels, adding 30 camera controls and changing the way that vray displays colours is excessive for a lot of things, especially architecture (unless youre camera matching, of course).

[Morne]

I have to agree
this LWF is over-rated. Most of the time you have to adjust stuff in post when using LWF. Doesnt come out nice from RAW render in my experience

[ene.xis]

I have to agree
this LWF is over-rated. Most of the time you have to adjust stuff in post when using LWF. Doesnt come out nice from RAW render in my experience

i disagree...but thats just me!

fact is i throw in a vray sun and sky set up the vray camera with lele's exposimeter* hit render save to exr open in photoshop and make small adjustments**...easy as 1,2,3 IMO.
even when dealing with artificial lighted spaces i just set the correct luma value and done...no more endless render-tweak-render-tweak-render-tweak...

*actually i dont...anyone who likes photography can easily set up a vray camera in no time, even those who aren t that familiar with all those settings quickly get into it.
and i m not gonna talk about physical dof or motion blur....

**not to mention floating point possibilities

hope no one takes me wrong...i don t want to start another 10 pages nonsense thread...

[glorybound]

V-Ray Cam/Sky/Sun

I have seen some great results with both. Some of the best images I have seen set the sun to a .03 intensity or something. I usually place a v-ray camera in my scene with my v-ray sun/sky. I also use the exposure meter and tweak until everything is exposed properly. The SolidRock preview window makes quick work of seeing what is over exposed.

My humble opinion is, after a year of using v-ray, v-ray is just a tool and it is the artist that makes a good image. I know that sounds cheezy, but I have learned it to be true. Look at this guys work (www.d-e-s-i-g-n.ru). I see tons of tiling and anybody can model these days, so what makes his images awesome? I think it is the composition, the use of shadows and light, and he seems to set a mood. He also adds a ton of detail, which implies he uses a render farm or something to get those settings high enough to matter.

Just my 2 cents

[ene.xis]

agreed!


...

[zeronove]

I don't see that "tons of tiling"...

[glorybound]

Tiling

It is riddled with tiling. I would never get away with that . I scratch my head wondering how an image can be so nice, yet be so flawed. I am going to study his work and learn some stuff.

[stevesideas]

It makes me want to give up when I see so many great images. The lighting and texturing is awesome.

Ive ditched the vray physical camera. In my opinion it was just another thing that added more variables and time to my projects. Too much tweaking. So I just bring down the multiplier value of the sun and use a standard camera.

What is it that makes those images look so good ??? Maybe we can all get in on disecting and learning...

[glorybound]

Good image?

In his images I see 3 things that set him apart. Vegetation is great, lighting is wonderful, and design with a lot of eye candy. Personally I do a lot of boxes with gables... so boring is almost imposable to create anything stunning.

I would think he has a good machine which allows him to set settings high, but I am not sure. I followed a post on a project over at Evermotion and I was amazed to find out she did this image on an old laptop. Maybe it is not a good machine, but optimizing your scene to get better images with less horsepower.

[duke2]

I was playing about with Sun+Sky+standard camera last night. I think i'm going to give it a go on the next project. The immediate advantage to me is that I can use ortho camera. Maybe i'll check out exposimeter aswell. As for physical DOF/MB, i've never needed either and for either a high res still or animation I can't see myself using physically accurate/sampled DOF/MB. Post DOF and Reelsmart Motion Blur all the way baby!

[ene.xis]

Ive ditched the vray physical camera. In my opinion it was just another thing that added more variables and time to my projects. Too much tweaking. So I just bring down the multiplier value of the sun and use a standard camera.

I personally disagree! vraycam is just a standard manual camera...stick to lele's fabulous exposimeter and u got yourself a AE...1,2,3
my 2 cents

[zeronove]

In his images I see 3 things that set him apart. Vegetation is great, lighting is wonderful, and design with a lot of eye candy. Personally I do a lot of boxes with gables... so boring is almost imposable to create anything stunning.

I would think he has a good machine which allows him to set settings high, but I am not sure. I followed a post on a project over at Evermotion and I was amazed to find out she did this image on an old laptop. Maybe it is not a good machine, but optimizing your scene to get better images with less horsepower.

may I ask you a link to the post you mentioned above?

thanx

[Neilg]

As for physical DOF/MB, i've never needed either and for either a high res still or animation I can't see myself using physically accurate/sampled DOF/MB.

You dont need to use a physical camera for either of these - motion blur tends to be easier with vray if you use standard cameras too.

[ene.xis]

motion blur tends to be easier with vray if you use standard cameras too.

can you elaborate?