Daytime, exterior lighting set ups for non-linear workflow...

[judderman]

I'm getting a little frustrated with my boss constantly describing that he doesnt like my daytime lighting set up, and when he tries to explain what it is he wants or what he finds wrong with my render, he's unable to.

Here's what I do.

Try not to have white areas bleach out too much, and the shadowed areas not to be too dark. I usually use a vray sky and sun and physical camera, put the sun at about 0.8 intensity, or maybe lower depending on the scene and the physical camera with exposure on and vignetting off. If the dark areas are a bit dark, I might increase the brightness multiplier in the scene by 0.1, or I might even stick a random light in there, out of the view of the camera, just like a big white card you'd see on a movie set, again, just depending on the scene. It seems to work for me. I usually use linear multiply with clamp output and subpixel mapping. The vray sky is in the environment slot.

I use adaptive dmc and usually brute force if i'm split-scanlining.

It's pretty normal lighting I think, and seems to work okay for me.

I'd love to know, if I'm doing something grossly wrong here with my set up. How do other people set up their typical 2-3pm summer sunlight lighting? Also for a non-linear workflow.

Before I lose it with my boss :s

[elivnA]

Got any render to show?

[duke2]

Yeah an example would help. Do you keep the render "warm"? If it looks cold, play with white balance until your whites are a tiny tiny tiny bit on the side of yellow.

[judderman]

I'll upload an example at the end of today - or at the weekend!

[tammo]

Maybe he wants the pictures to look like they where taken on a hot summer day?
That would make the shadows very dark and have lots of contrast.
I even turn of secondary GI to get more contrast in my exteriors.

[Neilg]

I turn my sun off, and slowly boost the environment multi until whites are rendering a mid-blue tint... The I turn the sun on, and boost the multi on that until the whites are just about burning out.

I do the reflection env seperatly too, usually twice as bright as the env.

[duke2]

I turn my sun off, and slowly boost the environment multi until whites are rendering a mid-blue tint... The I turn the sun on, and boost the multi on that until the whites are just about burning out.

I do the reflection env seperatly too, usually twice as bright as the env.

You non-physically correct deviant! But yeah I always override the reflection env with an HDRI that's quite a bit brighter than the environment.

[marek.kowalski]

Hi Judderman

I find the default vray sky brightness level unnaturally dark compared to the sun. This results in burned out whites and very dark shadows.

What you want to do is to increase the sky brightness. One nice way of going about it is using VrayCompTex. Have your sky in slot A and play with suitable sky gradient ramp in the B.

Hope this helps

[jujubee]

Imo, the best thing to do is to take a photo on a sunny day of some homes or buildings, or download some images from the web and use them as a constant reference.

[duke2]

Imo, the best thing to do is to take a photo on a sunny day of some homes or buildings, or download some images from the web and use them as a constant reference.

Good point, but make sure you get good/professional ones. Photos aren't always taken in ideal settings for marketing shots. I suggest you get them from a realtor's website. The higher end properties will have more money put into them/their marketing/photography rather than the agent taken a happy snap on a Tuesday morning.

[jujubee]

If you have a decent eye, you can pretty much sort through Google images. I had to do that recently for one dusk shot.

I matched it quite accurately, then the client came back to me and set the house looked like it was on fire...