Lightning help

[abronee]

Hi everyone.

I have a scene with a moon where I would like to create an illusion of some sort of self illumination. I will post an attachment of what I mean and what I'm trying to replicate. I have tried placing standard vray lights infront of it, but it doesnt really work very well.
I could do this in post, but I would prefer having it done in my render. I hope someone has a great idea for this!

Thanks!

[damaggio]

Use a sphere mapped with illumination or a plane with a picture like you have and self illumination and transparency You can use environment fog to blow out the glow, you can use a light disc , you can play with bloom effects too... try some of these options .

[abronee]

Hi damaggio - thanks for your ideas. I've been playing around with it now, and I found that making it a Vray mesh light actually works the best. How ever, it also gives my mesh jaggy edges (somehow..?) even though subdivion is on in my shape node (the moon on my originally posted image is perfecttly round). Would you know why?

[damaggio]

Honestly, the esiest way is just to have the moon and glow painted on the sky with stars, this is nothing more than a backing, you can then add some fog and the moon light.

[damaggio]

Is the foliage rendering faster now with Clip opacity?

[damaggio]

[abronee]

I know that I could do all my BG and Moon work in post, and I might end up doing that - its just nice to have and look at when developing the look and lightning etc. More importantly, its a school project, so I would like to improve myself inside the 3D softwares, rather than doing PS which im a lot better in. So by doing 90% of the work inside Maya and Vray, I learn more about 3D and tackling problems.

Yes trees are faster with CLIP, but some areas have a rough time when rendering (those areas bring in a lot of noise which i can see from the sampler rate)

edit: I got pretty much the same result with a Vray light material, and the geo is subdividing properly now, so thats good!

[damaggio]

I didnt say "in post"' you do it on camera

[damaggio]

You could also remove any reflectivity on the trees since they are not visible, it's all just a silhouette , that might render faster.
Also remember to color correct the moon to match the background better.

[abronee]

I didnt say "in post"' you do it on camera

Ah, so just add the moon to my sky BG, I understand now. my bad. But I got the VrayMesh light to work, so thats good now.

About the reflectivity, is actually something I'm missing from the concept I am "replicating" from and I'm not sure how to deal with it, since we see them from behind pretty mcuh.

[damaggio]

All right, good luck with the scene.Cheers

[damaggio]

The highlights on the pine trees are not gonna work since the trees needles are cards.

[abronee]

The highlights on the pine trees are not gonna work since the trees needles are cards.

When you say cards, do you then mean that they are cut out with an alpha?

Cheers, and thanks for your input!

[damaggio]

I assume your trees in the back are cards with transparency so there’s no way for the light to catch on the pine needles as in real life.

[abronee]

I assume your trees in the back are cards with transparency so there’s no way for the light to catch on the pine needles as in real life.

Yes correct - hmm, gonna be hard to replicate that then