Here is an image I am currently working on. My focus so far has been on design changes and basic lighting and materials. Now that the design is more or less set I want to start tweaking the materials and lighting to become more realistic. Currently most of the materials don’t have glossy reflections, except for the glass. I would like some advice on render settings as well as material settings to pump up the contrast and reality of this scene. Thanks I am posting the current settings as well. I had an issue with facets so I pumped up the irr map subdivisions and samples and got rid of them but at quite a high cost as it takes about 24hrs to render, I know I know way too long - that is why I am here. I have about 7 Vray(plane) lights, 4 of them on the elevator at the far end, one in the middle of the large atrium space and the rest positioned at the windows, and a direct light with vray shadows for sun outside
Thanks in advance for any C&C - I might be interested in hiring someone to give me a hand with the lighting and materials as well so if your interested pm me. Thanks again.
Hi, I think that the best way for your scene is to make a real lighting , I mean just one yellow or warm ies sun in the extérior and add ieslight in all the lamp you have (first uncheck cast shadow).
after make a blue vray environment.
then exponential color mapping and hit render.
At first you need to test only with sun for the global lighting. It will be probably too dark and it’s normal increase a little dark mult and light togetter to catch the good balance, adjust also the sun power to have big near burning area, if all is dark no problem increase dark and light mult etc…
I know it’s very chaotic explained like that but it work let me know.
priad - I will give it a try as a test. Should I add an IES sky as well? Do you have a suggestion as far as IR map and other settings? Thanks. All other comments and suggestions are also welcomed. Thank you.
Not ies sky put a ies sun but IMO.
make preview with lightcache at 500 and irmap at -7/-5 50/20 this is very fast and you can view the global lighting after you can increase all the parameter etc…
Hope this can help you
3D-Wizrad - they are just regular jpgs with compression. They are not that big but I guess the site I post on has troubles with people viewing a lot. Keep trying intermitently and you will see them. thanks for the comment. I look forward to more once you can see the images.
Priad, just curious: why do you use IES sun? Are there any advantages compared to the standard, directional max light? I mean, in my mind, sun is the simplest light source: parallel rays, constant intensity and a little bit of colour.
Sun is more simple to manage, with direct you need to increase the diameter and to settup the color, with sun color adjust is better and there isn’t diameter, the sun unit are better too .
Elf - now that you mention it, it does look a little bright. Actually I think the lack of contrast may be the issue. There are a lot of burnt out areas and then some areas that are just bright. It is an atrium space with curtain wall from the top right all the way down the right wall and becomes full height down by the stairs - so I think it would be very bright.
I think the issue is materials and contrast in the lighting. My render times are long but fine for a final image. I fear once I add all my glossies they will become unmanageable. Thus the reason for the post and in part to possibly illicite some help with this aspect of my work. Outsourcing this may be the best for me as it is frustrating to take my work to a better level of realism.
Any other thoughts and all I have received to date are greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.
Quick test with your file:
Just one sun and setting like I have said in this post, render could be very improved with more work on texturing and modeling (I have change quasi only the lighting) and of course more work in light but it’s a start.
sorry for the big screenshot
I was just looking at your settings and noticed you are using IR/QMC. While you can get good results that way with really high settings, it will take way too long. I recently switch to IR/LC for my interiors and reduced render times by 3x with better quality.
It helped me understand the settings a lot better and now interiors have gotten much easier.
Also, to speed up your glossies, click “Use Interpolation”. Interpolation didn’t seem to work so well in older releases, but it is virtually indistinguishable from brute force glosssies now, and much faster.
Laurent - that looks much better already. thanks. yeah the materials definitely need some attention. It is a WIP so I have some time there but wanted to get lighting sorted a bit more. The original is lacking the contrast that I wanted. I’ll see if I can duplicate your result in VIZ 2005 thanks again.
Clifton - that would be awesome if I could reduce by 3x. I’ll give that tut a try and let everyone know how it worked out. thanks.
Again thanks to everyone for all the help. I will post updates as I get time to play around with the suggestions.
Laurent - what kind of photometric lights are you using there? I don’t think that is a standard light, from your wireframe - did you use a web light and load an ies file?
Did you add any reflection or anything to the floor? It looks a little glossy. What were the rendertimes like? Thanks
, I mean just one yellow or warm ies sun in the extérior and add ieslight in all the lamp you have (first uncheck cast shadow).
let me know.