Lighting environments

[jeremybirn]

That screen-left corner looks harsh and sharp, and not as continuous as the others in the room. The bevels are important to your lighting: finish them before you light.

Think about what the light sources will be - is it the fire? Are there lamps on? Light through the window? A light somewhere we don't see, like behind the camera or hidden up in the ceiling? If you want them to be within the room, in a visible place, then model the actual lamps.

Just work on the light from the main source(s) first, like a lamp or fire or window, and leave the rest of the room black. Don't start adding any overall fill or bounce lighting or simulated radiosity until you know how your key light and any main practical lights will look. In fact, why don't you post an image with just your main lights in place as the next version, so we can see what you're going for.

-jeremy

[tonami]

My goal is to light room from window with a soft ambient lighting, almost radiosity.

I made one spot light with shadow map as my key light. I add one area light on floor facing up as my bounce light. One spot light from ceiling face down as a bounce light.

In window I put one spot facing the back door and one spot facing the front door (camera is looking through front door in render), I put one spot in the back door right corner of room and one spot in the front door right corner.

Only key light has shadow. All else no shadow.

The result is here.

I do not understand how to create soft light, I am trying to do nice well lighted room but right now looks very CG, not like a radiosity or soft light effect.

I could not turn on shadow on any of the other light as well, because when I do that the room become too dark. Right now if I increase the brightness of the lights coming from window, the window area becomes too bright, but the rest of the room is not bright enough.

If I put a light in the middle of the room to light the right side also is quite noticeable.

May I ask for some more guidance ?

Image updated below

[jeremybirn]

I know you're looking forwards to creating a soft "simulated radiosity" look, but we have see where the light is hitting directly before we can talk about where it bounces. Could you show us a rendering lit by your key light alone, no other lights, as a starting point? If the key is motivated by a window, show a good render of the window area. If parts of the image are dark or unlit that's OK, just post and image lit only by your key light.

-jeremy

[tonami]

Hi Jeremy,

I've attach my key light only render. The second render is when i insert two bounce light. One is on the floor casting up. This one has shadow turn off, if not, creates a lot of unnatural shadow facing upwards of all the objects. Is use to illuminate ceiling.

The second light is from the center ceiling cast down, is use to illuminate rest of room, has shadow turn on although causes some problem, makes the inside room look like has separate light because is brighter than the key light.

I remove all the rest of the lights, trying to proceed from here.

I have thought about whether fireplace should cast light, I want it to but only work on it after key light and room is properly lighted. Fireplace light should only be a little bit of glow.

Image updated below

[lazzhar]

If you choose your camera position then it would be easier for you to start lighting. Just try to render the second picture you posted here with only the key light that comes from the left window, and make sure it casts shadows. You should be able to see a part of your floor lit, in the center of this part add a bounce light tinted with the color of your floor. I'd use a point light for that.

[jeremybirn]

Yes, please stop moving your camera and compose a shot, including the window. Are all the big black things going to be windows? If so, get the views in them first, before you start lighting to match them!

On your key light image: The sun should be brighter on the areas closer to the window, at least as bright as it is on the floor. The specular highlight on the floor is nice, but maybe you should split that out to a separate light so it can flow outside the shadow of the window like a real reflection of the window would.

Next steps after the key:

2. Fill light representing sky light through the window(s) - you wouldn't have sunlight like that without a sky! It'll be more blue, enough to balance with the yellow sunlight and make white, much softer with softer shadows, covering much broader area from more angles than the sun. Sometimes several spot lights are needed to get the sky fill.

3. Window Area Bounce lights: Start with the window area, soft spots aimed up through the floor from under the sunbeam, bouncing up around and above the window. Be sure the area right near the window is fairly well lit from all angles with that much sunlight bouncing around.

4. More "Ambient" Bounce lights: You might want a soft spotlight for each wall, and the floor and ceiling, so you can give it a soft edge to fade out and not over-light the corners. The corners should tend to get darker than the center of the walls, but in a soft, organic way, you shouldn't notice a distinct "circle" from these spotlights.

-jeremy

[tonami]

Hi Jeremy,

The big circular frames at the front and back are doors. When I have lighted this room, a room at the back will be made. The only window is opposite the fireplace on the other side of the room from the fireplace.

I tried to light the fireplace and put some bounce. This lighting setup uses 1 key to cast on the floor.
3 spots with 40 degree prenumbra and 40 degree fall off aim at the fireplace and the opposite corners of the room, from the window, to act as overcast light. No shadow because if shadow is on, three shadows are cast.

Two bounce light from the fireplace wall, aim at the opposite corners of the room.

Two bounce light from the deep inside behind the fireplace corners of the room aim at the opposite corners of the room.

Somehow still doesnt look right....


Image updated below

[jeremybirn]

As far as the 4 steps above, I'd say delete your lights and try again, this time working carefully, and posting an image for each step. 1. Your key isn't set up right or shadowing properly, and doesn't look like it's projecting an image of a window into the room. Make a new key light image that really 'reads' as a window from this camera angle. 2. Let's see an image with just the key plus the sky fill, and discuss it. The shadows will be soft, but there are shadows. 3. Did you not work on this yet?? The screen-left area immediately around the window looks very dark, and it should be the brightest part of the scene. 4. I said don't overlight the corners, and you went and aimed for them. Those high-contrast edges look terrible - corners are all about sharing light, smooth transitions as surfaces are supposed to inter-reflect. Don't jump into lighting the whole room when your key and fill don't work yet, but eventually you'll have to learn to aim spotlights carefully at individual walls.

-jeremy

[tonami]

I'm sorry! Your reply is very amusing to read. Like a teacher frustrated with incompetent pupil who purposely went and made what the teacher said not to do.

I didnt intend it that way, the corner just look dark so I put a light in that direction. :bag:

I restarted over.
1st image is key only light. I lowered the key to make it shine more into the room. I am not sure if this is a bad idea but it can be adjusted later. Key is spot with shadow map 2000 , fuzz of level 8. Fall off is inverse distance ^2.

Second image is one spot from floor, casting up, shadow map of 2000, fuzz of level 80. Is the bounce light from the floor.

Third image is a little bit of light on window frame to illuminate that area, is step 3 of your guidance. Seems like it needs more.

Fourth image is the overcaster lights.
There are 3 spots, 1 aim at far side of room from the camera. The other aim at the side of the room close to camera.
These are shadow fuzziness of 30.
Third one is aim at the floor, fuzziness of 10.

5th image is adding more bounces around the window area.
1 point light is inserted to illuminate the walls around the window area. Objects have been turn off so that the crack on the wall is fix for the bounce light.

6th image is the fireplace as well as illuminator from the front and back of the room to brighten up the side of the chair closer to camera and the coffee table with two vases on it at the back.

Wondering how to tweak further now. Or whether I should insert my character yet.

[tonami]

I added some more light tweaks and started to model kitchen. I dont like the kitchen right now. I will raise the floor and tweak the model.

Scene is now almost 200 000 polygon before smoothing iterations are turn on. Almost every object has some smoothing. The render crashes a few times now.

I put my son in there too. He's finally home :)

How's it look?

[jeremybirn]

It's a shame you're off to a very slow start with the lighting, perhaps because you keep switching other things around. Fix the faceted edge of the carpet, the hard screen-left corner that isn't beveled, etc. before you light.

1. Your key is broken, it casts different shadows from the character than the desk, then looks different in back room than front room. Work on it and post an image with just the direct sunlight, nothing else. 2. I don't see sky light. Work on it and post it. 3. I don't see bounces in the window area. In fact, the area screen-left that should be a window is a weird dark area that doesn't look at all like a light source. 4. Overall bounce - this isn't working, it's overlighting the corners and has no directionality, areas like the center ceiling don't show which side has the window light at all.

-jeremy

[tonami]

:cry: It still sucks!

I spent some time on a final effort with the first lighting set up. I put in the sky, and tweak some more lights.

In my second image I restarted over. I stitch all the walls together so that the corners are smooth. The floor remains a separate piece. Because all the floors are one mesh now, it took a lot of time and the old lighting rig cannot be use. Each wall was a separate object before and individual light aimed at it specially.

In the new set up, I only have a key light coming in through the windows and one bounce spot light from the floor aiming to where the key light should be reflecting from the floor. Took some time to adjust the spot because the bounce spot for the front room was affecting the back room walls since they are one mesh now, and the back room bounce was affecting the front room walls.

Seems better now although am unsure if it will be bright overall once the other lights are in place.

[jeremybirn]

My advice: Don't change your camera angle again.

Just read through the 4 'steps' above, and post 4 images, the first with just the direct sunlight only. For the direct sunlight, your key, think if there's going to be a character there, and think about how the key hits it and how it shadows. Don't change your camera angle again, and make sure the scene always has the same furnature and characters is in all the images, with no changes to what you're trying to light.

Make sure all the sunlight looks parallel, not radiating out from a nearby point, so that it enters the back room from the same angle as the front room. Don't try to do several steps at once, and don't change your camera angle, just work on one of the four images at a time.

-jeremy

[tonami]

Hi Jeremy,

May I ask why it is not good to change the camera angle? I think that a good lighting set up should be able to be viewed from different angles and animated.

Is the camera angle going to affect the way the lighting set up is placed that dramatically? Or is it more to compare with previous lighting set ups ?

[playmesumch00ns]

Maybe in an ideal world, but realistically a good lighting setup from one angle will often not look good from another.

As an example try creating a simple scene with a 3-light setup with a nice pretty, intense rim light on, say, a sphere. Looks great from one angle, but go round the other side and it looks shocking.

The same is equally true of real life.

[tonami]

Here is a new start - over lighting setup.
I have chosen the camera angle to always face the kitchen with the window left, and fireplace right. But I may animate it later or rotate it after it is finish.

I have chosen to only put in the character later. Once the environment is properly lighted I can try to use lights that exclude all objects and light the character. Only the key from the environment will affect the character for a shadow on the floor.

Step 1, spot key only.
Step 2, area floor bounce, and ambient sky light tint blue, using three spots.
Step 3, spot and point to illuminate window area on the left
Step 4, overall ambient light added ,1 spot.

How does it look now?

Updated Image at the end of this thread

[Andrew W]

This is a lot better. A couple of technical points, Check your shadow bias as the corners of your room screen left are doing strange things. Second you're casting some nasty hard shadow edges on the ceiling. Try and soften them a bit, they distract from the overall look of the shot.

Also some sort of reflection on the floor or contact shadows will help to ground the chair and props. They appear a bit floaty at the moment.

I quite like this compostion, but perhaps you should consider widening the field of view to inlude more of the door-frame(?) that we're standing in. This could help frame your shot a litlle better, and I'm always a sucker for the frame within a frame compostion. Definitely much improved.

Andrew

[Flinch]

i would also try to get rid of the really bright wall on the right side around the fireplace and in the middle of the ceiling. considering where your primary light is coming from these areas are way too bright.

[tonami]

Hi, I made some updates according to Flinch and Andrew's suggestions.

These are Andrew's comments that I worked on:
The shadows on the left side have been relighted. The ceiling hard shadows have been dissolved into softer shadows by spots. The chair and other decorations have more and harder shadows now so they do not look like they are floating.

I have not moved the camera angle yet, I'll zoom it out a little after the lighting look is more properly.

Thank you for the comments and feedback!

These are the suggestion I made from Flinch:
Lighting on the fireplace wall is soften, lighting on the ceiling wall is slightly reduce.

These changes are reflected (pun...:scream: ) in image step 5.
http://www.peopleweb.com/orphan/steps2.jpg

[Andrew W]

The shadowing I was referring to is the actual left corner of the room, near the window. The walls adjacent are shadowed but the corner itself, which should be most shadowed is lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree. Could be a shadow bias problem. I approve of the shadow softening on the ceiling, but I still think the chair and right hand table float a bit.

All the best,

Andrew

[jeremybirn]

The first 3 images are coming along fairly well. The 4th image seems to add a lot of harsh, sharp shadows that shouldn't be there.

You could just take that shadowing light off the ceiling altogether, and just replace it with a spotlight aimed at the right panel with a very soft penumbra so it fades off and doesn't hit the left half of the rear panel.

Something really strange happens to the carpet on the floor in the forth image. It gets some weird shadows, and almost doesn't "read" as a carpet anymore. Take away whatever is being added in the forth image that hits the carpet.

The upper part of the right wall and ceiling seems to be going too bright, while the floor area goes too dark.

The forth image has strangely bright, almost "glowing" areas in the screen-left corner and around the window frame. Find out which individual light(s) are causing them, see if it's a shadow bias issue with light leaking through walls, and fix that (maybe just thicker walls.) Corners should go darker, not brighter!

-jeremy

[tonami]

I experimented with a radiosity light render. It took many tries to get it to look decent and I think it is still darker than I would be happy with. But too bright and the floor starts to burn white in the window area.

Forgive me, my site hosting has died, this image is on a... *urp* geocities site for now

www.geocities.com/orphanscall/radiosity.jpg


The original 3200 x 2400 took long long long long long long time to render. I dont know if I can try to reproduce this lighting using spots and area lights.

[tonami]

www.geocities.com/orphanscall/kid.jpg

12 area lights, I try to recreate the radiosity render but I try to make mine brighter because the room was quite dark in the radiosity solution.

I think maybe the radiosity render was faster... and the program crash when resolution is higher than 720 x 480

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