Daylight, how to?

[playmesumch00ns]

Something like this just screams out for a domelight. Give it a nice off-white/pale-blue colour, soft dmap shadows and you're away. Once you've got that down as a basic pass to build off, add a string sun light and then try adding some more bounce lights for some of the brighter objects in your scene,

[jeremybirn]

Yeah, what he said. There was a thread with discussion about that within the past page or two. If switching to MR scares you, hide the trees for now, I'm sure you can find a way to get them in there later.

-jeremy

[gerardo]

You should keep in mind 2 components for this type of illumination (doesn't care what software you use):
1. The light of the sun: that spreads in straight line and radial sense (but as being to 48 000 million kilometers of distance we only notice their lineal aspect and their parallel illumination) for what is recommendable that you don't use a spotlight, your 3Dsoft should have some type of light that throws parallel shadows, I know them as distantlights. Commonly the shadow that throws the sun, is represented of blued color, although the light of this is yellow.
2. The terrestrial atmosphere: produces a very interesting illumination effect; serves as a filter of diffusion of the solar light (is as if this was another light source). This source of light is diffuse (what means that spreads in radial sense and throws soft shadows, commonly represented with neuter or warm colors). To achieve this type of illumination, many techniques exist according to the 3D software that you use.

I hope this helps you



Gerardo

[lazzhar]

Thanks
A domelight? nothing easier, and why scary from MR? I love it and it loves me ;)
I'm right now rendering a simple Final Gathething pass , then compose it over the old one.
http://lazzhar.arabcg.com/light2/road02_fg_res1.jpg
http://lazzhar.arabcg.com/light2/road02_res1.jpg

[rlemoine]

I think it's coming along fairly well, only one thing, the sky looks a bit boring. Maybe cmposite a sky in there.

Good luck.

[masterx3k]

Photometric lighting does wonders as well. A photometric sunlight would be perfect for this. I don't know if that is just a max thing, or just a vray thing... but yeah, that would be the easiest.

[gerardo]

That is better Lazzhar!!!
Maybe some clouds would come well

Very nice! :thumbsup:



Gerardo

[jeremybirn]

Looks great! I was initially worried you were using some paint effects for the trees that could be hard to move to MR.

The light from the sky dome looks a bit green in places (like the front of the screen-left building.) If you want a hint of green in your indirect lighting, include some green incandescent spheres around the trees (not visible to primary rays or shadows of course!), where it's motivated, perhaps hitting the side of the building instead of the front.

Those center-right palm fronds don't look translucent enough or back-lit enough - they would hit a lighter tone than the gutter of the street, wouldn't they?

I also wonder about that street light - with the saturated purple and the bright white at the top, it belongs in Toon Town, and yet here it is above that realistically textured street?

Once you reach the final comp, I don't see much directionality in the shading - I mean, you have very side-lit looking shadows being thrown as if the sun were coming from the right, but then the shading on the side of the screen-left building is barely any brighter than the front, just more orange instead of green.

-jeremy

PS - It's great to see these scenes based on Algeria, it adds a nice flavour to your work.

[playmesumch00ns]

Something else that looks a bit strange out is the direction of the shadows of the two trees. The one on the left is casting a shadow that's almost perpendicular to the camera direction, yet the one on the right is casting shadows at 45 degrees to our viewpoint.

How close is your key spot to the scene? It'd be better to use a directional light for the sun, but if you prefer spots (I know I do), then it's a good idea to pull it way way back so that the shadows are almost parallel

[lazzhar]

playmesumch00ns, you're right, I've switched to a Directional light and it looks better.

Jeremy,
Maybe when the blue light coming from the dome added to the light bouncing from the ground produces that greenish look ?

The street light is too cartnonish, that's because this is a semi-cartoony project. What's done is done, but I've desaturated the purple a little bit. It's textured from the begining as you can see in this closeup:
.http://lazzhar.arabcg.com/light2/road03_closeup_poto.jpg
But from a far distance it misses details

For the shading, I'm trying to get better composition by moving the key light position.

http://lazzhar.arabcg.com/light2/road03_newkeylight1.jpg

For faking the light bouncing from the leaves, it's really a good idea, but a little bit hard to tweak. I'll try to make it in a seperated pass then compose it over the others.

http://lazzhar.arabcg.com/light2/road03_res1.jpg

And thanks Jeremy, i'm just trying to get inspiration from what I see around me ;)

[jeremybirn]

I like the places where the shadows get a slightly blue tone - wish that happened in more of the shadows. The top of the palm still wants more light. Maybe a _little_ more upwards bounce light from the ground is needed in some other areas as well. Overall you're doing a great job, and if this is going to be used in an animated project I look forward to seeing it.

-jeremy

[lazzhar]

I'm adding bounce light to the palm , but in general it's usted to get dark, yes could be darker than the gutter.
Some coulds with the painful slow Maya Fluids (as suggested)
And I tryed to fake your idea Jeremy of using green spheres around the trees. I used Volume lights emitting a green light. It looks giving good results quickly. Then I composed that on the old rendering. It's slightly visible.
http://lazzhar.arabcg.com/light2/road04_res1.jpg


Higher pic: http://lazzhar.arabcg.com/light2/road04_res2.jpg

Yes it's an animated project, but I dont think using Final gathering would be a good idea for animation it will take ages to render.
I'm spending all my time in rendering stuff so the animation wont be impressive, but I'm doing my best in learning how to animate characters. Thanks for encouragement.

Edit: lol, i forget to post the right pictures, i've fixed that , sorry.

[Andrew W]

My one comment (other than it's looking much better) is that overally the shot doesn't "feel hot" if you take my meaning. It seems like you're a little afraid of letting your colours get too bright. With the strength and sharpness of your shadows it seems to me that your key light could do with a little more punch.

The balance of the lighting overall looks very good.

Andrew

[lazzhar]

Andrew, I'm afraid to get some area overlit and I loose many details in this way especialy I dont know how it will look on video screen. Hoewever I could just render the key light seperatly then tweak it's brightness the look desired.

[Andrew W]

lazzhar, I think it may be a matter of contrast. On a very bright day, if you expose to retain detail in the highlights your shadows will fall away to black, and if you retain detail in the shadows the highlights will blow out. Now the control you get with CG means you can retain both, but this diminished contrast is contrary to what we visually expect from looking at photos for 200 years. At the moment your lighting looks like it's a little overcast, rather than baking sunlight. If that's the effect you're after then fine (but I'd soften the shadows in that case). Otherwise I think you might want to look at brightening up the key light a little.

All the best

Andrew

[lazzhar]

Andrew, I was looking for a way to soften a little bit my shadows but I didnt find any clue. First I started with d-map shadows but with this scene scale I was obliged to increase my shadow map resolution to higher resolution wich has increased a lot the rendering time. So I switched to raytraced shadows , it's faster in MR.
I thought some guys used to use multi spot lights as kei ligh instead of using a single one, I've not tryed that but it need lot of setup and tweaking. Any idea?

[Mr Whippy]

It's all down to the exposure your after...

Even the human eye rations the light according to what we want to see, and with an image we have to decide what we want to see, the shadows with blown out over exposed areas, or have nicely contrasted areas in the direct sunlight but very dark shadows.

Obviously you can even them out, but essentially it then looks false and too flat!

There is nothing wrong with very dark areas or blown out areas, as long as it looks natural it's ok imho!

3DS Max's exposure controls are getting half way there... Right now, Max's light lister is a good way to keyframe changes in exposure (weird way, but it can be made to look more authentic)....


Seya

Dave

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