Howto: Indoor Lighting...?

[VirtualFM]

There is a small tutorial here
http://www.evermotion.org/index.php?unfold=tutorials
at the bootom of the page, that might help to get you started.

It would help a lot if you have FPrime.

[otacon]

I have some idea on how to light interiors. Why dont you post a render of what you have and we'll see if we can help.

[IronGoblin]

Thnx for the pointer, VirtualFM. But i cant seem to get avi running. What codec has been used?
And yes.. i have fPrime... i think that i would be really lost if i didnt.. :)

otacon: seeing your work im a bit worried to show off my test. I must say, those are some excellent renders and exactly what i want to make. :)



how the scene is set up....
as you can see i have a gradient backdrop. (default gradient)
ive made a luxigondome, and cloned up 145 spots with raytraced shadows.. intensity set to 1%
<edit>
forgot to mention that there is an arealight too... set at 100% with a intensityfalloff Inverse Distance^2....
</edit>
reflection turned on...
shadows turned on..
ray recursion limit set to 2

These are tests, so its just a hollow box with some glasswindows on it.
http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/indoor_mc_11.jpg
first image.. fPrime with Monte Carlo Radiosity: intensity 800 %. walls diffuse = 100%

http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/indoor_br_14.jpgsecond image... fPrime with Bacground Rad: intensity 800 % walls diffuse = 220 %

and thats about it....
hope you folks can help me out. as you can see i have never done any photoreal renders before... but i hope to start soon.. :)

Keep on truckin'

[IronGoblin]

Think im on to something here..

New building. Another simple boolean box.. :)
Same lightsettings as the ones above....
http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/indoor_test01.jpg

But im still having some problems getting the light to flow into the shadow areas. Got any idees on how to achieve this? Do i have to highten the intensity of the radiosity? I dont want the areas in direct "sunlight" to be overexposed, and that seems to happen when i add more intensity.

Keep on truckin'

[otacon]

First off, if your using radiosity you dont need 145 spot lights. What kind of room is this going to be? Every interior lighting situation is different, unfortunately there is really no single setup that works on all interiors. Im going to make a room similar to yours real quick and make a light setup...then i will post it and explain what i did and let you download it if you want.;)

[sundialsvc4]

Ask any studio photographer: nothing's "real." Forget the term. You will almost never be able to use "real" lighting to create a satisfactory image that will stand up to close inspection; e.g. for use in a magazine or advertising layout. In CG it is no different.

Grab and study a book on studio photography lighting. If possible, apprentice with a local large-format shooter on just-about-anything. Do it for free. Tote his/her bags. Buy lunch. Shaddup. And watch. All of what you observe will apply to CG. Doesn't matter if your target is film, video, paper, or a Game Boy.

The first requirement of the lighting setup will be to "properly expose the film." The contrast within the scene must be controlled. Neither film nor a video-monitor can accept more than +/- 2 or 3 f-stops range while your eye can perceive more than 21 stops. The screen seems darker when turned-on than it does when turned-off; yet by definition it is not. And so on. There are many technical issues involved in each and every possible output-media; all too numerous to discuss here. You've got to make the image "printable" on whatever target media you have, and you can't control the gamma-settings of the end-user's fleabag-el-cheapo monitor.

Once you've achieved that, you must move on to establish the sense of the light; namely, that it is indoors. A lot of this has to do with the color of the light. Tungsten incandescent bulbs are quite green. Fluorescents, quite blue. The tonal range within the room is quite soft. Outdoor lighting, on the other hand, is dominated by El Sol. (The examples you give would actually be "outdoor" because light from outside dominates the room.)

Finally, you must create the (dramatic) mood of the shot, positioning and selecting the lights to create the maximum impact. The human eye scans a scene, following a path, and is guided by what is the brightest thing in the picture. Your creative decisions here will have startling impact on how the picture works and how forcefully it is received. Yet you must preserve the sense of the shot, and you must "properly-expose the film."

Finally, you must carefully study what's in your viewfinder to make sure that none of your hard work is visible. The shot must "ring true." It must be absolutely believable at a glance. (Because if the viewer is going to dis-believe it, which is the kiss-o-death, s/he will also do so "at a glance.") This is where you, having been so-close to the setup for so-long, must now try to see it for the first time. (If the photographer invites you to "have a look," don't simply glance and say 'uh huh.' Study the shot and notice if anything "draws your eye." Nothing should. This totally-artificial scene should look absolutely, "of course it is," real.)

Grab a copy of A Chorus Line and watch the scene where Michael Douglas tells the chorus dancers: "Don't Draw My Eye!" The reason why the Rockettes are so good is that they never do; and you never noticed.

Within the world of CG, you must also consider an aspect which does not exist in the film-world, and that is rendering or production time. A film shooter knows that it takes precisely one-second real time to produce one-second of raw footage, but a CG shot of the same duration could take all night; or worse. Therefore, you must constantly "cheat." In other words, you are considering what you need for your image to look like and then finding the shortest, least-expensive way to get "acceptably close."

"Acceptably close?" Yes. Ask David Copperfield if anyone looks at a scene and really sees it: they don't. You, the photographer, manipulate their attention and you do it with finesse and grace. And, to a very great extent, you do this entirely with the light. You're so good that they never notice.

One of my instructors told me one thing over and over and over again until, finally, I understood. He said, "Look at the light." Don't look at the scene, the subject, the exposure... look at the <!expletive!> l-i-g-h-t.

[IronGoblin]

thnx for the pointers sundialsvc4. I havent been able to fully digest all you said, but I'll try to use your help on my path to "photoreal" :)

octacon:
Good question about the spots. Ive removed them, and to my big surprise it seems to render a bit faster.. :)
I would like to go for a cold lighting in my first go. So I'm planning a studio-apartment. With some big windows, and lots of light from the outside. It will be a day-scene.
It would be great if you could make a demoscene that i could pick apart. Would forever be in your debt. :)

Keep on truckin'

[SPIDER2544]

wow fantastic thread im actualy getting ready to start a project like this for a personal project this term

one thing also that i think helps with setting up the initial light for a scene is to understand a bit of color theory involved with light

like how hte color of the light and the shadow play at certain times of day, and dont forget the color changes of the light as its bounced from walls
i suggest getting some light gells and trying to light a small set that you build out of foam core. and take some photos of the set making the light change to diffrent times of day

also when you take it back into the computer try and set up the light rigs with out any textureing first it will help you see your scene a little better and see how light color and shadow are affecting the scene and not hte texture, its also easyer to see if the scene is getting over, or under exposed

good luck mate and i hope that was a bit of help for you

[IronGoblin]

spider2544: glad you like it. I think its a good idee to play with light and shadows in real life. So i tried to do what you said. I removed the texturemaps, and only left the light to affect grayish surfaces.

So here is another test. Dont mind the dummies. They are there only to help me see the size of the place.. :) And that jucky background... ill fix that.. :D

http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/indoor_test02.jpg

<edit>
forgot to mention that im having some probs with noise in the renders.. this one is after 90 or so iterations... guess it will help if i leave it running for 24 hours.....
</edit>

Keep on truckin'

[otacon]

Here is a scene that i did a while back thats a fairly similar setup to what your going for. I have one huge window which is letting in a lot of outdoor light. I will post the final render along with the light setup i used. Now, the first thing i do when setting up a scene lit by sunlight through a window is put the sunlight outside in the position i want. Do some test renders to make sure the light is casting shadow where it looks best. I really like to use interpolated radiosity on interiors....now sometimes it leaves blotchy areas near the corners, but if you do some tweaking and use shading noise reduction it can help clear that up. Also, if you have a good amount of furniture in the room it can help hide some of those areas. Next thing i would do after placing the sunlight is turn on interpolated radiosity and do a test render. I use almost the same settings for all my interiors: 100% intensity, RPE 4x12-6x18, bounces 1, tolerance .7, MES 5". Thats why its important to model to scale, it makes it easier to setup the radiosity spacing. After a test render you will see that it is still too dark, so i like to add an area light up by the ceiling pointing down. Depending on the shape of the room, you might have to put it somewhere else. Usually i dont start lighting a room until i have the main piece of furniture already modeled and in the room. That way i can adjust the light to look best on that one piece. Then add more lights as you add more stuff in the room. After the first two lights are in the scene, you do more trial and error on where to put the other lights. Also, make sure your surfaces compliment your lighting...nobody wants to see nice lighting along with bad textures, or models. Now, since you have fprime, you might give monte carlo a chance too. It would make the light setup much easier. Like spider and sundialsvc said, study the lighting around you and try and mimic the color and intensity of it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/otacon/den2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/otacon/denlight.jpg

[johnnyh66]

Otacon,
thanks for posting that visual breakdown of your scene... I know that will help out a lot of people includeing me. Great contribution!
Lighting is one aspect of 3D that's tricky to get without someone pointing out the obvious. I've got standard lighting down but when it comes to interior radiosity and HDRI, I feel like a noob!
I always try to actually do it but end up fakeing it because of time restraints.
Thanks again.

[IronGoblin]

wow. thnx.
That helps a lot otacon.
Its obvious now that i havent had control over my lightsetup, and that I have been thinking far to complex for it to work at all.
Seems like i have buildt my scenes too big and way to complex for testing. So ill start out trying to set up a scene like you yours above (without all the furniture), And tweek that until i feel i have some control.
Ill show some new renders when i have tried out this setup a bit.


Keep on truckin'

[mocaw]

For Fprime renders do yourself a favor and download a program like neatimage (www.neatimage.com (http://www.neatimage.com)). The ten minutes you spend seting up it's noise reduction could shave hours off of your Fprime renders. There are many times in FPrime where letting the render "bake" might actully make things worse...

Sorry to butt in- I'm enjoying this discussion and just wanted to add my .0000002 inflated cents!

I'm not very good with it...but here is a quick test I did on your last image. I hope you don't mind. Unfortunatly I had to recompress it to have it fit on the MB...

[ztreem]

Then you don't have to do everything in LW either.
Here's a 1 min. touchup in photoshop + even more noisereduction.

[IronGoblin]

mocaw: thnx.. ill check out that program.
ztreem: im quite bad in photoshop, but i guess i could give it a try. looking good that fix of yours.
another test. Ripping off otacons scene... hope you dont mind. Tried to set up the scene like you did. And since the people living in this house have a restricted budged and poor sence of taste, they went to my local IKEA-store for their furniture. :D Just had to make some furniture to check out the lighting. Not much texturing yet.
I cant quite remembder how your render looked like. And it seems like your site has been down all day. But here goes...

http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom01.jpg

Arealight outside the window. 50%. inverse distance falloff over 3 m. (3 m is the distance from the window to the backwall of the room)
Arealight in the roof. 28%. no falloff...
Arealight in the back-right. 12%. no falloff..
This one is rendered with the native renderer in lw. low aa.

Having some problems with reflections in my glassobjects...
Any suggestions? critics?

[Ultimatum]

Hey Otacon,
Very nice scene you got there and thanks for the tips!
I was just wondering where the bright light at the lower right corner is coming from?
I would also want to know what is the purpose of setting the inverse distance to your daylight?

Irongoblin,
Nice to see your progress in the lightning field. Try to raise the Radiosity intensity by about 15% to get some areas a bit brighter.


- Ult

[otacon]

Hey thats looking great IronGoblin! I will attach a lower res render of the room to cgtalk so you can see it. The lighting is looking good so far, i might make the room a tad bigger...right now it looks kinda tight in there. For the glass table, name the sides of the glass a different surface so you can turn the transparency way down to like 10% and make it a dark green color. For the top of the glass, use about 65-75% transparency and put a gradient on the reflection channel to simulate the fresnel effect. If you dont know how, i'll post a screenshot of one i did.

Ultimatum: The light in the lower corner is from windows that are behind the couch on the back wall. The sunlight is shining through them. The reason i put a falloff on the area light outside the big window is since the sun is shining in the opposite direction, (as you can see by the light on the floor in the corner) the only light coming through the big window would be bounced, very soft light. So this light would naturally be brighter closer to the window, and die off as it gets farther into the room. Its pretty subtle in the render, but it helps with the realism.

[IronGoblin]

Ultimatum: Thnx for the nice words. And for the tip. I raised the intensity to 115% and you can see the result below.


otacon: Thnx for the tip on the glass. Gonna test it right away. It didnt make it to this render though. Rendertime in native render with low aa takes about 25 mins so far. So im glad i have fPrime for instant feedback. :)

Been working on this one all day. Trying to get the shading too look allright, and working on some of the texturemaps. I added the windows in the back earlier today. And a light to shine through it. And ofcoz i made it a bit larger. And i lowered the roof quite a bit. No giants living here.. :)

http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom02.jpg

Got a couple of new questions.. as usual.
On your render, in the back by the shelves you have a piece of whiteish wall to the left of the ceramic items. How did you manage to get the brickwork to sort of bleed over on that walll? It seems a bit reddish. Might be my eyes playing tricks on me though. Been staring at my computerscreen for 10 hours now.. :)
Second question. The couch.. the areas pointing up is a bit grayish, but the areas facing the camera looks like it has some redness to it. Is this a shadowtrick? Or a gradient trick. Or maybe some reflection trick?


Appreciate that You, and everyone else, takes time to give me feedback on this project. Sure has helped a lot looking at Your renders and following Your tips.


Keep on Truckin'

[otacon]

The color bleeding you see going on with the wall and the couch are from me messing with the render in paint shop pro. I almost always take my renders into psp to adjust contrast, color saturation, histogram adjustment, etc... It gives the render a certain look that i like. It also makes it look more realistic im my opinion.

Your scene keeps getting better and better.:)

[IronGoblin]

Thnx.. i hope it will improve more.. :)

Final render today. Tried to fix up my glass. Think it looks ok, even if i have some problems with aa and weird reflections. Might get better if i put something outside the window. Forgot to turn on smoothing on the pillows on this render. (darn).
Added a texturemap to the carpet. Put up a bookcase on the wall.. (no books yet). Need to work some more on the surface on the ceramic items in the shelf. Reduse the pinkishness of the floortiles, and add a bit more red to the carpet. Something is bugging me about the brickwall. Might be the size of the bricks. Think im going blind.. :)
Anyways.. here is todays final render.. (native render, low aa, 46min)

http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom03.jpg

Keep on truckin'

[colkai]

Lookin' good, care to share a breakdown of your lighting as it stands? Also, are you using ambient light with your radiosity? I know it is supposed to actually be useful under these conditions. ;)

[IronGoblin]

Thnx.
The lighting is set almost exactly as Otakon shows in his scene earlier in this thread.
Outside the window there is an arealight at 50% with an inverse distance falloff set to 4.5m. (as Otakon suggested, I tried to model the scene to scale).
Since that wasnt enough to light the scene i added (like Otakon) an arealight up by the roof, and another one far back to the right (settings 28% and 12% with no falloff).
To get the light coming from the windows on the right side (outside frame) i used a Spotlight at 100% with some orange in it and a falloff set to 28 m (quite far away)
Most items in the scene has a quite low diffuse setting to get a bit of a soft flow of the light.
Rendered in nativer renderer. Interpolatet radiosity turned on. Intensity at 115% RPE set to 6x18, I.B set to 1, Tol set to 0.7 and Min Ev Sp set to 5 mm. (Settings from Otakon once again)
Ambient Intensity set to 0%. Havent tried setting a value on this one, but i might give it a try. :)

Hope this helps.

Keep on truckin'

[chr1sc0le]

WOW! thanks guys this is something i've been playing with on & off for a while now, But the results ( as far as lighting goes ) i'm acheiving now are by far the best yet.

Will hopefully get some pics posted if i get time to get this scene to a decent state

Chris

Quick setup with some LW objects & freebies will work on some custom furniture tonight.
lighting seems to be a bit dark.

Also wondering whats the best method to use an image for outside?
comping as background or other. one thats done i can use colours from the image for lighting.
http://www.chrisc0le.vzz.net/room.jpg

[otacon]

Good work. It keeps getting closer and closer to mine.

[IronGoblin]

Thnx. Working to getting it closer. Think im done adjusting the lighting, so now its all surface and modellingwork left.

Final render of the day.
Got some stretching on mu uv's, but I think I can fix that.
Struggeling a bit with the reflections on my glass-surfaces. And I dont think the refractions on them are quite right. Thought maybe that could be fixed by making inner and outer surfaces, but got some really strange resaults (they wasnt seethrough anymore).
Gotta start making uv's for the couch and the chair.. something im not looking forward to. :)

Any suggestions on things to fix are appreciated. Textures isnt my strong side, so suggestions on that area would be great.


Anyways.. inbuildt renderengine, 55 min rendertime. (not too different from yesterday)
http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom05.jpg


<edit>
btw... here is the same scene rendered in fPrime.... 66 iterations. Seems like my glassreflections look a bit better.
http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom05_fP.jpg

</edit>


Keep on truckin'

[IronGoblin]

<edit>
i figured it out. stoopid me. Had to increase the Ray Recursion Limit. Now it works.. Yay me! :)
</edit>

Dunno if anyone is reading this thread anymore, but i have some problems. I modelled a whiskeyglass (Sort of). And i put it into the scene above, near the lamp on the left. I added a reflectiongradient on the incidence, and did the same on the transperancy.

When the glass renders its almost totally white. I dont think its the reflections, because i tried adding dark objects around it to tone it down. Anyone know whats causeing this?

Otacon: how did you make the glasstexture for the glasses in your scene?




Keep on truckin'

[ztreem]

Did you invert the keys when you did the transperancy gradient?

If you want you can use the fastfresnel shader instead, It's the same thing but you don't have to setup the gradients. :thumbsup:

[Kvaalen]

If you want you can use the fastfresnel shader instead, It's the same thing but you don't have to setup the gradients. :thumbsup:And best of all it doesn't work with FPrime! :)

[IronGoblin]

ztreem: if inverting keys means having the oposite gradient of the reflection, then that is what i have done. :)

kvaalen: maybe in future releases.. one can only hope.. :D

Keep on truckin'

[otacon]

Im not sure why your glass would be doing that. You do have ray trace refelection turned on right? Remember, glass has a very low diffuse value, so the diffuse should only be like 10-20%. That may be why its all white. What i usually do with my couch fabric is just find a good texture map and cubic map it onto the couch. If its a seamless texture then it should turn out fine. Ive done that on every piece of furniture ive ever made. Also, i might lower the intensity of the light outside of the big window because right now its kinda blowing out the wall near the it. Coming along good!

[robinson]

Your renderings and help on this forum are great Otacon, PLEASE if you got a fast rendering setup, let me know, I need to render more than 200 frames by monday, I will properly start rendering by Sunday, so you know how much time I got !!!

Here is a still !!!
http://www.robinson-steinke.de/temp/01.jpg
and the anim (matching)...
http://www.robinson-steinke.de/temp/light_comp_sor.mov

[IronGoblin]

Wow.. Rendering time has shot up. 6 hours and 6 minutes on this one. Still not happy with the glass, but ill get it right today.
Otakon: you were right about the diffuse setting on the glass. Has lowered it quite a lot, and now its not burning white anymore. Have to work a bit on my reflections though. Seems like my gradients are a bit wrong. Didnt think about using cubical mapping, but it is ofcoz a lot easeier and faster to set up. And judging by your renders it works great. I lowered the diffuse setting on the wall besides the window. Not as bright as ut used to be.

robinson: you have probably done this, but ill say it anyway.... lower the Ray Recursion limit. Does great work on 8, even on 4.. But watch your reflections. They get worse and worse as you lower the setting. Other than that.. remove all polys that you wont be able to see in your anim. Specially if they are facing the camera. Hope that helps...


Og... here's this nights render. 6 hours 6 mins. native render and low aa...
http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom06.jpg


Keep on truckin'

[SPIDER2544]

one thing you really need to dial in with your latest image is establishing your main light source

some qustions to ask yourself when setting up lights is
what time of day is it?
- what is the color of light at that time
- what is the color of shadows at that time
- what is the direction of the light, how low to the horizon?
- what is the light intensity
- what is the quality of the light soft shadow, hard edge?
does light come through int o my room from outside?
what direction are my windows facing north, south, east, west ?

after that really get a feel for the colors of the light in your scene i did a project for my color theory class to learn how to change the time of day with only light the above mentioned things
one of the interesting things that i noticed was the way that the texture color on my character changed drasticaly from scene to scene
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/spider2544/Robot-all-light-colors.jpg


hope that helps a bit

your making a lot of progress and im glad your sticking to this project

[IronGoblin]

Hi spider2544.

Thnx alot for the pointers. I did have some color on the lights (the one outside the window, and the one coming from the right), but it might not have been enough. I have added a bit more color, both to light and shadow, and it does already look more alive. Ill post an update as soon as i can, but looking at the rendertime it might be a while before that happens.

Me wants a new computer. :)

Nice renders. Really shows how much proper lighting can change a scene.

Keep on truckin'

[IronGoblin]

Back again.

Larger render this time. Added some books, and a few other items. Trying to get my glass to look good, and its getting better, but note completly happy with it yet.

I made a larger render this time, so that you can see if anything is not looking right. Im gonna add some more books, fix the error in the brickwalltexture, and then do the final render. So if anyone sees anything wrong, then let me know.

Res 800x600, low aa, 9 hours and 10 min rendertime.

http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom07.jpg


Keep on truckin'

[Triple G]

Looking really good. The one thing that caught my eye as not quite looking right is the shadow being cast by the sofa. If you look at the wooden leg (the rear one) where it meets the floor, it appears as though the shadow is offset...it doesn't seem to line up at the contact point. The only thing I can think of that would be causing this is that the sofa is indeed floating above the floor a tiny bit, since the shadows being cast by other objects don't seem to have this problem.

[IronGoblin]

Thnx.. :)

I noticed that shadow too, and i thought, as You did, that it was a floating sofa.. but after some inspection ive noticed that its the shadow from the back of the piece that makes out the armrest on the sofa.. :)

Think I've fixed it though..

Keep on truckin'

[IronGoblin]

Its finally finished. I think I started this thread about a week ago. And now Ill stop working on this one. My comp is struggeling quite a bit (only 512Mb Mem), so it takes a lot of time switching between programs.

Thnx to all that has helped me, and a special big thnx to otacon for sharing his knowledge and encouraging me to continue.

otakon: I was thinking about posting this one in the Finished forum (with credits to you and your image), but if you think its too much of a ripoff of your scene I wont do that.

Imagesize: 1024x768. Low aa. Rendertime 17 hours. Lightwave renderengine. Some colorcorrection in photoshop.

http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom08_colcor.jpg



If you want to see the image without photoshopping, you can find it here:
http://www.firestorm3d.com/images/arch/ikea_livingroom08.jpg


Well... once again.. thnx for helping me out, everybody. I'll start on something new today.. :)

Keep on truckin'

[otacon]

Cool. I like it. I think you should post it in the finished gallery. You have progressed a lot during this project, hopefully you can take what you have learned and make some awesome scenes!

[IronGoblin]

Thnx, otacon.

Ill continue working more on lighting and architectual renderings. The thread in the finished forum is found here:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=171337

Keep on truckin'

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