How to render an interior w/ lots of lights?

[Micha1138]

I am doing my first architectural interior rendering here at my new job and I am looking for feedback on the best way to approach it.

We would like to show the client a rendering that includes the lighting we want to use. 5 different fixtures, 100 lights total. I've modeled all the lighting fixtures and plan on using Instances so I can easily control the brightness/type of all lights by adjusting the 5 Reference lights.

What is the best way to include all these lights in the scene so they look close to the real thing? Should I be trying to mimic the way the lighting would appear in real life or is there a better approach?


A friend of mine does all of the work for a leading german manufacturer of lighting systems. He does real light simulations, but I don´t think that this is something you want to do, since it is really time consuming.

The question is, what do you want to show the client ? And in addition, make sure that you don´t promise too much (if haven´t already), since this kind of job is only solveable by either doing a really good fake lighting, resulting in only an approximation of the real situation.

The question you posted kind of makes me wonder if you ever did something similar before. I know that everyone has to start one day, but if you are a professional, you know your limitations.

Anyway, the approach of having all the lights as controllable as possible of course makes sense, altough I doubt that you can simulate the physical behaviour of the lamps you chose correctly without at least AR2. Since I do not know if you have that module, you should think about having the modeled lamps emitting no light, but the light sources being of a totally different kind, i.e. having an area light to simluate the soft light etc., you know, the standard radiosity fake solution ;)

To have an easily controllable scene, you should look for a plugin that gives control over the lights in a scene all at once. Unfortunately, the name escapes me at the moment, but I am sure that a search or the visit to the usual link sites will eventually show you what I mean.


Sorry that I had only this measily advice to offer ! :(


Michael

[maikukai]

For a test, I've placed 20 recessed spot lights in the ceiling (1 light +19 instances) adjusted the brightness and falloff and it looks pretty good when rendered in AR2.5 with GI... but I think I'm over complicating things.

My next idea is to pump up the luminance on the light fixture’s bulbs to make it look like they are "on", but not have any actual light objects for each fixture. Then I'll place some area lights around the room until the scene is nicely lit, and not try to simulate light coming from every single fixture. Sound like a plan?

For a bit more background, this is for a 200 seat restaurant, it needs to look good more than it needs to look accurate. The fixtures need to be visible and need to be lit somewhat like they would look in real life, but the light they are giving off doesn’t need to be photometricly accurate. When I say this is for a client, I mean the restaurant owner. (I work for an architectural firm and this is for a presentation.)

[Micha1138]

...

The fixtures need to be visible and need to be lit somewhat like they would look in real life, but the light they are giving off doesn’t need to be photometricly accurate. When I say this is for a client, I mean the restaurant owner. (I work for an architectural firm and this is for a presentation.)


Then just setup the scene so the overall lighting looks good, and then add the spotlights, probably without any shadows, just to give the feel that they are doing something.

I mean, hey, it´s a restaurant owner, what does he know about real world lighting
? ;)

You might want to post intermediate results, so people can criticize and make suggestions.

Michael

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