Help Lighting Interior Shot (Arch Viz Animation)

[vid2k2]

Hi fjv,

Just some comments and not much help:
I like the samples you've shown and agree that they could be improved.
However, this goes back to the age old question of "when does an artist finish his work"?
The answer: when he abandons it.

(BTW, I have the same machine (1.8-17") and bought a new iMac 20" 2.0 UB and found all
render times cut in about half.)

OK, enough background.

- reading the arch viz threads has enligtened me to many things I didn't consider.
(Many thanks to those posters).
- So, in general, baking textures, eliminating reflections and faking GI is the best route for animations. Waiting on advanced rendering with Vray. There are no across the board
settings that can be used as a good starting point as all interiors require different approaches it seems. In addition, many talked about arch viz use many more lights
than you've shown. Long story short, after getting the most powerful processor, it
comes down to endless "tweaking". My apologies for over simplifying.

- I agree with you in regard to using actual photography as reference and matching the
look you like. I like the lower camera position in the sample as it brings the scale down
to eye level.

- from there, IMHO, it's all about massaging the scene till you get it right. As you know,
that's a job unto itself.

- nice walk cycle on the poser figure. After 5-6 years with this, I'm just starting to learn
about rigging :)

- have you seen the Sky_CustomSun.c4d file that was posted?

- have you seen the generic GI set up by George Drakakis?

[velarde]

Hey thanks for the reply.

I'll take a look at those 2 threads you mentioned.

I'm never sure If i'm using too much lights or too less .. :(

Thanks for the comment on the walk cycle, but I'll let you in a little secret (and everybody else that reads the thread) :) It's actually a walk cycle that you can create in a couple of seconds in Poser. Much more quicker than rigging it and animating it by hand or exporting and importing from MotionBuilder.. and it was "good enough" for this test.

Anybody else with a lighting suggestion thay may wan't to join in the conversation..?

P.D. By the way There's an Intel machine in the office , I'll try and use it as a 2 computer render farm ... :) Hope there are no issues mixing power pc and Intel in the render farm. I remember there were issues mixing PCs and Macs..

fjv

[vid2k2]

Just a note on the 2 imacs, do a still test render on each as the gamma color
may be different.

I'm also trying to do a quick setup as per your sample to see what GI solutions
I may be able to come up with. Edit: here's my first test render using the
Sky Custom Sun.

Ref Poser: I've been meaning to explore that for populating arch scenes but am
very happy with the planes/alphas from Got3D

[velarde]

Wow, thanks David.

I'll post the cinema 4d file tomorrow that I get to the office ( if you wan't to play with it).

Good night.

fjv

[vid2k2]

Using the iMac 1.8=1:48 render time for this tweaked render :)

Good Night

[imashination]

The secret to interior lighting is to use falloff. This will help you avoid over-lit scenes by limiting how far each light can reach. Inverse square clamped is one of the most controllable ones.

[STRAT]

The secret to interior lighting is to use falloff. This will help you avoid over-lit scenes by limiting how far each light can reach. Inverse square clamped is one of the most controllable ones.

i'd personally go with near/far distances instead. more subtle.

[vid2k2]

Update:
I've enclosed the structure and added glass.
There's only 1 distant light and GI.

I'll add textures later, but this gets closer to the
magazine reference photo. Render time= 3:33

[velarde]

Thanks for the Tips guys ( Matthew, STRAT) I'll play a little with both and see what I can come up with. (I do have plans on buying the 3D fluff DVD #4 to help me out in general lighting...) ;)


Again thanks David, I checked my scene file and some of the object's name in the manager are in spanish, but I don't think you need to move those.. Here it is if you want to play with it:

Scene File - 6 MB (http://www.velarde.com/tests/room.zip)


I'll post my new examples as soon as I have a little more free time.

Good luck all!

fjv

[pzdm]

Hi there
For animation use AO, it can be very usefull in this case... A little example what I done

http://download.digitalmedia.cz/temp/chodba.jpg

other AO test
http://download.digitalmedia.cz/temp/ao1.jpg

AO test without AA (model is not mine)

http://download.digitalmedia.cz/temp/kit.jpg

Pavel

[georgedrakakis]

- have you seen the generic GI set up by George Drakakis?

tnx vid2k2, for bringing that up, but i wouldn't recomment the use of this setup directly in a project.
the only reason is that it's not finished yet, and although the idea is simple (realistic material & lighting setup) too many controllers and absense of c.o.f.f.e.e programming, make it difficult to use.
i would suggest it for experimental use or for exploring another way of dealing with lighting -> interaction with materials.

@ velarde:
i would suggest make a lot of test renders and explorations and to track every post of Ernest Burden or STRAT or Per-Anders. they inspired a lot of people here, including me.
i'll check your file as soon as i download the scene.

[vid2k2]

Pavel:
Yes, a little AO goes a long way. Also, forgive me for not mentioning your most excellent
"v10+MG_skylight". Still working in 9.6, so it did not come to mind as readily.

George:
You're most welcome. I'm very impressed with what you did and felt that it would be
a excellent study to learn from.

Velarde:
Many thanks for making your file available. My modeling had reached a stage that I did
I had no need, but, will use some of the textures :)

[georgedrakakis]

just did a gi test and rendertime is ~1min30secs. (laptop dualcore 1.83).
i don't know if this is good for animations.
the scene is lit only by sky (via illumination channel) & a sun light.
i added fresnel effect in refl/trans channel (glass material),
changed floor, ground & ceiling material's illumination model to oren-nayar.
this is a screenshot & the file.
hope it helps.

[velarde]

Edited:

_________

The sunlight was wacky.. don't know why, it was pointing in another direction. But I created a new one and pointed it in the right direction and know its casting a shadow :)

_____


Hey George.


Thank you very much for playing with the file. The render looks nice and the time are acceptable.... even in my computer.. :)

Something strange though... I'm not getting the shadow when I render. It IS turned on... but it doesn't render.... Any idea why... maybe a mac/pc thing...?

thanks everyone for the help, I've been reading more posts and found a nice one that mya help me out in future tests

Sincerely,

Fernando

[georgedrakakis]

well, this is another test without GI.
render time ~50secs.
i added compositing tags to area-lights (excluding the bounding surfuce from each light).
notice the bright spots on the ground which i can't explain.
does anybody have a clue?

[Per-Anders]

the light on the floor is coming from teh area light right next to it, if you're going ot use a light like that you should make sure to set it to z-direction only, or if you need an area light up close to a surface then make use of many more samples or the add grain option. ideally keep area lights away from being too close to surfaces.

[georgedrakakis]

tnx Per-Anders.
i thought that excluding the surfaces would do the job.

@ velarde :
i really don't know what's going on, maybe i accidentally changed something.
did you checked the render settings -> general options-> shadows-> all ?

[pzdm]

Hi there
I tried your file and it looks nice with my settings, but render took a long time :-( (9 minutes)...

I rendered picture to 32 bit - there are little exposition correction and levels as well.

http://download.digitalmedia.cz/temp/ao_room.jpg

[velarde]

Hi Pavel.

It does look nice. But it has a much higher render time.. :)
Just the floor bump looks inverse...

Some good postwork also helps.. I have to play with that too...

I'm making some tests now that I figured where my shadow was going (from George file) and it helped to see some other stuff.

I thought those lighting sliders weren't meant to go beyond 100% but I see some people do use that... All decide If I do the GI render (which I thought would be much slower) Well with the Poser figure inserted it does slow it down on certain areas but it's not that bad... or ..
go with the fake GI approach.. a little more tests.. :)

But as soon as I have something I will post some results to get some crits. we will see...

fjv

[georgedrakakis]

All decide If I do the GI render (which I thought would be much slower) Well with the Poser figure inserted it does slow it down on certain areas but it's not that bad... or ..
fjv

hi velarde,
i don't think that the Poser figure has something to add to the scene-lighting,
so you may add a compositing tag with ''seen by gi'' unchecked, and also run through all the figure's materials and uncheck the ''receive gi'' & ''generate gi'' options.
that will drop render-times back to normal.

(edit: just like the glass object & material)

scene-file with correct sun position re-uploaded.
render time 1min22secs.

[vid2k2]

Hmmm, I'd pt the sun in a null and aim it on the other side where the tree is
and lower it a bit so that the shadows play on the wall. In addition, i put a small amount
of lum 5% on the floor and wall tex. This could be set a little lower.
Finally, I've choosen soft shadows for a softer look.

[georgedrakakis]

In addition, i put a small amount
of lum 5% on the floor and wall tex.
hi vid2k2,
the edge between the wall and the ceiling is a little bright.
a diffusion channel in the wall tex with AO effect set to from mid grey to off-white should do the trick. (darker tex in the edges won't brighten the egde).

[velarde]

Hey guys!

Thanks again for the update and the Poser tiip. I'll check that. Everytime the render lines approaches the hair of the figure or glasses .. it slows down a bit.. I was thinking because of the transparency in the material.

On a positive note I installed the render client on the Intel Mac over here.. and wow its fast... those 2 processors work pretty well : )

It's making using GI for animations a reality for me... I've done tests in the past and found it VERY slow... I guess I needed to play with the settings a little bit.

Gotta upgrade my machine now... :)


Ahh.. and one more question, If I may.. :)
I had a background set to a light blue, that was my sky. But now to use the GI you made a material and it shows in the window.. Kind of dull.... I was thinking on using a texture map (clouds mapped in a sphere) or my original color at the least...

What can I do here..? so it won't mess with the sky object that its creating the GI illumination?

Well back to more tests...


fjv

[velarde]

Hello Again...

I was doing test renders from different positions and found that some circles are appearing in the render.... : (

http://www.velarde.com/tests/circles_01.jpg


It's basically the file I downloaded here. The SKY object and one distant light....
What could be making these circles...? Do i need to adjust the GI settings...? give it more samples/make it slower..?

The strange thins its that it's angle dependenant ( I think...) Higher camera angles produce no circles, but lower ones does....

Any advice would be appreciated.

fjv

[STRAT]

your max samps are too low

[TBoxman]

I've had the same circle problem before. Which max samples are set to low?

Thanks,
Terry

[georgedrakakis]

I've had the same circle problem before. Which max samples are set to low?

Thanks,
Terry
it's the min/max samples

[velarde]

Hello everybody:

Just wanted to show my final animation (for now) of the project a lot of you helped out.

As it turned out.. using GI is great for stills ( I will sure use it in the future) but it was unusable (at least for me) for animations.... I got all weird artifacts jumping in the scene when rendering , even when I upped the samples... and that made it even slower for rendering...

So I ended up using a couple of Area lights to light up the areas where my main light didn't get to and Ambient Occlusion. It came up ok... (not great) but it's my first test... :)

But know that 3D Fluff has announced a new Architectural rendering DVD, I hope to get better ( Buying this one FOR SURE) :)

So here's the image:

And a quick animation (it starts and end with a black fade)

http://www.velarde.com/tests/03.html


http://www.velarde.com/tests/room_03.jpg

[georgedrakakis]

good work velarde, nice going!

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.