tweaking max GI for best results

[Dave Black]

What are your lighting colors? Also, perhaps a screenshot of your lighting angles and would help.

Usually you'd want to set the fill light(skylight) to a cool blue and make sure it's set to bounce at least once. Also play with the color bleed paramter.

Your key light(spot) should be a light yellow tint, and try using "area" shadows.

Looks cool, though. Just give us some more info on your setup.

-3DZ

:D

[Matt Wynne]

Hey Zealot,
I have tried your suggestions and I think it looks better...
here is a new render and some screenshots of my settings.
cheer's.
http://www.triode.net.au/~genghis/images/Matt_Wynne3.jpg
http://www.triode.net.au/~genghis/images/screenshots_1.jpg
http://www.triode.net.au/~genghis/images/screenshots_2.jpg

[Dave Black]

Hey, that is looking better!

I love your scene, btw. It's really shaping up.

There are a few things I noticed looking at your settings.

First off, let me advise this:

Turn off advanced lighting. Change the spot color to pure white. Change your enviroment color to black. Render out the scene with just the standard spot. Save the image.

Now, turn off your spot, and turn back on advanced lighting. Make the sky light pure white as well.

Render it out again, and save the resulting image.

Open up both these images in photoshop.

Create a new document in photoshop, and add your spot light render to the first layer, and your sky light render to your second layer. Change your skylight layer's blending mode to "screen".

Now, you can adjust the brightness/contrast and RGB values, and instantly see how these changes will affect your render. It's an old trick, but it can really help in speeding up your lighting troubleshooting, as you don't have to wait for a long render.

Secondly, your fill light(sky) should be half or less than your spot. This might be what's causing some problems. Just try it that way for a render and see what happens.

Oh, and one more thing. Hehe. I'm sure you know, but you can open up your filter size and reduce your samples to about 5 or 10 just to check the light settings faster.

Wow. That was a long post. Sorry.

Look'n good man! Thanks for taking the time to post your settings like that. Wish more people would do that.

-3DZ

:D

[Matt Wynne]

thank's for the help Zealot,
I have altered the settings as you suggested by reducing my fill light and upping my key light....definately looks more like the sunny sort of feel I was going for....the windows are pretty nasty at the moment but I will persist...
I will re-render with some more colour bleeding and bounces as well...maybe overnight.
thanks again.
http://www.triode.net.au/~genghis/images/scene.jpg

[Matt Wynne]

here is my latest update - worked on the textures a bit more and rebuilt the brick floor. Also the gobo map for the tree shadows..

Maybe some grass and mould where the bricks meet the wall and a couple of props might smick things up a bit as well?
http://www.triode.net.au/~genghis/images/update.jpg

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