Lighting Challenge #8: Haunted Hallway

[cowdude]

There’s no substitute for hard work!

My best advice (other than checking my book out from your local library ) is to try to simplify what you’re working on. Focus on one light source, such as the bare bulb, or maybe some other source like moon light coming through a window, and work on that and test render until you have that single light really looking really believable. Don’t add any other lights to the scene until you’ve nailed the first one and test-rendered it in isolation.

-jeremy

Thanks for the tip.

[jeremybirn]

janeventer -

That’s great! It’s a very solid looking image already, and the surfaces and textures are working really well. The tiles look every bit as good as modeled ones would, if not better. If you want feedback on the surfaces, I’d say they look very uniformly matte-finished, and a little more variation with some parts having more specularity or reflectivity to them might help to simulate a little wetness or sheen in places could be good. You’ve got good variety in your textures, it really adds interest to the room. Maybe the front faces of the stairs are a little redundant, just flipping or sliding around some of those wood textures might help.

The lighting is off to a good start, with the occlusion the scene looks solid already. I think the big problem is that there’s too uniform an ambient pass. The occlusion helps bring it down in the dark corners, but the occlusion isn’t helping to darken the lower part of the back wall. Right now the lower part of the back wall is somehow receiving a lot of fill light, it actually looks as bright below the landing as it does up near the windows, which isn’t very believable. A few of the corners and the edges of the boards are also going a little too dark suddenly. What could fix all of this is if you replace the base ambient with a few well-aimed fill lights simulating light from the sky and bounce light around the room, then you could still use some occlusion to darken parts of that but it would have more variety of color and tone to start with. A few specular lights or rim lights to bring out some highlights and kicks in the geometry where it’s backlit could also add some punch to the image.

-jeremy

PS - I hope the “About the image:” statement on the cgchannel gallery is just temporary and you’re going to fill in more informative statements and links?

[jeremybirn]

nihylius - Welcome! You can take as long as you want to keep going, with the Old Challenges Marathon thread even after we get the next challenge on-line there will still be a good places to post new versions of this one.

Q-Tron - Nice image! Maybe a bit more of the scene could be defined with lighting, so we can see the lightbulb a little better, maybe more of the contrast in areas like the floor could come from the lights instead of the textured pattern?

hardwork - Great Breakdown! Thanks!

rept0r - It doesn’t really look like light is coming from the lightbulb, shaded by the lampshade above it yet. Maybe fix-up the geometry that’s all coming apart, then focus on getting the light to come from the bulb?

nightfever - Welcome! Nice scene! I like the richness and variety of your texturing. Maybe just a hint more rim lighting around the edges of the window itself, and on some of the side railings, could break the symmetry just enough. The lightbulb doesn’t read yet either, maybe that could catch a glint or reflection?

-jeremy

[jehut3]

First attempt on Haunted Hallway

This is my first post, I just signed up after finding the link to this site in
Jeremy’s book, Digital Lighting and Rendering. I would really like to improve in this area, so any feedback would be great.
My scene is being lit from the moon outside the window of an old barn.

I have used three directional lights for the moon light and five bounce lights with depth map shadows for the ambient indirect illumination.

cheers

Julian

[storman]

Hi to all!

Jeremy, Thank you for your comments! Your opinion is very important for me.

Here is update. I`ve tried different lighting, more dramatic and changed stair shader to wood.

[rept0r]

First thanks for the tip jeremy.
As i said the results are way out from the phisics standards, i wont have time to work on the scene specially the geometry/texture just wanted to make my shot as a thanks giving" for all the knowledge you shared trought.

if u drink dont drive and if drive dont drink.

[satishkumar]

hi ppl.its good to see the lighting challange i am very much interested in this …will someone plz tell me that ,what is the time limit for this challenge.i am new to this challenge.

Thanks
satish kumar

[nihylius]

Jeremy thanks for Your greetings and for this challenge! I rendered the forst image under one minute as I see I can put some textures on this week finaly. I think about occlusion pass too, But I think it can kill the balance of the image… some tests needed.

[davidborba]

Hi!

I don´t know if I gonna have time to finish it but this is what I was thinking for this scene…what I want is to experiment diferent things. like explore colors and diferent light sources…

I’ll try to find some time to finish it with texture, more details, effects and post-effects…that image already have some post work in photoshop…just experimenting stuffs…

ps.:sorry for the bad english

david borba

[tinitus]

yeh,
mine looks not really haunted but well I enjoyed it!

[Matt_Grdinic]

@nightfever : Your light source seems to be dimmer than the highlight it creates. I would post in photoshop with the dodge tool to make the window area brighter. That should really tie everything together.

@storman : Nice, but too much specular! I like the lighting, but everything is too shiny, especially when you compare the floor board to the wood leaning against the wall. I’d like to see how your scene looks with a more ‘muted’ look.

@Q-Tron : Nice image, but your textures are simply too low res to work at the rendered resolution. HD resolutions like that should be in the 4k range. I also like the staggered floor texturing, but wish they also staggered in the front/back direction.

@tinitus : The highlight around the light bulb is classy, but I think the floor has a bit too much specularity. In real life, such an old room would appear worn down (in relation to the walls), with more specularity being present on the less used floor sections. Other than that, I really like the Blue palette, as it's such a natural color choice to convey gloom.

[jeremybirn]

I notice most people here prefer surfaces that are very flat, dry, and dusty looking. That’s great, it’s a valid interpretation of the project. Just for variety, I was just browsing some photos of spaces that might be more interesting (and haunting) because of their reflections and specularity. Here are links to some photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nayme/100151035/
(Would this hallway be more spooky, or less, if you got rid of the highlights and reflections?)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tatianacardeal/122850747/
(Without her reflection, you could still put a shadow onto the parque floor, but would it look the same?)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_aka_suprdave/280195098/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aarontong/325402917/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/terribleminds/162031190/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kidicarus222/40674654/

-jeremy

[Max2006]

This is my first try in this chalenge … need your opinion.

used Cinema4D 10 …

and this from another view

Soo :shrug:

[storman]

Thanks for great references, Jeremy.
Here are some more:

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r16/pavel_o/HauntedReferences/up-gelber.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r16/pavel_o/HauntedReferences/sesselraum.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r16/pavel_o/HauntedReferences/greenmile.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r16/pavel_o/HauntedReferences/down.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r16/pavel_o/HauntedReferences/Brauerei-unsch.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r16/pavel_o/HauntedReferences/bett.jpg
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r16/pavel_o/HauntedReferences/beelitz2.jpg

Really inspiring photos, unfortunately I dont know photographers name.

Thanks

[jeremybirn]

Max2006 - Welcome! That’s a nice job. I especially like the first one with the little alien, although I wouldn’t make the shadow of his head that big on the floor! If you want the impression of lights from a spaceship or something really close-by to the window, maybe you could use 2 or 3 lights criss-crossing eachother from a little farther away? Also I wonder if that hanging cloth could be more translucent to pick up more light?

tinitus - Nice job! Maybe too much post-processing on the glow of the window and the graininess, but overall solid scene. I wonder if it would get more interesting with reflections or something on the floor like in the ref images I was posting above?

davidborba - Welcome! It’s hard to tell yet which way you’re going with that image, but keep working at it!

satishkumar - No time limit! Take as long as you want. In another week or two, you’ll need to post these to the Old Challenges Marathon along with the other challenges, but it’ll still be a valid entry that could be added to the gallery.

storman - Looking good. The bottom of the image feels more solid and believable than the top to me. Maybe problems in the upper part could be the upper left corner not looking occluded consistently between the two walls and the lighting of the slats in the center window?

jehut3 - Welcome! Nice job! Maybe the scene could use a bit more of an area of interest to look at. The stair landing could also use a bit more definition - it looks now like the molding or edge of the floor down below the landing has a defining highlight along it, which isn’t really needed down there in the shadows, but more of that kind of rim could be used up in the landing and railing area closer to the windows?

-jeremy

[fulg0re]

HI, everyone. Jeremy, thank you for your comments, on my first wip here is my second, its been a while since my last post. The image is maybe to dark because I made some corection today at study on a not calibrated monitor.
No AO just lights…,what can I do to prevent my textures getting blured when rendering with AA?

[cgb777]

Here is what I’m working on for this challenge. I’m still working with some texturing variations as well as some camera work. I created this in Lightwave 3D. Comments welcome.

[nihylius]

Hi all again,

I like some images from this challenge! :> thnx all!
There are some semifinal pieces, every render is under 2 minute (one light only), so I choosed this two colorworld. I used this “non-creative” Camera set to testing my photonic effects. (yes, the stairs are not yet textured) I have not enough time, so the total competition time was 1-2 hours with all light tests (I made a direct illum lightset too, but I dont like it.)I think.

[MinaRagaie]

I think the top priority is not color changes but cleaning up the lighting.

I got caught up playing with colors last time… it is addictive, I gotta admit

Here’s my update, I’ll stick to the first color variation… cause about 90% of my friends liked it more.

Just a few Fixes, thanks alot for the comments Jeremy
1- I’ve changed the stairs texture to wood
2-Used Displacment instead of bump on the near columns
3-removed the “plane” along the top of the right wall (it was getting too many illumination)
4-Fixed the colored shadow edges

so do you think there’s sth more I should change??

[shuggie]

Hey guys heres my attempt, I’ve applied some DOF and glow in post, cheers.