Lighting Challenge #9: Neon and Chrome

#41

Thats very intersting… i’m in

#42

Don’t want to be too nitpicky now, this is a big scene to get going with and most people are clearly just getting started.

I started doing something that I’ll continue with for a while: I’ve edited the first post to show a really terrific image, so people who visit the thread for the first time see something more than a screenshot.

@ACamacho - Wonderful scene you’re creating there, I love how the neon is reflected in the car. I hope you won’t do that much bloom/glow work on your final product, it looks almost as if the neon signs are in a dense fog (although their reflections don’t have the fog) and I think once the surfaces and lighting are working better you won’t need to post-process so much.

@Kameleon & @Scizzer08 - There’s room to explore the sort of mixed lighting environment we’ve got here: there’s the mostly-flourescent light spilling out of the garage, the street lighting, and then whatever light from the sky or other off-screen lights fills in the roadway. The different areas should have different lighting, with different colors, different shadows.

@MasterZap - Awsome work so far! I hope you don’t mind that I quote your image in the first post now to help promote this thread. Whoever wrote that carpaint shader you’re using must be a genius. I can’t really tell what’s happening in the front windshield in this one - is that a reflection of something or are we looking though it?

@fraa - Welcome! Keep going with your work!

@d4rk3lf - A “Las Vegas” theme might work on really well, good idea! I guess we’ll see a lot of interesting reflections on the car once it becomes reflective. It looks like you started with the side walls in terms of light spilling out from the garage, looks like it needs it through the entrance as well.

-jeremy

#43

Jeremy, this Challenge is hard ! Thank you for give us a lot of job. :wink:

Wow, Masterzap ! I know your very good past jobs on lighting
challenges. But here, you’re great !
I’m thinking in myself what can I do now ?
Your level is very hard, I have to work a lot…

#44

No problemo, naturellement!

Yeah, I wish I could meet him! At least I hear you met the guy, even had beer with him. And he has a signed copy of your book, you lucky bastard! :wink:

I think it’s an incorrect reflection due to incorrectly exported normals. I re-smoothed the glass with max’s auto-smooth and got something that makes a lot more sense now.

The scene is - outside of the carpaint shader - 100% “arch&design” (“mia_material” in Maya 8.5 speak), and physical light + tonemapping + glare. I’m really trying to do this as “physical” as possible.

I must say life is much easier for me now that my new set of shaders are released and I don’t have to hide the fact that I’m using your challanges as a great test bed… :wink:

Some more tests (assigning some new materials):

The “Round Corners” features really helps to naturalize those artificially sharp edges…

This one shows there’s clearly something fishy going on w. the normals on the windsheild…

And another actual “entry”…

/Z

#45

Nice renders Zap!

Tell me how did u get thoose reflection glows? or even neon glows? ur r using max mental right?
Here is a test render, still lots of mess but gonna fix :slight_smile:

#46

MasterZap - Wow You’re just awesome with scenes! Thats really good. so full of colors! by the way the last image on your last post, how did you get the streaking reflection in the road of the head lights? is that something that just came from the shader or was there something specifically done to get it stretched along the road like that? I’m so jelous of how you got the objects in your scene to feel! how do you do it?

Dodgeas3d - Really good render! I like the texturing you have going for the building and road. Keep going!

ACamacho - It’s nice to see renders of 3d scenes that show off photography skills, Nice angle and really nice mood you have set i really like it! can’t wait to see what else you have instore for it. You have a similar idea it seems of how i was thinking of the lighting in the scene so hopefully when i get the chance mine wont look to much like a copy, even though it probually wont compare to the quality and show of skills yours will!

#47

Thats a awesome render. I’m simply amazed … speechless

#48

Errr … what is that ? A new Maya 8.5 feature?

#49

Almost done…


“An evening at the Cinema…”

/Z

#50

MasterZap, stop it ! You make me crazy. :wink:
I’m working on this challenge but it needs
so and so time…

#51

Wow MasterZap, really awesome update. I think you are right that it is just about finished. The only small critique/suggestion I would have is to maybe increase the reflectivity of the windshield a bit (even if it isn’t very realistic) so that we don’t see inside of the cab of the truck quite so clearly. It just looks a bit odd to have the rest of the scene so finished but then see no one actually driving the truck…

Anyways, I love it so far…the rain is a nice touch too. can’t wait to see the final version.

-Brian

#52

I bet you’ve been working on that movie in the ad…? :twisted:

#53

This is done in max mental, yes, but it could be done in any mental. I was using the Lume ‘Glare’ shader for the glows.

Thanks! I’m getting kinda happy with how this turns out too!

Nothing special, the Arch&Design/mia_material does a modified multilayered ward highlight, which has that feature. The bump adds to that too, so it behaves as it does in reality, basically.

This is all using stuff from the mental ray “architectural.dll” shader pack that is available inside max9, maya 8.5 and XSI 6.

  • new material from architectural.dll known as “arch&design” (max) “mia_material” (maya) or “architecturalmaterial” (XSI) everywhere (except the car paint)
  • use the ‘rounded corner’ feature from architectural.dll that makes render time bevels to edges so they don’t look “computery sharp”
  • use physical area lights everywhere
  • use FG
  • use tone mapping (mia_exposure_simple from architectural.dll)

Technically it’s a mental ray 3.5 / architectural.dll feature (which comes with aformentioned product versions of your “favourite tool”) :wink:

Oh, look at the birdie!

Btw, the deck of the Posseidon has a lot of glossy wood on it, did you know that? :wink:

/Z

#54

Once again master Zap… could you explain how to get glare effecting only specific object? i found in a shader object tags (labels) option… but whats that? object id? mat id? none of them is working…

Btw your “ENTER” is nasty looking, add some face cuts to letters to fix mesh :wink:

#55

@MasterZap: Thanks for the answer … in fact i hoped that [introducing dramatic music with deep voice pronouncing especially all “U” and “O” vocals] SOMEDAY, SOMEONE ON THIS BELOVED PLANET WOULD BRING THE OLD F-EDGE PLUGIN IDEA TO OUR RENDERERS … THAT DAY -MY FELLOW FRIENDS- HAS COME!!

have to try this soooon :wink:

#56

Just downloaded the file. Now to see whether I could squeeze some time to give this scene a go… Its too interesting a scene to miss…

#57

I don’t - the Glare only is added on overbrights, and in this scene only some highlights and the self-illuminating things are bright enough.

Neither, by default it looks at something that isn’t actually available in max. This is one of the reason the shader is “hidden” (i.e. not “officially supported”) in max, since some of it’s features isn’t working correctly.

I know, I was originally planning on leaving that offscreen (and I might, havn’t decided final ‘framing’ yet) but I kinda liked my shiny trashcan :wink:

(Thats actually a real problem with an image like this; when you put so much work into some details and then they don’t end up in the final image at all… but it’s the old ‘Kill Your Darlings’ dilemma).

/Z

#58

yea but you can allways choose 3 angles of your work (i mean like this scene) to show up your lighting :wink: sometimes it seems one image is not enough :wink:

Here is my second test render… still tweaking neon and some textures…but im already going for what i want …

#59

Hey guys thats a nice job … i was gonna upload my first render but i gues im going to hold back a bit after seen last render and work more on those shaders :wise:

…the rendertimes are about an hour using raytrace and gi any feedback on rendertimes …will be cool to improve on that :sad: also i was exporting as tiff16 to add glow in aftereffects cause i havent implemented that on on maya any suggestion for the other format i cant use ? tiff32 doesn look right …

@Dodgeas3d… your a Pro nice work on those shaders i like ur prevos angle and resolution try wo work on those reflections on the windshield it looks black … :thumbsup:

heres what i got so far sorry about the tires at defaul settings only paint added and glass

#60

… wooow … you are fast … damn for all that everydaywork i´ve to do actually, i want to give that scene a shot!

question: for those “lights”, do you use duplicates for the visual neons and invisible objects with other gi-visible shaders for the light-casting, or do you place lights where the objects are?

I did a quick&dirty rendering with final render, setting up all neons to incandescence which results in very nice lighting (but resulting in wrong light distribution since the scene is to small compared for 1 maya unit = 1 cm). problem is, that the light emitting objects fully burn out - so duplicates are neccessary for the gi-way i guess.