Hello,
Here is my Kitchen scene - This is the first pass (WIP).
Feedback is most welcomed.
I got the feeling that I need to change the direction of the Backdrop image I chose. I think I need to mirror it - Looks like the sun’s direction in the image is opposite.
Yes, change the background. See if you can replace those black windows with blue sky, and it should look brighter compared to the inside anyway.
The direct sun is coming at a strange perspective, as if the sun were a lightbulb only a few feet outside of the window. In real life, the distance from the earth to the sun is several feet further than that. 
Try switching it to a directional light, or else move the light source much further away.
You really need some fill light from the sky. If it’s daytime, the sunbeam wouldn’t enter by itself, there would be lots of light from the sky entering at all angles. You may need 4 or 5 area lights outside the window to get the daylight effect coming in from all angles.
I don’t see the GI yet, if it’s there. When you do GI, post a pair of images one with and one without, so I can see what the GI adds.
-jeremy
No GI yet. I am still working on it.
I will post more progress images once I’ll have them.
Stay tuned 
Here is more progress:
GI Pass only:
My values are preatty high on the photons
Photons Intensity: 20000000
Global Illum photons: 300000
And I still get that light patch on the cabinet under the sink. Any idea what could be causing it ? Is it a reflection of some sort ?
Here is the Occlusion pass:
And here are both of them together (Including shadows that come from the sun):
As usual - any critique is most welcomed!
:bounce:
you have a very nice and cosy lighting going on there.
a) I would say maybe have some nice rim light bleeds on the fruits it looks darker from back…
b) your occlusion is cancelling out the reflection on the table…
c) I dunno why but that constrast stain on the cabinet door seems to be the focus of interest, I would try to find out why that stain is there… maybe remove it?
d) I like the goboish on the top cabinet someing from the gi, maybe you could push it more and have a spotlight throw some broken up lighting to simulate maybe a tree outside?
e) it does feel a little dark inside, I would love to see more bounce lighting from the sunlight
as a quick sug I would say use an ambient pass, it helps fill up occluded areas from the occlusion and balances the scene. Also in photoshop I like to multiply my occ pass with a color like light blues or yellows depending how you want to push the color of the occlusion…
Nice update. The occlusion pass definitely helped a little bit.
It feels like the GI ate up the shadows a bit too much though. I can’t really make out any shadows in there at all, though the bg image makes the light source look pretty strong. Especially around the inside edge of the window frame; a lot of the light has bled over to where I’d expect the harshest shadowed area in the scene to be.
As for the blotch on the cabinet, I can’t imagine what could be causing that… have you tried rendering without FG to see if it’s the FG or the GI pass that’s causing it? The first thought that comes to mind is that the FG in that area might be seeing a really bright spot in the back of the room somewhere. But if that were the case, I’d expect a much softer fallof on the edge of the bright patch. That edge is very sharp… :shrug:
So here is my no GI image. One sopt used to immitate the sun. I think I need another one to reflect the sky color, although the color of the sky in the backdrop image is bright white.
Should I add a light for the skies anyway ?
And here is the image with GI and FG:
On this image I extended the Photons Intensity to 40000000 and it eliminated the sopt thatI had on the cabinet.
And this is the GI + FG with the occlusion pass on it:
Finally, I wanted to show my photons map:
The green arrow show the extra geometry I had to add in order to get rid of Photons illuminating the gaps between the cabinet’s doors:
just wondering why you added the extra geometry, when you could use occlusion to darken those areas. Also you are getting some interesting darkening on the border of the drawers and the edge of the window still is that from the extra geometry? Also the chair is reflecting the floor, which seems very odd…
The cair reflecting the floor ?
Uhm…
I don’t think so cause if you look at the image with no GI/FG on it, you’ll see that
the pattern of the chair is basically shadows (IMO). They are very light and with Occlusion pass added, it looks like the floor is reflecting.
You definately need light from the sky, not just a sunbeam. 4 or 5 area lights ought to do it, and that’ll give you much nicer shading in your pre-GI stage.
The occlusion looks a little heavy, try to fix the light leaks and the GI problems first before you use it.
Blocker geometry can be set no primary visibility, no cast shadows, so it’s just there to block photons, and that way it could be put more towards the front of the cabinets where you’re having the problem.
-jeremy
Here is some progress. Jeremy, I used your advice to add sky light using area lights.
So here is the image with everything on it:
And here is the image of the GI + FG only:
As you can see, I tried to take off the light bleeds, but I can’t seem to get rid of them. This is weird because I took my values down and also I looked at the Photons maps (The updated one) and saw that they are being blocked from the cabinet area, by the blocking geometry I put and modified. There are only several photon hitting these areas and still I get some bleeds over there.
And finally, here is the image with no FG/GI on it:
As you can see, the sky light added a lot to it. Thank you
That’s coming along nicely.
I don’t think the sun direction matches the background image - the background house looks like it is sunlit from the right (see the roof especially) and the room looks like it is lit from the left. (Maybe flipping the background would be the fastest way to fix this?)
Did you do something special to the table to give it those dark edges? It looks like a texture thing not a lighting thing, but I didn’t see that happening in other people’s scenes.
-jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
Thank you for the critique. Yes I did something to the wood texture. I needed to change its reflection’s blur, due to the fact that the chair was reflecting stuff I thought is not right (i.e - the tiled floor). So I maxed the blur factor to 10 units.
I hope it is ok to go and mess with the textures to make the scene work.
I will try to flip the backdrop image and look if it changes anything.
Thanks
Michael
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