Mental ray lighting set up questions

#21

The OP is doing an exterior render.

“The scene is on old house where at top of a hill, the sun is rising and lighting is spread to the house.”

You worked a little on True Crime as well didn’t you?

#22

The OP is doing an exterior render.

Doe!

You worked a little on True Crime as well didn’t you?

Nope. Stearing at dancing Penguins at the moment.

#23

I messed up normal map so it looked weird when I rendered it :slight_smile:
I am using sun/sky to just test my scene right now.
I am still learning with the set up. Like lowjack said, chaning the direction of the light gives the scene different mood. I tried to change the color of it, but it wasn’t easy. I need to study more of it.
I found a tutorial of IBL. I will also test it to see what kind of result I get.
Tweaking lighting is kind of fun. Yes, it is hard and time consuming, but I kind of like it.
Thank you for the advice guys.

#24

THANK YOU GORILLAJIN!!!

If you need any help at all, please feel free to PM me.

#25

Hey, im new to lighting and need to light a scene similar to this (http://www.dymee.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/200909-1/8ff87_8360-audi-r8-2007-studio1.jpg) i wanna use mental ray so anyone know how to get the samelook??..im creating a fake ad for the R8.

#26

Like lowjack said, chaning the direction of the light gives the scene different mood.

THANK YOU GORILLAJIN!!!

Wait, so what you’ve been trying to tell us this whole time, LowJack, is that the angle of the sun in the sky, and thus the time of day, changes the lighting and mood of your scene? So what you’re telling us is that the sun looks different in the morning than it does in the evening?

There was a sweet Pizza Hut graphic too, where just below the Pizza Hut sign, on the leaderboard, it reads, “WE HAVE PIZZA.” But I thought this one was funnier.

Nevermind the humor, all that matters is that we’re now all aware that you are aware that the sun’s light shifts throughout the day’s cycles. Also, at night, the sun has passed the horizon and casts even less light, and creates an even more dramatic mood! They call this style, “night”. Hope this helps.

#27

The link you sent didn’t work so I googled the jpg filename and came across this (hope we’re talking about the same thing):
http://www.freewallpepper.com/audi-r8-gt3/8ff87_8360-audi-r8-2007-studio1/

The easiest way to do that is to use IBL with an HDRI that represents a studio-like environment. Try googling “hdri studio” and see what you can find. I’ve found several free ones of decent quality.

If you want to go a bit more long-winded you could try actually building your own studio environment. Lighting cars like that in the real-world is fairly simple (I think there have even been articles on how they do it linked here before) - and is often mainly about just sticking one or more “area lights” above the car.

Complexity in the reflections is what makes the lighting look real, and that comes from a) light hitting the surrounding environment, usually a flat-coloured room, perhaps with a cyclorama in it, and b) Variation in the brightness of the light source.

Here’s an example of an artificially generated studio panorama. This one’s probably better suited for product shots rather than cars but it illustrates the points I’m talking about:
http://dev.designdroplets.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/HDRI-Example-Map-1.jpg

#28

To answer the original issue about the render coming out blown out one of the main parameters that can help is to turn down the multiplier for the sun/sky node. By default it is 1 which is full intensity. Yes you can, compensate for this by adjusting the physical lens shader on the camera but I find that a value of .7 or .8 is good enough for starters. Hope that helps.

Jon

#29

Just except the fact that you gave the original poster bad advice and in the end he went with IBL which I suggested.

Good luck with your future clients. Just remember to ask them; “you want fries with that?”

( ))==D

#30

It took you four days to come up with that?

Very well, I’ll “except” your “fact”. It doesn’t exist; it’s been excepted as a fact, son. I believe the word you’re looking for was “accept”, LowJack. And you attempt to insult and defame my intelligence and experience… And yes, you get an award for one person trying out “your technique” of IBL, which you obviously pioneered, wrote, invented, and deserve all the credit for knowing about its existence.

Figure I’d help you out with yet another monosyllabic word, since it’s obviously as difficult for you to grasp as the sun/sky:

fact
–noun

  1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.

  2. something known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.

  3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth.

I was suggesting to use the sun for simplicity’s sake, to someone who may or may not have extensive lighting experience. Your retort was that the sun looked different at different times of day, Mr. Revelation, and that’s too difficult for you to control, so you stick to workaround, non-parallactic images for your lighting.

Using the sun/sky was hardly “bad advice”, and it’s simply your angry opinion that it’s too hard to use, LowJack. The rest of us don’t seem to have any problems understanding how the sun works. I suggest going outside sometime; the air and light might help with your anger issues. Or maybe you’d just look up at the sun and say, “You look bad; I want photos wrapped around me instead (that I didn’t take anyway) because as the day progresses, your mood and light change and I simply cannot tolerate such an atrocity”.

And last, I don’t need luck with my clients. Luck is for losers; winners know it takes hard work. But hey, go ahead and attack anything about me you want LowBlow. My clients certainly won’t mind, nor will my paychecks! But I’m a gracious and friendly person; if I ever meet your client (singular), I’ll be sure to tell him that you’re also gracious and friendly, deep, deep down inside. The attitude is just a defense mechanism, and at least you’re good at that!

#31

I’m still using mental Ray sun/sky light. I haven’t finished studying it yet.
Like I said, I found a tutorial about IBL and I’ll study it too.
I’m in process of sculpting and texturing my model so tweaking lighting/rendering is next process. When I have more questions about it, I’ll post here.
Thank you for all the advice.

#32

LOL! Love how you are so angry. Good luck with your clients, Son.

#33

You’re still wrong. Didn’t even read your post to know you’re wrong. I stopped after “taking 4 days to come up with that”. It’s called having a life and not idle time to trolls forums, son.

Keep on failing.

Thanks for editing out your own silliness my friend. And congratulations!

#34

Hello guys,
I am trying to make cloud effect on my scene.
I am using physical sun/sky right now. I found a tutorial of haze effect, but I think I am doing something wrong because I am not getting any result.
What I did was, go to mia_physicalsky1, click haze button, and place a normal cloud picture. Then tweak the alpha gain, etc…but I know I am doing something wrong here.
Can anyone give me advice on this? Step by step would be great…

One more question,
If I can, I would like to make the sun shine coming through cloud…so some area is bright and some area is dark due to cloud. Do I have to model cloud to do this effect? Am I wanting too much for the scene as a novice modeler?

Thank you.

#35

Thank you Jon,
Somehow I missed your post. I changed the intensity from 1 to .8. I also connected gamma node to materials, and it made big differences.

#36

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