Hi Nigel, Sorry this post is a big higgledy-piggledy, I haven’t had my normal home computer to work on.
I really want to help you achieve your goal of realistic lighting, but don’t let your eagerness to move forward get in the way of the creative goal. Before you carry on with the interior lights I would lock down your main lighting i.e. the purely sun lit scene. Adding indoor lights is complicating things, before you are ready. I would rather see one really well lit scene than three compromised ones. Currently what you are showing me lacks pizzazz and focus. You need to look at more reference images so you have a clear image of what you want.
I haven’t really commented on the lighting so far in my posts to you, this was for a conscious reason, because I was concerned about your render times. I have tried to find similar images to yours with outdoor and indoor lighting, but they are almost impossible to find... that is because you don’t need (or see) interior lighting when the sun is shining! If the house was in shade then maybe you would want indoor lights on (see some of the photos I have taken), but if the sun is beaming into the room then with windows as big as yours there is so much bounce light that vampires would have no where to hide J Even through tinted glass the sun is so much brighter than indoor lights.
You have talked about contrast; think about using it to your advantage. The hottest points on your image are currently your spotlights.... do you want your eye to be drawn there? You have control over your audience, where do you want their eyes to be looking? What feelings do you want to invoke? Read the other posts on this blog to get some ideas, and also the notes on shadows (getting a blurred falloff in particular)
Have you though of rendering the reflections, not just the glass, on a separate pass? If you render exactly the same scene, but with primary visibility off on all objects except the glass, then yes, I am pretty sure that it will add up to the same if not longer render times for the two renders combined. The only thing that is going to reduce the render times is changing the amount of ray tracing your doing.
I am visiting my parents in Norfolk at the moment, they live in a converted barn. Like your house, it too has big windows. You only really see the reflections in the windows of really brightly lit objects. When it’s brighter outside, you barely see any reflections. Most people will not see nor be looking for reflections within reflections (set depth to one). Surely getting the overall feeling right is worth more of your time than getting (too) perfect reflections. Having reflections on a separate pass will mean you can dial them in and out so that they don’t distract, something you might want when you see your first rendered sequence.
Here are a few more simple comp tricks you could try. You want the change in colour of your pieces of glass as they move over each other? Try rendering a matte (or use a simple roto) and using it in comp to colour correct them!
I wouldn’t normally use glow straight out of the software, but if I were going, to I would definitely do it on a separate pass, and then as I keep re-iterating, use it in comp. To add glows in 2d you might end up tracking the points where your lights are, and then adding some glow. But here is a neat trick. In your 2d scene, quickly place some spheres where your light sources are, you don’t need any lights, or any other objects on in this pass, all you want is the camera and the spheres (which should render black and therefore uber fast) Then take the alpha channel into comp, this should look like white floating round disks. (If your lights go in and out of shot, you will want to render the camera with some overscan) Blur it, adjust it, add it over your main render. Hey presto, you have your glow.
Think about where you use glows to highlight the main light source in the scene. For most indoor lights you will not perceive a glow unless it is surrounded by a much darker background, or your eyes are in a much darker place. Also don’t forget that the sun on the floor and objects has a subtle glow to it (look at the reference from my first post to you)
When you have a problem, think to yourself, is there another way of achieve the same result. Software will often sell you on its ‘extra’ features. Although it is useful to be aware of them, sometimes using them is more effort than it is worth, if there is a simpler, faster and more controllable way.
Double check your model has no cracks; it looks to me like you have a light leak (unusual area of light in the corner of the room above the window). I have seen this before and I don’t think I ever fixed it, I just decided not to use FG in the end.
Finally try baking the lighting before you go any further. You don’t want to get to the last week, have problems and then not be able to render your project in time for the deadline. In the industry, that is no excuse, you have to schedule for possible delays, rather than hoping everything will go according to plan.
Hopefully there is some useful stuff in there. Look forward to seeing progress.
Tessa
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