Heeelpp!! Max Lighting!! Urgent!

[moniqueov]

Hi i´m kind of new with 3d max i´m using max 7 and i have big problems when it comes to lighting the render i have no idea what to do to make the render more realistic, i´ve tried putting some onmi lights and one skylight but i don´t like the results i need this to look more realistic, i´ve read about the raytrace but i don´t know how to use this tool, so PLEASE!! help me with this as soon as possible i´ll even send you the max file if you need it, i´m attaching the render so you can see what i´m talking about. THANKS!

[Aaron2004]

I have been working with a current setup using a skylight and a directional light. The directional light will act as your sun, make sure that the fall off/hotspot covers the whole scene and that the shadows are turned on. The skylight will help diffuse the light and create nice soft shadows. Make sure shadows are turned on for that as well. You can use Mental Ray if you want, but make sure the directional light's shadows are Ray Traced, because the Adv. Ray Trace shadows won't work with Mental Ray.

 

Good luck!

 

Aaron

[moniqueov]

thanks! aaron i´ll try that and will let you know if it work

[caddiellac]

have you tried smoke3dstudio's tutorial on exterior lighting?

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/resources/tutorials/smoke3d/tutorial8.asp

 

how urgent is this? hope its not too late!

[Creapix]

Hello Monica!

 

When you're talking about raytracing, I guess that you are referring to Mental Ray, or even maybe LightTracer. You can find good tutorials for both in the Help of 3dsmax 7 or even online doing a quick Google search.

 

What I think makes your image look not as realistic as you'd want it isn't so much a lighting problem, but rather a texture and composition problem.

 

Your textures lack realism in ways that even correct lighting wouldn't make the picture looks realistic. You have too much texture repetition:try to use higher resolution textures and mix them to have a seamless not repetitive-looking pavement etc.

Your bricks and pavements are lacking bump mapping and/or displacement or even actual brick modeling. Your glass isn't reflecting anything, the green of the vegetation is way too bright and the shadows of them looks like the main light is nearly right in front of them. Your sky picture is too low resolution and not appropriate for the mood and altitude. These are the main spots to look at and improve.

 

Finally, your render needs better composition: objects in the foreground for example (people, barriers, street, other type of plants/trees, whatever), because right now you're showing as much pavement surface as building etc. Of course don't hide the building, but try to compliment it instead.

 

I know you are new to this and I didn't mean to discourage you or to make it appear like an impossible task to make it look realistic, but I gave you the immediate things I saw when looking at your image. Work your texturing and composition skills and your picture will already look more realistic. Add to this some nice lighting and then you will have a really nice render.

 

I currently can't really offer you time to arrange your scene, because as I said, it involves more than just fixing the lighting and I have other projects, but if you're really in deep sh.. you could always PM me with the details etc and I'll see what I can do.

 

Cheers and good luck

[enigma]

post the file and we'll work it out...

[moniqueov]

how can i post the file?? it says max 200kb and the file size is much bigger

[moniqueov]

here´s an update of my render, let me know what you think about.