Lighting Question

[Timbuk3]

I've noticed with a few visualization companies that their lighting seems more or less the same in all their renders.My question is...is it common practice to find a good lighting and render setup and just apply that to all your work or do you constantly change things from project to project?

[Brian Smith]

Great question. I think that while it would be nice to have a unique lighting scheme to each project, people to tend to use the same types of setups over and over. The 2 big benefits of this is that it saves time during scene creation and the client knows what to expect getting. But it's much more than lighting. Scenes tend to have a similar look because people tend to use the same materials, the same anti-aliasing filters, the same post-production process. When deadlines loom and you know the clients won't care or know that their renderings have a similar feel to the last project you worked on, it's not always practical to take the extra time to achieve a unique look.

[cssony]

good question and answer! :)

[Timbuk3]

Thanx for the response.I find it quite interesting that lighting is probably the most artistic factor in any viz project and but as an architectural visualizer our hands are pretty much tied by client expectations and "the norm"...I'm a lighting designer myself with a background in theatre and all I want to do is light with a bit of drama...gobo here and there,maybe a touch of volume effect but I'd get "shot down in flames"

My favourite quote...."The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting"

[John Dollus]

I don't think our hands are tied at all and you should never accept the 'norm'. What if every artist adopted pointillism and never did anything else? If anything, we are more liberated. If I think a $10,000 Poulsen Artichoke would really set off a room, I can use it whereas it would never make it through the value engineering phase in reality.

I always treat each project individually from a lighting aspect. It takes more time but I would rather put more of myself into a project than just make widgets.

As a lighting designer with a theater background, why would you want to surpress that? If you are getting shot down over dramatic lighting, you are probably working for the wrong people.

[Brian Smith]

It's a very interesting topic of discussion and I'd love to hear more opinions. Obviously each job is bound by a budget and time and if allowed for, sure experimenting with lighting is great. Experimentation is a part of any job even if you are trying to each achieve the same old look. Personally, I spend sooo much time experimenting with new techonologies, new programs, forum chats, etc, its tough to find the time to redefine your work to a client that wants the same thing as before (which all my clients seem to want).

[Tommy L]

I think the question is more relevent for interior projects.

 

With externals (daytime) you are looking at natural light, which is a constant, dependent on location, weather and time. With night renders, the natural light is again constant so you simulate that plus the man-made light. If the man-made light is not specified, then you have an enormous potential for adding your artistic slant to the render.

 

With photomontages your hands are pretty much tied.

 

With internals, however, you can be very creative with natural and artifiuial lighting. Refraction becomes a bigger influence too, with liquids and glass etc being contributing factors.

 

I more rarely get to do internals and night shots now so im getting more and more automated in my lighting strategy.

[bytor]

This is a very interesting thread and question. From my interior design background, I have often struggled with this as well. I find for most of our projects and clients we approach lighting in the generalized consistent format they are accustomed to seeing. However - some designers/clients want and expect more. I find that the artist that works for me enjoys these projects more, and inevitably the images turn out better due to the emphasis on "real" lighting of the space.

 

I have had difficulties recently with exterior night shots. While I prefer and most want that "wow" type of lighting & image, I always clearly identify to them that it is not "accurate". I explain that due to the many external conditions that effect night time lighting, what looks good oin a CG image is not what you will get in reality.

 

Has anybody else been confronted with this?

[richmondlu]

I work in a firm, and I have interior designers right across from me. So when i do an interior i try to make all the lights act realistily for what they are, so you can see what the room would actually look like. But everytime the interior designers want it brighter so they can focus on the that cool pattern they picked out in the chair fabric. So almost everytime i do it i have to fake the lighting in the interior to make the interior designer happy even though i say that is not going to look like that in real life. So I guess i make a custom light scheme for every render i do depending on what lights are in the room.

[Justin Hunt]

This subject is very close to my hart. Lighting is as important as the building design itself. Get the lighting wrong and the building looks Sh#t, bet it right and a sh#t building can look fantastic.

 

With exterior shots it is all about the time of day and the play of shadows. Early morning and just before twilight have the most impact, as the shadows are long and low. The colours are rich giving the opportunity to inject some emotion to the scene. Cool shadows and warm highlights give a calm, relaxed feel, where as cool highlights and warm shadows adds more drama and focuses attention into the darker areas of the image. Adding depth ques such as distance have and lightening and adding a blue tint in the distance can enhance the scale and bring focus to fore ground elements whereas darkening the foreground draws the viewer into the scene.

 

With interior shots the lighting is more of a challenge to get the balance between reality and artistic enhancement. In recent times the "blown out window" has been used to death, thus leading to boring and uninspiring "Ive seen this before" saturation of the market. We seem to have forgotten how to play with light to tell a story. GI and being physically correct have gotten in the way of being artistic instead of enhancing it. Luckily most are getting over this and now getting on with creating beautiful images.

 

A bit of coloured light spilling in from off scene can give the impression that the room is bigger and there is life outside of this room, making the viewer want to explore more. Colour composition can greatly enhance focal areas of a space whilst leading the eye away from unimportant areas. It can also aid in the balancing of a composition to draw into and lead the viewer around the image, making sure they see it in a particular order whilst enabling them to explore the whole room.

 

It is important to develop your own particular style to set yourself apart from the competition and once way to do this is in how you deal with light.

 

JHV

[mahorela]

I experimented (and still am) alot when I first started using vray and did alot of tutorials and listened and researched posts from artists who i admired to see how they created their setups. I now have a lighting system that is very flexible and I think that that is the key to creating lighting setups. If you can quickly modify noon lighting to sunset, realistic to artistic and dramatic with a few parameter changes and a z axis modification of the light then you have alot of artistic power in your hands that doesn't compromise your productivity.

[Timbuk3]

I think that as visualizers we are also in the enviable (or unenviable) position of threading the fine line between art and high-tech,we are essentially taking a detailed design and turning it into a highly realistic artisctic impression....but just how "arty" do we go?...

 

A quote from John.....

As a lighting designer with a theater background, why would you want to surpress that? If you are getting shot down over dramatic lighting, you are probably working for the wrong people.

 

I agree....I probably am working for the wrong people but I have a hard enough battle convincing clients that a photo-realistic render will do more for them than the old-fashioned drawing, never mind trying to sell them on more dramatic lighting effects.

Lighting effects take more time to get right and is this time well worth spent on a client that will probably just want an "ordinary" render?

Do you charge extra for more drama?

 

I suppose its going to be a devloping scenario where "archiviz" is being used more and more to market developments,each client will start to want that "something extra"......enter the frustrated lighting designer!

[martin walker]

Lighting is as important as the building design itself. Get the lighting wrong and the building looks Sh#t, bet it right and a sh#t building can look fantastic.

 

yeah, lighting is the most "artistic" part of architectural CG, modelling and texturing can be picked up from a text book, but lighting is a true art discipline.

 

Every project I do I learn something new, and with the added complexity of GI it gets ever more interesting / annoying (at times!)

 

I try and look at photos for reference for lighting, as otherwise I find myself going down an avenue of "thinking" the lighting solution Im creating is how it should be in nature, only to see a real life example (photo) thats different (if that makes sense!)

[Arnold Sher]

it has been realy fascinating to watch this debate unfold... Whilst i understand everyones need to express themselves artistically we find that simplest solutions are ussually the ones that sell the product. In saying that we are lucky to have clients that are not afraid experiment and push artistic boundaries and it has been really interesting to watch my firm to develope its own style that has moved away from the "realistic" to more artistic that evokes feeling and makes you appreciate an art in what we do. I guess it all comes down to learning the basic and then deciding to where you want it to take it artistically...

[Brian Smith]

I agree....I probably am working for the wrong people but I have a hard enough battle convincing clients that a photo-realistic render will do more for them than the old-fashioned drawing, never mind trying to sell them on more dramatic lighting effects.

Lighting effects take more time to get right and is this time well worth spent on a client that will probably just want an "ordinary" render?

Do you charge extra for more drama?

 

 

Very well put, and a fact of life for many, if not most projects in this business. Especially for those just starting out trying to get by.

[Pyke]

I was just browsing through some old threads here, and thought that this one deserved a bit of resurrection.

 

My preference when it comes to lighting is realistic, with a dramatic flair. I much prefer to play around with the times of day that I light my scenes. We recently worked on a hotel in Zanzibar where the exterior of the building was just a bit of minor refurbishment, and a restoring of the original building. The design however, was boring as hell, and after several 'realistic' lighting setups-I decided to play around and create a 'dusk' lighting setup. Using mainly the lights INSIDE the building, and a nice orange glow of sunset...and the image suddenly came alive, while still satisfying the clients request for realism.

 

I definately wouldnt mind doing more NPR work, but all in all I prefer to play around with dramatic lighting, in a realistic fashion. Using the environment that you are modeling, to work FOR the lighting. Having light filter in through some slightly open blinds...having a TV screen, or computer monitor casting a slight blue glow on the surrounding area.

 

I often browse DevaintART's photography sections, which have some really nice architectural photography. They are amazing reference to use when just playing around with your lighting. Highly recomended.

[ronel]

in visualizations, light and space is very important, but there is only one thing to achieve.... " its the satisfaction of the clients". as a designer, its not just putting a light where it can be that you think it just there and nothing we can do. we have to play around. simulate the lights, add some more, changes the tint, move the models around. i mean both the models and light will work together. if i am a lighting designer, i will not just put light there and there just to sell my works. i will have to think if the light( intensity and color ) is good for the model im tryin to view. there is no such parameters and presets that could always fit in all models. we have to adjust everything and ist up to the visualizer. As a designer, at first i show what my clients wants, then i make another (a suggestion base on the clients perceptives) image showing the other idea.

[Horhe]

in visualizations, light and space is very important, but there is only one thing to achieve.... " its the satisfaction of the clients". as a designer, its not just putting a light where it can be that you think it just there and nothing we can do. we have to play around. simulate the lights, add some more, changes the tint, move the models around. i mean both the models and light will work together. if i am a lighting designer, i will not just put light there and there just to sell my works. i will have to think if the light( intensity and color ) is good for the model im tryin to view. there is no such parameters and presets that could always fit in all models. we have to adjust everything and ist up to the visualizer. remember..... beauty lies on the beholder..

 

Hmm dont know if i got you right..... you mean that when doing a render you cheat by putting lights where they wont go when built?? If so expect clients to come back to your office with complaints when the project is completed .

[Nic H]

Yep!

I use teh real locations of lights as a guide but then light to suit the mood that would look best. Its a artists impression not a qualitattive lighting study.

[Horhe]

Yep!

I use teh real locations of lights as a guide but then light to suit the mood that would look best. Its a artists impression not a qualitattive lighting study.

 

Dont get me wrong, im not saying that artistic impressions are bad just depends what the client wants. There are clients that want a realistic render with true lighting but they just dont know how to explain it. For them just saying that they want a render means exactly the above. Of course its up to the 3d artists to make it clear (obviously). If not they may have complaints later which for which they blame your skills and not communication issue. So best to avoid that.

[Virgil Johnson]

I got a call as a result of the visual impact thread from an architect asking if I could give him realistic lighting for complicatedly shaped room.

This is not for presentation but to be used as a working model in the design.

 

Perhaps the accurate lighting comes in an earlier stage of a project with a different purpose in mind?

 

Virgil