Night time rendering with Mr Sun/Sky?

[CarlAhearne]

Hi guys,

 

Is it possible to render good night shots with the daylight system on, or do most people have a different scene set up for night shots?

 

I've placed lights in a scene and turned the multipliers up, but even after playing with the mr photgraphic controller, the lights don't illuminate the scene.

 

Just wondering how you guys do it...

 

Carl

[SandmanNinja]

Are you set your latitude/longitude and time in the daylight system?

 

I'm still learning Mental Ray, but this is from my notes:

Logarithmic Exposure Control:

[x] Active

[x] Process Background and Environment Maps

[x] Exterior Daylight

 

If the render is dark, the Physical Scale is probably off.

Physical Scale is measured in candela units.

The typical scene ranges from 80000 to 120000 candela units

This value should be set to the value of the brightest light source (MR Sun, target light, etc)

 

If this is wrong info, please correct and advice - I'm still learning mental ray.

[Justin Hunt]

Typically if I was to do a night shot, I would just use the mrsky and forgo the sun.

 

Set the sky colour to a deep purple/ blue, adjust the photographic exposure to suit. IES lights work best for the artificial light

 

JHV

[CarlAhearne]

Joel, I've pretty much got all of that; it's all modelled in AutoCAD Architecture in real world units, and the light units are set up...

 

Justin, I'll try the idea of getting rid of the sun, and playing around with that...