daylight system ground colour

[Dave Buckley]

yep guys, i am posting yet again today (think this is the 4th time)

 

but if i get answers then it benefits all of you as i am sure there is at least one other person out there with the same question

 

i am just wondering about the daylight system in max 2009 more specifically the colour swatch next to ground colour.

 

can someone with good knowledge of the daylight system please explain the link between the ground colour and lets say perhaps sky portals or just the overall lighting of the scene in general.

 

the reason i ask is because i am doing an interior and just changed the colour of the ground to green (to simulate that there may be grass outside for subtle relfections) but wow, my scene pretty much got HULKified. almost as though i had colour graded it

 

so i this made me want to experiment with the colour. in my scene i just have sky portal with daylight system. so far we have tried the green colour, not what i was after. i then changed the ground colour to white thinkin that if the green made my room go greenish then white would boost all of the whites already in the scene. nope. my scene just went overexposed. so it appears the ground colour is contributing to the colour and possibly the lighting in the scene but i need someone to clarify this for me please not to mention any names or ask anybody specifically (Bri Bradley??? Jeff Patton??? Zap Anderson??? Matt Clinch i shall let you off with this one as you have helped me enough for one day - unless you must)

 

Anyway guys feel free to give me your thoughts and findings

 

In the mean time i will do a couple of renders with the green and the white to show what i mean. I am using the Dwayne Ellis bathroom scene for my tests

[Dave Buckley]

here are the renders, only rendered part of the image as it clearly shows the effect that changing the colour has

 

and if you can't guess which one i changed to green and which one i changed to white then i give up

[Justin Hunt]

you are correct in that the ground colour is conributing to light but also the backround/environment colour. Therefore when you hit the max reflections and refraction the environment colour is returned.

 

I genrealy prefer muted colours for the ground or at best leave it as default.

jhv