Christoff Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 From an architectural visualisation point of view, are there any preferred or commonly used methods/techniques for lighting an outdoor scene? I'm currently working on an outdoor scene and will be lighting it soon, using 3ds Max 2009, I don't have V-Ray or any other renderers or plug-ins apart from what comes with max, it'd be good to know what kind of techniques are being used by architectural visualisation professionals such as the people on this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padre.ayuso Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 Hi Chris! I just added myself to the forum and saw your post. I just completed an outdoor rendering of a building and my settings, while you can play with them in Mental Ray are: 1. Use Daylight system and apply the Photometric values. I reduced exposure value to 14 instead of the 15 that it gives you. 2. Leave the MR sun and MR sky settings at 1.0. Then the shadows of the sun increase it to more than 1.0, so that they are softer. Play around with it until you get the effect you desire. 3. Ensure that you have the environment correctly set. That is, even if you don't see the trees or the surrounding buildings, put them there. It makes a difference on your light bounces! It adds to the realism of your rendering. 4. Apply 1 or 2 bounces on your Final Gather. Ensure that for tests purposes your FG Precision Presets is at "draft" and your rendering sample quality at Minimum 1 over Maximum 1. Once you like the lighting and everything seems fine, then you can increase it to 1 over 4 or 1 over 16 and increase the Final Gather Precision Presets. -- I hope that helps! My rendering came quite realistic with those presets and it was relatively fast to render on a Double Quad Core 64x computer... Let me know... Best Alex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christoff Posted April 5, 2009 Author Share Posted April 5, 2009 Thanks for your suggestions, it would be really helpful if others could also give me some ideas too, I don't need values for lighting or anything, just an overview of techniques that are used would be great, to give me ideas and so I can compare the techniques that people mention in a report I have to write. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christoff Posted April 8, 2009 Author Share Posted April 8, 2009 Does anybody have any more suggestions? Please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amer abidi Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Well, it would really depend largely on your scene. What Alex said gives you a good solid basic starting point in Mental Ray, your results should be tweaked from there on based on specific and image project based needs, so... Get rendering already!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thox Posted April 9, 2009 Share Posted April 9, 2009 In the Environment and Effects window, goto Exposure and set this to mr Photographic Exposure Control. In the tab that opens below, use the preset Physically Based Ligthing, Outdoor Daylight, Clear Sky, as a starting point. Rather than play around with the f-stops, aperature, etc, if your not comfortable with these controls, just switch to Exposure Value. This is one setting which will adjust the values below. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Bird Posted April 10, 2009 Share Posted April 10, 2009 I agree with the others, mental ray daylight system with photographic exposure control is the way to go, physical sky changes with animated sun. renders pretty fast, looks good even on draft. the only other thing to be careful with is gamma (lots of other threads on this) with mr the proper gamma will avoid the washed out look and keep good color in your bitmaps. - or if its just 1 or 2 textures you can throw a utility gamma/gain on top of the offending bitmap. - or if you don't want to mess around with that just do 'levels' adjustment to the render in photo shop. good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nymn Posted April 10, 2009 Share Posted April 10, 2009 since we are on the mr daylight systems i have a quick question as well, what is the relationship between placing the daylight system and the "physically based" option in the exposure settings. It seems like no matter how i set up my scene i have to switch to the "unit based" exposure settings because if i leave it set to "physically based cd/m" the lighting is completely white washing my renders... my models are full scale so i don't understand what the issue is, no matter what exposure level (outdoor daylight/indoor night etc..) i use its still a wash... unless i change the exposure to "unit based" and tweak the multiplier on the sun/sky down from whatever it defaults... thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Bird Posted April 10, 2009 Share Posted April 10, 2009 if i leave it set to "physically based cd/m" the lighting is completely white washing my renders... my models are full scale so i don't understand what the issue is, no matter what exposure level (outdoor daylight/indoor night etc..) i use its still a wash... unless i change the exposure to "unit based" and tweak the multiplier on the sun/sky down from whatever it defaults... thanks Try this: Leave the EV to default (15 i think) and beginning photographic exposure, choose default outdoor clear sky preset, then try turning up the film speed from 100 to 150 or 200. beyond that you may need gamma correction. try 1.8 or 2.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christoff Posted April 12, 2009 Author Share Posted April 12, 2009 Thanks for the suggestions everyone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now