External lighting setup help

[mercutio_16]

Hey guy,

 

I'm struggling here trying to setup the lighting on exterior scenes. I've looked around the tutorials, and everyone has a different method of doing things. Some people use a dome with a vray light material attached, some people use an hdri sky and some just use Gi and a direct light, some use a target camera, some use a physical vray camera...etc. so it seems like the possibilities are endless. I've tried to play around with some of them on my renderings but nothing ever seems to come out near as good as the tutorials. Especially when white materials are involved! They always end up over exposed and I loose the details in those areas.

 

Does anyone have a simple formula for exterior renderings?

 

Thanks

Sam

[Jason Matthews]

You have to come up with your own style and process. When you ask an artist which brushes they like to paint with you will get a variety of answers. The same can be true about software preferences. My advice to you is to try them all and go with the one that makes the most sense to you. Daylighting may be a completly different setup than night shots.

 

As far as the washouts are concerned, personally I assign a light gray material to everything, get the lighting right (mood, feel, etc.). I typically find an image or photo of the mood that I want my image to have and work the lighting to make it. Then I start with the largest geometry, tweak the lighting, then the second largest geometry, tweak the lighting, and so on. It is all about the process. Someone else probably does something completly different.

[Big Bird]

...the possibilities are endless.

 

Yes! That's what makes Vray so great.

 

I would highly recommend using the vray physical camera to take advantage of exposure settings, the f number and ISO in particular. Uncheck vignetting as not to influence the output. Second, Try to avoid pure 255 white materials as it will create problems, keep it around 249 or so (not scientific) and you should be ok.

 

the dome, hdri, direct light will all work but before you get carried away try getting the overall lighting as close as possible with just the vray sun and sky or a direct light. The idea is to keep it simple at first. This way you can get a feel for the camera's exposure settings and how it works with the sun's intensity.

[amer abidi]

The idea is to keep it simple at first. This way you can get a feel for the camera's exposure settings and how it works with the sun's intensity.

 

Couldn't agree more!

Start simple, experiment with the settings, one by one in order to get a basic grasp of how they affect your scene and environment, and before you know it, you'll develop your own automated style of lighting setup and rendering!

 

There is no "right way" of lighting a scene, like you said, the possibilities are endless.

 

There's a great DVD out there on Exterior & Interior Vray lighting by Chris Nichols if youre interested in a strong jump start. let me fetch you the link..

 

here it is..

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/31/Global-Illumination:-Exteriors

[leoviale]

Well, as mercutio_16 said, there r lots of way to accomplish it, u can use standard cameras with the default GI environment, and direct or vray lights, this is like more guessed way, because u will have to deal with the light and GI intensity to get a nice overall illumination intensity.

Another way is using the vray sun, combined with vray sky, and vray cameras, and here u will deal with exposure, u will need some photographic knowledge here.

But again, there r many many ways to do it. Just create a simple scene, and beggin your own experiments, that's the best way to do it.

[audyr1]

someone plz help.. m using 3ds max 2009 with vray adv. sp 1.5 but when i render a scene in vray, it comes complete white and black in color.... can anyone plz hlp me with some step by step setting of render setup....

 

 

thnks...

[leoviale]

It will be easier for us if u post your settings, what type of camera r u using, settings of your camera, it could be maybe because u r using a standard camera and u placed a vray sun, it depends, just give us the vray and scene settings so we can see what's wrong.

[audyr1]

i m using a cracked version of vray 1.5 sp2 for 3ds max 2009.. n i cant afford to buy it frm d chaos grp as m a student.. but still the vray is saying "1.5 sp2 demo".. so i cant export anythn...

i have exported the default 3d scene from revit to max... i open the vray render dialog box n then after applying the materials hit the render button... and the render preset is "-------------"

i use revit 2010.. but it cannot produce the desired rendering.. so i export it in max to use vray...

 

it would b very nice of u if u cud plz give me a screen shot of the settings which u use for the day view and night view..

 

thanks..