Help! With large interior lighting set-up.

[gsscott50@hotmail.com]

Hi,

 

I'm looking for a bit of help lighting a large gym space. There are a few issues which i'm struggling with:

 

• it has got roughly 160 recessed modular lights - so i can't use IES web files for each individual light.

• the space outside the glass curtain wall in the scene (see attached image) is a roof garden which needs to be shown (not blown out too much)

• i've tried using spotlights (with no shadows) for each modular light, but this is taking forever to render as well.

 

I can get quite a nice looking lighting solution in the interior space by tweaking the exposure, but obviously this blows out the exterior.

 

Basically, what i'm asking is how can I introduce some realistic looking light into the interior space, which looks as though it is being produced by the ceiling lights.

 

At the moment I have a mr sun and sky (for direct light), a mr sky portal outside the curtain wall and a arch and design mat with self illum for the lights.

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers.

[bmcgonigle]

Nobody has tossed any suggestions out so I'll bite. What I usually do is place a large photometric light in a rectangular shape over the whole interior just above the ceiling plane and then exclude the ceiling plane, lights and anything that would obstruct it from casting into the space. Then I'd drop in a skylight into the space itself and tweak it for softer shadows. You can then use either some photometrics for the recessed lights or a self-illum material for the diffuser.

[gsscott50@hotmail.com]

thanks for your suggestions. i've now got a big rectangular photometric spot above ceiling height - cranked up crazy high. it seems to be working pretty well... but im not getting a lot of specular highlights on the gym equipment. it seems to be a bit flat and uniform. ive put in a couple of mr area spots (with spec only ticked) to pick out some glossies.

 

In terms of the skylight? do you mean have a skylight instead of the mr sky/sun?

[mattclinch]

you should be able to get a lot more light penetration into that floor just from the light coming in through the window. use sky portals and GI. post your GI and FG settings.

[gsscott50@hotmail.com]

I was thinking there should be a bit more light coming through. I have one massive mr SkyPortal just outside the glazing - set at '4'.

 

FG and GI are on - settings attached.

 

Thanks for your time matt.

[mattclinch]

crikey. right. some interesting settings there.

 

1. assuming you are just lighting with the sun (turn any interiors off)... make sure photon target is on your daylight system and surrounds only the windows etc you want light in.

 

2. you are firing 25000 photons (per light, so in this case just from your sun) but using 35000 photons per sample. so that's all the photons in your scene used to generate 1 lighting sample....... suggest you start with photons per sample values more around the 100 mark, than the 35000 mark.

 

3. you need a better understanding of what the numbers you are changing relate to regarding your lighting. I suggest the 3DATS books.

[gsscott50@hotmail.com]

right! a bit ridiculous on my part then.

 

I've been using v-ray up until now. I've just been blagging it with mr thus far, but I think it is obvious I need to spend a bit of time learning the nuts and bolts.

 

Thanks for your help.