Living Room - MR Lighting Study

[Tron]

Studio/Institution: personal work
Client: N/A
Genre: Residential Interior
Software: 3DS Max 2011 Design - Mental Ray
Description:

Here's a living room that I've seen in a photograph... will post a scan of that soon. I'm at a point where I need to work on details and populate the space with furniture, but got side-tracked by lighting methods before I could finish modeling.

 

I noticed that the interior looked better when no sky portals and MR sun / MR sky was used for lighting. As soon as I placed sky portals on my window openings, I had harsh unrealistic shadows and an overly blue tone filled the room. I realized that I can mount images to the portals and use warm filters to get rid of the blue light, but tried that and the solution was still less accurate than without sky portals. I also tried adding portals, but turned down their multiplier so they would have less contribution, but the quality of he lighting was still not as good as without sky portals.

 

The down side to this method is that the fg solution is typically much blotchier (as you can see in the render). Does anyone have a really accurate/unconventional method for rendering interiors in MR?

 

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[Justin Hunt]

dont be afraid to use photons.

 

it get rid of the blotchies, increase the fg interpolation

 

jhv

[Tron]

What's an appropriate value? I rarely use GI.

[Justin Hunt]

In this case where you dont see strong direct light from the sun, I'd not use a mrsun and sky system. Rather I'd use a large area light just outside the window.

 

Start with the default settings. Seeing that there is a lot of small detail, go with a small photon radius, low samples.Use very high Trace Depth settings, eg Max Depth 300, Max reflect 150 and max refract 150 (this should allow for enough bounces to get into the deep recesses).

 

Leave FG off until you find the right amount of photons and radius to get good, even coverage throughout the scene and a decent amount of lighting detail. Then turn on FG, draft, 0 bounces. Use the interpolation to clean up blotches.

 

For the Light, leave the Photon settings to automatic. Play with the intensity and colour to get the look you want.

 

Exposure control will be very important to get right.

 

jhv

[Tron]

Here's an update.. I'm using gi/fg and portals. I have my gi mult. at .8 so it contributes less to the scene. Better? worse? .. same?

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[AubreyM]

Defiantly better, you got rid of the noise on the walls.

[Justin Hunt]

could be better though, post your render settings

 

The CA or DOF is killing it, leave it off for now.

 

jhv

Edited August 25, 2011 by Justin Hunt

[Tron]

Here are the render settings: I do the DoF and C/A in post so I'll just lighten the opacity of those layers.

 

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[Tron]

Defiantly better, you got rid of the noise on the walls.

 

thanks.. I tend to agree. Might have hit it too hard in post, though.

[Justin Hunt]

try this:

 

GI:

Max sample radius 300mm (I have a hard time with inches )

Max no Photons per sample 100

Max Trace Depth 200

Max reflection 100

Max Refractions 100

Average GI photons per light 100 000, increase for more detail.

Tick All objects generate GI

 

FG is fine

 

If you have glass geometry in the window set it not to generate GI and Pass through FG, maybe the same with the blinds.

[Tron]

Here's the update.. Thanks Justin for the help with the GI settings. I think its furniture time.

 

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