Best approach for very low-lit scenes?

[stayinwonderland]

Pretty simple question (I think)...

 

Lately I've been doing some fairly dark scenes and noticing a lot of ugly noise/blotches/shadows. See example:

 

(might want to click on this and choose 'view image' from the r-click menu to see full quality)

 

This is on just about the highest settings (IRR high, 3000 LC, noise 0.005, DMC 2/8) and shadow samples around 24. There's one direct light coming in through the window, a fill light pointing down from the roof (vray plane light and fairly dim just to take the edge off the darkness) and that test light on the left to see how torch light will look but just ignore that for now.

 

I'm guessing that it's just so dark that there isn't enough info in the picture to give me anything but ugly noise in the corners? And I'll have to brighten up the scene and darken it in post?

 

Also, AO isn't turned on in case you thought it was that.

Edited September 22, 2012 by stayinwonderland

[bakertony]

I have to do a fair bit of casino projects so i get to do a lot of images with dark corners. I find that simply increasing the Hsph. subdivs and interp. samples in the IR map section works, i'll double them both to start and that is normally enough to keep the dark style but without the splotches.

Edited September 23, 2012 by bakertony
spelling mistakes

[erickdt]

Would using a VRay physical camera and turning down its exposure work? That way you could add more light into the scene solving a lot of your blotchiness problems and then you can artificially darken down the scene to get the desired effect...

 

E

[stayinwonderland]

Just did a little test with another scene. I think rendering large, full settings, brighter lights, lower exposure and with an aim to further lower the exposure in post seems to be the trick. But it's not a miracle cure. Still somewhat noisy.

 

Cheers