Student Housing (lighting help)

[bully712]

This is a project that I'm currently working on. It's a building for student housing at a university. This is actually one of five buildings on the site. It's a large project.

 

I really need help on my lighting. I think it's fairly poor. It doen't look real what so ever. With the time frames I have, I typically use IEC Sun lights. I feel the light is to uniform across the building.

 

Don't mind the lack of trees and people in the foreground. That is coming later. The focus right now is the way the building is lit. I'm also afraid to put any reflections on the windows, because of time.

 

Any comment will be appreciated...

 

Marc

[jtiscareno]

Are you using radiosity for exterior? Maybe that is the key, and the bitmap of the grass is too large

[bully712]

No I'm not. I don't have time to play around with it radiosity. I never have the time with the dealines I have. I try to fake it as much as I can.

[jtiscareno]

But radio for exterior is pretty fast. Now if you are using Max6 you can use the skylight for softer shadows or if you are using brazil you can turn the skylight for same effect.

[Jason Matthews]

Hey Marc. I would definitly play with a blend material for the grass. Add some other grass textures to it so that it is not uniform. It might be a post process thing. I would also add large bumps to the sand on the vollyball court. Are there any fences or barriers between the pool and the volleyball court? Your lighting seems to even, and too ambient. Almost like there is not enough contrast along the facade. Try adjusting your shader to have a little more specular reflection, and more specular highlight. Also, you might want to try moving the sun to a different location, and maybe adjust the hue of it as well. You could also try adding a skylight and reducing the value of the sun.

 

-Jason

[Eric]

I'd suggest one of two things.

 

1) Do a search on this forum for "Fakeiosity". It's a quick way to simulate radiosity or global illumination. You'll find there are a couple different techniques floating around in regard to fakeiosity.

 

2) Go to www.vrayrender.com and download their free Vray plugin. I used it for production use for probably close to 2 years I think. If you're working at high resolution (print quality), you'll want to keep your preset quality settings very low. For smaller render sizes, you'll want to increase the quality preset. Best of all, you only need one light source, and you can use VRay's built in environment light.

[3dec]

Hi, A fast way to fake 3dsmax skylight is to make radial spot lights to form like a dome. this renders fast and looks like its done in global illumination. u can add direct light for shadows

[orcar5]

yea! i agree with 3dec. You can fake the skylight with a dome of spotlights (more is better but slower) or you can easily download and use this E-light script(as i'm advising in every part of this forum )

 

http://home.wanadoo.nl/r.j.o/skyraider/

 

just use the script and put a direct light on the scene to fake the sunlight (which is going to give the dominant ray traced shadows )

 

i think this is going to solve all of your problems. Don't forget more segments(spotlights) on the dome give more realistic solutions but slower. But it is always faster than lighttrace or radiosity (skylight).

[bully712]

This is a lighting update. Everyones suggestions have been great! I've been playing around with a couple of them, and tried a few things on my own. Attached is the latest I have. I think it definitly looks better then previous image. I still need to do a little post production in photoshop, by adding some foliage, people, and fix some shadows.

 

I thanks everyone for the help..

 

On another note: This took 17hrs to render over the weekend! Ouch!

I'm getting a new computer at the end of the year, and it can't come fast enough