If client's interior requires dozens of lights...?

[stayinwonderland]

I have a client that needs a bar interior render. He showed me the lighting plan recently and there are just way too many to place in the scene.

 

What do you tend to do in this case, just place the geometry that represents the lights, maybe add a glow/self-illuminations and just light it with fewer, larger lights as a way to fake it?

[Francisco Penaloza]

Yes you are correct, for me Light have two functions, first Illuminate of course, second accent. If you have a long bar with many little lights over, they are only accentuating the little area right under, those can be self illuminated object, unless you want a strong light beam over the counter, but if the main ceiling is full of small lights, I'll just make them self illuminate object and place bigger area light to illuminate the room. VRay get very lagging after many light mostly if they are IES, now if you want to stick to "reality" you can always select some lights and make them only affect diffuse that'll release some work on reflections and refraction that take longer to calculate.

[stayinwonderland]

Ah thanks for the tip. I'll do that. And the only affect diffuse thing sounds like a great idea.

 

Cheers

[Tommy L]

Depends how much power you have at your disposal and if its for still or animation? I tend to just model it exactly as-is if its for stills, VRay is a super fast raytracer.

[stayinwonderland]

yeah, that's the thing. I used to think my set up was good but I saw an article by Vis Corbel on how to build an affordable 3d work computer and thought, ah, my laptop just isn't capable any more.

 

Here's the link: http://viscorbel.com/building-3d-workstation/

 

I have 8 measly gigs of ram with a quad core. Why the hell aren't hexa cores common now? Technology moves so slow in this industry.

[Tommy L]

yeah, that's the thing. I used to think my set up was good but I saw an article by Vis Corbel on how to build an affordable 3d work computer and thought, ah, my laptop just isn't capable any more.

 

Here's the link: http://viscorbel.com/building-3d-workstation/

 

I have 8 measly gigs of ram with a quad core. Why the hell aren't hexa cores common now? Technology moves so slow in this industry.

 

I have no idea how you squeeze a living out of a laptop w 8g ram and a mobile class cpu.

[stayinwonderland]

dude, believe me when I say, half of my work day is recovering from crashes and shitty glitches.

[Tommy L]

Buy a new machine. Its not going to cost that much, if you dont have the money get a loan. You are making your own job impossible. It will pay for itself in a week.

[stayinwonderland]

Think I might have to. I also hate every moment of 3d presently because of this. Can always use the laptop as a render slave.

[Francisco Penaloza]

laptops are a simple way to get job done when you are in the go, but I would not recommend for constant rendering work, with the time the heat alone will kill your laptop slowly, IF you really love to work in your laptop, you can build a cheap rendering box, no DVD single HD 500 Gb is more than enough. it will be cheaper than a full work station and keep you modeling in your laptop while rendering. I am pretty sure that for $500 maybe less you can build one that will render faster than your actual laptop.

[heni30]

I would fake it.

 

When an architectural photographer photographs an interior he brings in flood lights, accent lights, reflectors, deflectors and does heavy editing in Photoshop. In other words, he is faking it. You can fake pools of light and accents in Photoshop. By controlling lighting in PS you can articulate light artistically instead of being locked in to technical correctness.

Edited August 22, 2013 by heni30

[Tommy L]

I would fake it. When an architectural photographer photographs an interior he brings in flood lights, reflectors, deflectors and does heavy editing in Photoshop. In other words, he is faking it. You can fake pools of light and accents in Photoshop. By controlling lighting in PS you can articulate artistically instead of being locked in to technical correctness.

 

This is true. But its my preference to start with technical correctness then introduce artistic license from there. Other wise you can find yourself trying to hit a moving target.

[Scott Schroeder]

Think I might have to. I also hate every moment of 3d presently because of this. Can always use the laptop as a render slave.

 

A good spot to start:

http://www.logicalincrements.com/

 

Granted they are more geared towards gaming but you can mix and match based on what you need.

[stayinwonderland]

That was almost tempting, but the issue is my graphics card is fairly limited and the motherboard can only take a max of 8gb. So I really would need a workstation for the real-time stuff, not just the processing stuff.

 

Appreciate the suggestion though. I've currently priced (by costing up all the components) a workstation at £1000 including monitor. Can't get it much lower than that.

[Tommy L]

That was almost tempting, but the issue is my graphics card is fairly limited and the motherboard can only take a max of 8gb. So I really would need a workstation for the real-time stuff, not just the processing stuff.

 

Appreciate the suggestion though. I've currently priced (by costing up all the components) a workstation at £1000 including monitor. Can't get it much lower than that.

 

Dont think of it as an expense, think of it as an investment. Or a gift to yourself.

[heni30]

And you might find a used system for a significantly lower price. Especially from gamers who tend to

have higher end components and are constantly upgrading.

[stayinwonderland]

That sounds good, but I wouldn't know where to begin looking for a used system. Ebay? is it worth getting a used system?

[heni30]

I've gotten a lot from CraigsList locally. That way you can sense over the phone if it sounds legit. Then you can drop by and try out the system.

 

Just do a craigs search for "i7" or "gamer".

Edited August 22, 2013 by heni30

[stayinwonderland]

Ah right, we don't have craigslist in the UK but we have something kinda similar. Will keep an eye out. I can always get a slightly sub-standard machine with a view to upgrading later. As long as it has at least an i7 3770k and the capacity for 32gb ram.

[Tommy L]

My first two freelancing rigs were second hand. First was bought on a scary council estate just outside manchester and the second was a superb ex-display unit. I love second hand stuff, you're helping the planet too.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Buy a better machine and don't look back.

 

How much time does each crash cost you? How long can you not use your machine because it is rendering? I am guessing if you do the math on the amount of downtime you have due to a slow machine you will find that the upgrade will pay for itself fairly quickly through increased productivity.

 

If you can find the money I would skip the i7's and go for Xeon's. They are way faster when it comes to rendering. Start with 24gb's of RAM and then upgrade if needed. I tend to prefer the GTX cards over Quadro.

 

Don't forget the monitor when it comes time to upgrade your machine. Everything you do centers around working with color and light. That is what your monitor communicates to you. It may be the single most under appreciated piece of equipment in the field of visualization.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[Tommy L]

If you want to have power without purchasing then also look at using Amazon servers as nodes.

[stayinwonderland]

 

If you can find the money I would skip the i7's and go for Xeon's. They are way faster when it comes to rendering. Start with 24gb's of RAM and then upgrade if needed. I tend to prefer the GTX cards over Quadro.

 

Don't forget the monitor when it comes time to upgrade your machine. Everything you do centers around working with color and light. That is what your monitor communicates to you. It may be the single most under appreciated piece of equipment in the field of visualization.

 

Which xeon? I can only afford a certain amount and I've priced my processor around the £250 mark (roughly $400).

 

Same with monitor. Any idea which would suffice for now at the £100 mark? Given that, thus far, I've been using a 19" dell laptop screen.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Which xeon? I can only afford a certain amount and I've priced my processor around the £250 mark (roughly $400).

 

Same with monitor. Any idea which would suffice for now at the £100 mark? Given that, thus far, I've been using a 19" dell laptop screen.

 

I'm afraid I'm not up on model numbers. I am only speaking of the time it takes to render my scenes when I when I used to work on an i7 at home compared to an Xeon at work. The i7 could keep up for the most part except when it came time to render... then the Xeon put the i7 in its place.

[stayinwonderland]

Interesting. I'm going to start a new thread dedicated to processor discussion so I can get this down. Thanks for suggesting.