Daylight or Spotlight

[yourfather]

Hello,

 

i am starting a new project and before i start any lighting i wanted to see what is recommended for creating natural sunlight for an interior scene.

 

Things i noticed about Daylight Systems:

1. I haven't figured out how to control the color cast, this is mainly a product shot image in an interior environment so the client wants Neutral color casts but I can't figure this out.

2. When i add an IES light while using the Daylight system, the render takes a LOT longer, like days longer for a 14"x18" 300 DPI image.

 

Im wondering if its best to use a light other than the Daylight system.

[Corey Beaulieu]

A Daylight System is not the light, its the system. The light is still a sun and sky. All the Daylight System is doing is creating a parametric method of control. You set up a place and time and the system adjusts your Sun and Sky appropriately.

 

When you select your system, it defaults to the Motion tab.... go to the Modify tab and make sure to set your sun and sky to the appropriate renderer.... you are in a Mental Ray forum, so make sure you are using the mrSun and mrSky. This is also where you can control the color cast of each of these.

 

You can also use a direct light set to a Hotspot of the size of you scene and Overshoot ticked on.... This though may become harder to set the intensity right with exposure control.

 

Lastly, IES lights can add render time. You may consider using a spot light and just painting the IES shape in post.

 

p.s. 14" x 18" is strange way to state your image size. Are you setting it to 4200 x 5400 pixels? That size just takes time.

[yourfather]

Good morning Corey (at least morning for me).

 

That is really interesting. I didn't know that the Daylight system just used a standard sun and a map for the environment. Though it makes sense. I will probably use the daylight system and see if i can neutralize the light. Maybe use a Black and White sky for the environment map?

 

Also, this new project will be rendered at 5175x3375 pixels. I usually state the size in inches because my first introduction into graphic arts was through the printing industry.

 

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[beestee]

I do not think daylight is the appropriate choice here.

 

 

Check out this tutorial, you will need to transplant some of the info to apply to a Mental Ray scene, but the general ideas apply:

 

 

http://www.aleso3d.com/blog/studio-lighting-setup-with-3ds-max-and-vray/

[Francisco Penaloza]

First, you are rendering very big size images, you should aspect long rendering time, 12 Hours would be OK less than that, need some trickery and know your software. You ca not render 300 DPI that's a printing term, you are rendering pixels and the equivalent to that.

 

As mentioned above, if your main goal is to showcase a product inside a architectural environment ( a room in a short way ) you need to think as a photographer, forget about only the sun lighting your scene, you'll need fill lights and white planes maybe to create nice reflections.

Since you are in Mental Ray your best choice should be use Mental Ray Sun/Sky from your Daylight system, then put Portal Sky lights in your windows and openings then use Photographic exposure and adjust your color balance to something that give you the tonality that you are looking for, I would recommend try to get something more white, so you can add warm or cold areas in post production.

 

Other method would be forget about the Sun Sky and only use portal sky lights in your windows, but add a Kelvin Temperature Shader to control light color(temperature) and intensity, then place some area lights inside and IES to create accent lights. Try to avoid using Photon Map because it will give you more color bleed than what you can be happy with, a good use of Final Gather and you'll be fine.

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Try to avoid using Photon Map because it will give you more color bleed than what you can be happy with, a good use of Final Gather and you'll be fine.

 

Not necessarily, color of bleed can be controlled and you can get faster and better results if photons are included.