V-Ray and photo realistic rendering

[angelocleef]

Hi readers,

 

I am currently learning V-Ray and I am having some issues archieving high realism. Besides the fact that my materials are 'bad' my main problem is getting the lighting right.

 

I downloaded a model and added the lights myself. The result is this:

 

 

This is bad compared to the stuff you guys make, but for me it is a pritty nice start I think.

 

Then I made a model myself, used the exact same settings and added the lights but the result is crap lol (didnt spent time modelling, I just wanted to learn the lightning). I know using 'good' materials matter a lot, but besides the materials the lightning is very poor. Everything is kinda dark and nothing like the first render I did.

 

 

I had to put the shutter speed on 10 to make everything not so dark, and the walls and everything are "white" but turn out much warmer i.e. orange / brown-ish. Compared to the first render (1st picture) where white is still white and the shutter speed is on 30.

 

Can anyone tell me what is wrong, and how I can fix this (what settings) so I know what to look for in the future?

 

for reference here is my file: http://www.filedropper.com/vrayinteriorlightingtest_2

Edited July 29, 2014 by angelocleef
added info

[Roodogg]

Well to be honest, I'm not sure the lighting is all that different. There's one window providing all the illumination in both scenes (Which isn't ideal). The only obvious difference I can see between them is that one has detailed models with carefully mapped materials and the other has primitive shapes with terrible materials.

 

Mainly - that red bedspread is super saturated red, therefore bleeding red all over the image - vray uses global illumination to bounce light and with it, colour info. To remedy this, I would desaturate that red and alter the color mapping in the vray rendering rollout. (Try Reinhard 1 / .35 / 2.2)

 

Also, I'd read up on linear workflow as it looks like your gamma is wrong.

[angelocleef]

Thanks for your answer Peter, I know models and mapping were horrible but as said all I wanted intentionally was learning the lightning from VRay

I have made a new scene with better models and mapping (I am still learning all of this so models and maps are still not perfect sorry) and the lightning seems much better now although it still is nothing like (the way I see it) the lightning in the model I downloaded.

 

I followed a couple tutorials for Liniair Workflow and such. I think my setup is correct now. I also found some nice tutorials at aleso3d but no matter which tutorial I follow, my scene always comes out "fake" and not realistic like the ones in the tutorial.

 

Anyways, I hope someone can give me some more pointers and or tips on how to fix this stuff seeing as tutorials aint really helping me out. Is the problem in my lightning, or is the problem mainly in my mapping? (textures i.e. texture quality and or color).

 

Thanks again for the answers so far.

 

P.S. added a render of my new model and lightning, I think there is improvement compared to my last render lol, but still a long way to go

I know it is much asked for... but perhaps if someone would download my scene, fix the lightning and upload it again so I can see what you changed, that way I know where to look for next time and I can learn what each setting does

 

model download: http://www.filedropper.com/model

 

[Nicolai Bongard]

It is not just the light that makes a render look realistic. If the proportions of everything is wrong, you will see it as fake even though the lighting is good. So you should probably find some free models that have correct proportions, or model something from drawings with measurements. If the materials are not good/set up more or less like the real thing, the light that bounces around in your scene will not behave/bounce correctly/like you would expect, so the materials affect the realism look as well. You should try to find a photo that you think looks good, preferably something with a minimal look so that it is not too hard to model, and try to recreate that. If you go to archdaily or some other site there are plenty of articles about buildings that usually contain the plan drawings, so then you could model a building (or just a room of a building) and try to recreate the look from some of the other photos in the article. That way you do not have to guess where the stuff that is not in the photo are (for example a window that lets the sun in, a red chair that tints the rest of the stuff in the image, or whatever). It is the combination of everything and all the little details that usually make an image look photorealistic, so if you just focus on one part (in this case the lights) you will most likely not achieve what you want. Also, to answer the first question, you should try to alter the color balance of the camera. If white walls are yellow and you want them to be more white, input a yellow ish color and the image will get more blue (whatever color you select it will become more of the oposite color), thus turning the walls more white.