not reflecting enough light into the room

[F Suarez]

I model almost exclusively interior scenes, I’m asked to model media rooms and home-theaters frequently, and I try to make them as realistic as I can, but I noticed that my renders usually seem too dark. In part this is because of the colors, this type of room has to be quite dark, for optimal TV and movie watching, but even so, something almost always seems wrong.

 

I’ll attach here one example. This room only has perimeter lighting, I made 5 IES lights per side, plus 2 in the front and 2 in the back. In the first image - image b01 - if you look at the walls, the shadows of the grey acoustic panels on the walls seem too strong. All shadows look excessive, really.

 

In a real room the light bouncing from all the other surfaces would make those shadows significantly softer, I think. I created a reflection layer in the floor material, but not sure if it’s helping much.

 

I tried to decrease these dark shadows by adding one omni light and several rectangle lights, all invisible – see image b02 and b03 – but it isn’t a great solution. To make sure it’s not due to the IES lights being too close to the ceiling, I lowered them – image b04 – and the problem persists.

 

I’m still using Vray 1.49, maybe it’s due to that? Or maybe very dark rooms are particularly hard to get right?

As I wrote above, most of the stuff I make has many dark colors, a lot of black and dark grey surfaces, maybe there are renderers more suited to this?

 

It’s almost surely something I’m doing wrong, tho.

 

I’d appreciate all suggestions and opinions regarding this issue.

The images are WIP’s but any other tip to make them look better is also very welcome.

Edited April 10, 2016 by fsuarez

[heni30]

Hey,

 

To me this seems realistically correct. Your walls and ceiling are matte black/dk gray and you're only using point source lights. I think this is pretty much what you'd get. You also have the corner light turned down some.

 

Now to get what you want, I would try adding some GI Environment lighting - experiment with different values.

 

Or you could add 3 large Vray plane lights (size of the walls) shining on the walls and ceiling - this would give you more control over the amount of light on different areas.

 

Architectural photographers use a LOT of subjective lighting effects, both on site and in post. I stumbled onto a interior design site a couple of days ago and you could tell they didn't bother to do any post work. I couldn't believe how bland these really interesting designs looked.

 

Ultimately your mission is to make things look good.

Edited April 11, 2016 by heni30

[nejck]

@george sandoval

 

I don't want to hijack this thread but would you mind sharing that website? Seems interesting to me... Thanks!

[CliveG]

I agree with George, I don't think it's right to say the shadows are too strong, it's more like the shape of the primary light bounce and a lack of GI that seems to be a big part of the issue. The floor is pretty reflective so I'd expect to see more light bouncing from that at least.

 

Perhaps look at using an vrayoverridemtl for the floor with your original material as the base and a lighter material for reflection as an easy cheat.

 

I'd also play with the type of lighting, either experiment with changing the IES file you use (find one with a better spread or softer shadow sculpting) or do away with the IES entirely and play with the lighting characteristics more directly with the many other targeted lighting options.

 

If you're confident with it there is a way of editing your IES file to soften shadows, but it can be time consuming for limited benefit, imo better just do the above.

[Corey Beaulieu]

In Vray with Max, we would use a Vray Material called an Vray Override Material. This would allow you to use the dark colors as your base, but then bounce your GI as a different material, say a more white material.

[F Suarez]

Thanks guys. Interesting, I guess you’re right, maybe I was expecting something else and this is how it would look in reality.

 

I just tried what you suggested, starting by using different IES lights, or trying to change the one I’m using, and the results aren’t very different. I’ll try the other suggestions.

 

But before diving into that, one thing I’m battling with is the big amount of noise I get in the renders. Images attached. The screen in particular looks awful, but this occurs even in the dark parts of the images. Initially I thought this was due to have the IES lights so close to the ceiling, but I get similar results when I lower the lights – images y2a.

 

When I use a different IES light - image y3 – the noise is still there.

 

Maybe my settings are wrong? I think they're the default ones, though.

[Jason Matthews]

Before going through and making massive changes to materials, why not try to use the Vray light meter?

 

http://viscorbel.com/using-vraylightmeter-to-estimate-the-exposure/

 

I do this for my scenes and it makes a great starting point for camera exposure. Also, can you post your settings? You may be able to set your scene up differently with color mapping and gamma to help reduce the harshness of the shadows and increase the amount of GI in the space.

[Scott Schroeder]

What exactly are you trying to achieve? Do you have any visual reference of real spaces? If not, then stop everything you are doing and go look some spaces up. A massive mistake most artists make is working from "memory", which is usually 100% wrong. If you have no real reference to work from, the overrides, new IES lights, light meters, etc are all pointless time wasting exercises.

 

It appears you are doing a theater room? Google image search yields results like this:

[F Suarez]

Good point, Scott. I try to emulate the look of real rooms, and this type of room can be surprisingly varied, but you’re right, I must look at real photos.I have a nice collection, but must admit I often forget to look.

 

Before going through and making massive changes to materials, why not try to use the Vray light meter?

 

http://viscorbel.com/using-vraylightmeter-to-estimate-the-exposure/

 

I didn't know it, and in a first reading a good chunk went over my head, but I'll try to grasp it. I also didn't know that site, it seems to have other good tutorials. Thank you for the link.

 

Also, can you post your settings? You may be able to set your scene up differently with color mapping and gamma to help reduce the harshness of the shadows and increase the amount of GI in the space.

Settings attached.