Reception area

[Ave]

Hello everybody. First let me say how grateful I am for all the help many of you have already been. I have been a long time watcher of this site’s forums for some time, gleaning what info & techniques I can. I would like to submit some images for comment & advice if I may. In many ways I feel like a seasoned armature, having done this type of work for many years but never really reaching the level of quality that I would like, & that I know is do able.

 

This project was done under a heavy time crunch for a client & there are subsequently obvious issues with some of the materials. This space being in the center of a large building is totally enclosed from outside light source, the only illumination is from the fixtures. I am working in VIZ 4.

 

Here are some images

Straight render from viz, before edit

http://www.users.qwest.net/~heintzjennifer/cg/viz.jpg

After edit

http://www.users.qwest.net/~heintzjennifer/cg/vizedit.jpg

Lights set up view 1

http://www.users.qwest.net/~heintzjennifer/cg/screen001.jpg

Lights set up view 2

http://www.users.qwest.net/~heintzjennifer/cg/screen002.jpg

Exposure

http://www.users.qwest.net/~heintzjennifer/cg/screen007.jpg

Radiosity

http://www.users.qwest.net/~heintzjennifer/cg/screen003.jpg

Omni lights

http://www.users.qwest.net/~heintzjennifer/cg/screen006.jpg

Wall spots

http://www.users.qwest.net/~heintzjennifer/cg/screen005.jpg

 

A 7.8 Mg JPG @ 4096 x 3003 rendered in about 6.5 hours.

 

As you can see I had to fake the glow from the can lights & render in seperatly the books & lighting on the sign at the reception desk.

 

I am specifically trying to improve my lighting, & material response to lighting. I know how most of the modeling issues could have been made better with more time, but I was really wanting better lights than this.

 

Any comments are more than welcome.

 

Ave

[SEIF]

wel..good modelling overall...but i guess the main issue here is the lighting....no soft shadows at all....just good old viz lights...why not try faking GI since u r using VIZ4??..i dont know much about VIZ but there is a tutorial around here that was soo useful in this....hmmm....do a search on ( michealsholtz ) and i guess u'll find the link...

[Jason Matthews]

Hi Ave. Weclome to the forum. First let me say that when you use radiosity, best results come from real world lighting data (IES data). Some websites such as erco have lamps and such for free to download, or use the photometric lights that are come in Viz.

 

As a rule of thumb, the physical scale in the environment dialog box should be set to the value of the highest light. For instance the multiplier for the spot lights is set to 30 and the omni lights are set to 20. So 30 would be your factor for the physical scale.

 

I have found it extremely helpful to select the objects by name and go to the properties. Then go to advanced lighting or radiosity. Then tell the mesh what size for that particular object. Then set the iterations for that object. For instance, my wall would have a mesh of 6" and iterations of 25, but my table might have a mesh of 2" and iterations set to like 50. Every situation is different.

 

Change the exposure value back to 1.0. And play with the lights instead. Sometimes it is easier to play with as few variables as possible. Then change the exposure control to logarythmic instead of automatic. It is my experience that radiosity works better with log. exp. control.

 

Turn your ambient color to black, not grey. Let the colors of the environment become the ambient colors. This way all area shadows will be a shade of black, and not a shade of grey.

 

As for materials, well that is a different ballgame. It looks like you have good basic control over them, but the reflectance values might be a bit off. You can change a material type to a radiosity override material. This will allow you to gain control over each material. You control the color bleed, reflectance scale, and indirect bump with this material override. Do a search in the help menu to find out what I am talking about. Reflectance values are very important, so here is a link to some basic reflectance values that have worked for me in the past: http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4046&highlight=reflectance

 

I hope this helps you. A lot of people give good advice on this forum, so listen to what they have to say, and I promise you will reach a whole new level of craft.

 

-Jason