Tips on improving render
Hi,
Another attempt to light up a semi enclosed scene. Just to list the stuff I did:
1. I plugged in a HDRI with an environment strength reduced to 0.2.
2. Tried putting on emissive planes on warehouse ceiling, but it doesnt give much shadows ( I suppose its because the lights are straight down and not like a typical fluorescent light tube?)
Putting point light seems to improve shadows and rendering time by a good margin.
3. Tried putting some highlights on the main character, probably too strong.
I got a GTX970 and just to get the render below it takes 12min to reach 800 iterations. Is that normal, or is there more things I can do to improve the time. Normally how many iterations do you wait for until you assume its ok and let it go on? As in, do you experts have a good yardstick, say if the first 500 iterations doesnt give you good impression, then theres no point to go on further, something like that.
Thanks a lot.
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Comments
Plugging in an HDRI to a completely enclosed scene like this won't help much with lighting as it won't go through the walls.
Use a LE plane for good ambient lighting and drop the spots and points. It will take a long time to render, but who cares.
Use defaults for Iray render settings unless it won't render nicely in the default time limit. Make sure ever object surface is converted ti Iray.
Don't expect good results before about a month of playing around with DS and trying different things. DS is not an out-of-the-box recipe for instant success with 3D art. It takes a lot of time.
Well, actually the HDRI is pretty bright since there is an opening at the warehouse (not shown at the screenshot). I just lowered it as its just making things too evenly bright.
I should have saved an earlier copy where I placed 3 planes near the ceiling. Somehow it doesnt create shadows that is as good as point light. Now, I do realize that this is most probably my skill issue so this is where asking question comes in..
Should have restated with more clarity. I just need a few pointers on one or two things that I can do immediately. No, I dont expect anything close to promo shots either. Just action that I can perform so I can chip at this everyday when I got the time.
To my eye it looks as if the HDRI needs to be raised back up to 2 or 1. It is too weak as if the lady was lit by a flashlight in a dark room. I would be curious to hear what makes the best set of lamps in a room at dark. Real lamps are more effective with ambient light than the point lights you are using. Is there a radius you can dial on the point lights to effect how much ambient light they create?
Hi nonesuch,
The point lights has no radius setting unlike the spotlight. I suppose it just functions as a spherical light bulb thingy.
1. Pic 1: Default HDRI setting 1x2.
2. Pic2. HDRI lowered to 0.1x2.
Downloaded the muzzleflash from sharecg, somehow it will go nuts if I try to apply the emissive shader on it. Thats why its not glowy by itself.
Also tested an emissive plane to give the character more highlights, tried the cutout 0.001 technique I read maybe from sickleyield guide. But the plane, when its over some figure or object, it will cast some sort of haze. You can notive that on the skirt.
The radius would be the strength of the light from bulb, like 60W or 100W or they call it lumens or candelas per square metre too.
Well the environment outside the warehouse definately looks better at the lower intensity in the second picture but the interior lighting looks better in the 1st picture. I think the haze you mention in the second picture is from using a different temperatutre light as what the HDRI is causing to be generated.