Interior Test, need assistance

[sculptera]

Hey guys,

First post! I come from a Mental Ray background and am now testing an Indigo release that a friend has been gracious enough to cook for me. Im very impressed with the overall 'feel' of the images coming out of Indigo, but im a bit perplexed by the noise issue.

Here is a test Im working on from an old Evermotion scene. This cooked for 15 hours on an Intel i7 920 2.7Ghz machine.
Settings: Splat, box (attempt to trade off sharpness with noise), Mitchell netra, Ring .6, Blur .3
MLT+bidir.

Im particularly interested in the noise around the coffee table glass (not arch glass, but glass with precedence 6, no dispersion) and under the sofa on the floor. Also, in the built-in wall shelves.
I understand the wall shelves would theoretically need a ton of ray lookups to smooth this out, but im curious if this thing should be cooking longer?
File is downsized from 2k res. I also took some 'creative' liberty in Post in Pshop.

Any tips would be helpful!

[Zom-B]

Hey sculptera, welcome to Indigo
Regarding your questions, just a few notes:

Try Box Fastbox filter for faster convergance link1, link2

Your Scene also "begs" for usage of Exit Portals to speed up rendering a lot, did you used some?

Your MN Filter for SuberSampling Downsize Calculation @ R=.6, B=.3 is maybe not best choice. High R Values tend to preserves noise, what about the good old 0.333/0.333?!

Precedence In Indigo is only interesting if various Specular Materials overlap with each other (Glass+Wine for Example) higher Precedence "wins" and cuts off lower: You end up with perfect wine filled glass without any air between glass material & Wine material.

Regarding The Noise in the shelves & under the Sofa I would encourage you trying the Fastbox filter + A ExitPortal for the window.

Also try for the Curtain material to blend it with a Diffuse Transmitter Material (50/50) so some diffuse light passes throough and they don't look that solid

[hcpiter]

maybe change color mapping ? now in scene is too big contrast. Clock from Vitra I think is too big, turn on right lamp and maybe add some spot lights (IES)

[Profoxcg]

hey guys,

I am a MR user also trying out Indigo. but I am not getting very good results. I understand the concept of the exit portals. Where do you place them? For instance in the windo there is glass. Do you place them right behind the glass on the outside, or do you convert the glass surface into an Exit portal?

[Zom-B]

...you place them right behind the glass on the outside...

Thats the way to go

Also keep polycount low as possible for fastest rendering and maybe this material can suit your needs.
its fake and to reflectiv mostly since fresnel law isn't working here, but its faster then basic glass, also only use it for thin, non volume, planes...

if ever possible, let window glass away to speed up rendering (windows that are out of camera sight for example!)

[Profoxcg]

Thanks for the reply. You know, I have been deleting glass on these small test scenes I am workign with. Mainly because I was selecting all the object and applying an PLAIN ingido (gray) matrial to do some clay renders.

I have seen some incredible work in the galleries I hope to learn the program so that I buy it and be productive with my investment.

I have a question, how do you typically light a scene like the one above, spot light behing the window somewhere, and a "plane" right outside the window working as the Exit portal? And delete the glass since its not seen bc of the exposure.

(I love the kitchen on your site was that done in indigo?)

[Zom-B]

Some Exporters offer a easy "clay render mode", where they export each material as a light grey diffuse or Oren nayar material, but keeping bumpmaps and displacement, also light materials aren't changed (Cindigo for C4D for example).

Lighting a scene with Exit portals also has the disadvantage, that no mesh (lights) are possible behind this portals.
This indeed results in following possibilities:

1) use sunlight
2) HDRI EnvMaps
3) expand the Exit Portal into a kind of box arround your opening

some things to mention:

1) Sunlight only is sometimes boring and not enugh for your needs :/ (Glare told some time ago that using sun + envMp is on the ToDo list)
2) EnvMaps are gread. The lack of hard light & resulting shadows in some otherwise great maps can be "fixed" by enhancing the EnvMap lifghtSources (sun mostly) in Photoshop or gimp to be brighter!
3) is some situation this is a great trick, like for example having a balcony with objects on it. But beware: To much openings covered by Exit portals maybe sometimes faster without them at all, a quick test will tell

keeping glass away from lightsources is always a good way to speed up rendering. for example a lightbulb, modeled and light the natural way is great for a closeup, but if not seen in the picture, simply use a simple sphere to emit light instead...

Thanks for the kind works about my work The Kitchen scene in the private work section on my site is rendered in Indigo, as everything that looks somehow realistic

[Profoxcg]

so you are saying its either a light object or a exit portal but not both?

[Zom-B]

yes, no meshlights behind a Exit Portal possible atm in Indigo!
In a room lit by sun and Exitportals on the window openings, using meshlight inside like a bulb for example is no problem

[Pibuz]

An exit portal cuts off whatsoever object behind itself, excepted sunlight (that is NOT an object).
Use portals if you want to get sunlight, emitters if you want only a diffuse lighting.

[zeitmeister]

… you mean an exit portal cuts off whatsoever object behind itself.

[Pibuz]

damn.... thank you Zeit...It's been a lapsus..

[zeitmeister]

[Profoxcg]

very good guys. I was not aware of the definiont of a MESHLIGHT. So now it makes sense. When I said Light object I meant a LIGHT in 3dsmax for instance not a meshlight.

[Zom-B]

Indigo only suports meshlights, envMaps (HDRI lightning) and sun/sky
All lights you use in Max should be converted to meshlights... afaik

In Indigo you can't emit light out of nowhere (pointlights) or have invisible lightsources... atm