YALR (Yet Another Living Room)

[thednx]

Hi,

this is another try at indoor modeling: there are a lot of Details i still Need to work on (the pillows are fun, to say the least).

I tried to learn from a really nice interior designer named Samantha Pynn, and tried to use that as Inspiration:
http://www.samanthapynn.com/interiors/s ... ry/4698183

Carpet is todo ( i hate modelling carpets), and lighting (Need to figure out those Exit Portals!)

Sowaddyathink?

Dennis

[Mor4us]

yay... think there's lot of things to work on besides the carpet, but I'm sure we'll get you on the right track!
your lighting looks really... cg like. what is your main lightsource now?
maybe you try to get right lighting/mood just with lights and without shutters first before filling the room with furnitures and decorations.
I think this is a really difficult example you've chosen to remodel, cause it has lots of cushions and fabrics.
Don't know nothing about your 3d app or modelling skills but maybe you should start with sth easier, sth more straight and clean?

best regards
Markus

[CTZn]

As far as rendering goes, I have to agree with Mor4us.

You are exposing yourself to far too many technical matters at once with such a complex scenery, it could easily become overhelming to start with.

Follow the path of a photographer in a stufio, with one simple subject and less constrains in positioning lights. You will learn faster the punctual bits you need to know.

first off: camera tonemapping + blackbody lights. Those alone are tricky enough.

Oh, and do not use single Path Tracing with exit portals, but bidir, with or without MLT.

[thednx]

Ok. Thanks for the tips.

hm. where to start?

Lighting was done this way (saw it on a tutorial'):

the room is a box with two open sides: "typical" sun, no extra lighting inside.
ok, i will simplify things, do some reading and come back .

[thednx]

and by the way: Blender 2.66a.
Have some modeling experience, the next steep learning curve is Indigo lighting

thanks for your honest comments: thats the only way to learn.

I adjusted the lighting Settings in the following Picture: i used Reinhard, adjusted the White Point: am i getting there? the bluish hue is gone and it Looks more natural?

[CTZn]

Lighting was done this way (saw it on a tutorial'):

the room is a box with two open sides: "typical" sun, no extra lighting inside.

Fair enough. You must dump PT in this scenario, the lighting is strange because on PT exit portals are "blocking" the sun light.

In reality, PT is sampling the sky dome randomly (lycium, notably, could prove me wrong on this though). Under these circumstances the sun is barely hit by a camera ray.

Bidir does address this issue.

hm. where to start?

a cyclo for a background, some pedestral with your subject on it. A couple lighting planes as blackbodies, camera tonemapping.

One alternate, easy studio-like setup I like is to add a sun ant turn the emitters into exit portals.

In both cases you shouldn't need to modify the default camera tonemapping settings too much, use the later as a reference to set the lights power up.

[Mor4us]

Lighting was done this way (saw it on a tutorial')

maybe you can show this tutorial, so we can tell what's wrong or right

I still don't get how you can make simple indigo sun/sky look like this.
This is not meant to offend you, it simply looks wrong. maybe you adopted sth wrong from the tutorial?
Looks like there are still other lightsources in the scene that cause this dull look.
I'm using C4D so I can't help this much about how to setup the scene right in blender itself :-/

I attached a simple room with indigo sun/sky, just to give you a feeling what I'd usually expect when using these. You especially can notice the difference to your renderings in the corners of the room and the kind of spreading light within the room.


best regards
Markus

[thednx]

maybe you can show this tutorial, so we can tell what's wrong or right

great. now that i need it, i cant find the link. i dumped the idea anyway after CTZn advice.

This is not meant to offend you, it simply looks wrong

...not offended

Looks like there are still other lightsources in the scene that cause this dull look.

no other light sources: just the sun.

Attached are 2 screenshots: the blender setup and the following render. *the picture is updated now*
Setup: one sun, no blackbodies (still delving into that subject), 2 windows with the "lead crystal" material from the library, both covered with exit portals (as in sketchup tutorial) no gaps in the whole room, bidirectional PT.

[Mor4us]

ok. where's your sun pointing at? referring to your first example image, the sun should mainly come from the left window.
looking at your rendering now, I think your sun is pointing same direction as your camera => this will cause your windows only to receive sky light, no sun.

[thednx]

Howdy,

yep, i will change the suns direction. In the screenshot, i am curious as to how to best lighten up the rest of the room, "naturally".

The corners of the floor and ceiling of course are a bit darker as they are in the real world; if You have a look at the "real" picture i used as reference, the light is evenly distributed through both windows, albeit the light is coming through the stark left. there is enough light to go around to nicely blanket the rest of the objects.

how would the pros, as you gentlemen would be, tackle this imminent challenge?

[Pibuz]

Hi pal!
..Not a blender user but I can sure drop a couple tips an tricks to try and help you out.

The kind of lighting you need is unfortunately not on a newbie wishlist: I tend to approximate it to an EXR (or HDR) environment. Other than sun and sky there is also the option to have a map as the main lightsource of the scene, and I think this is the case. At least, there are no other lightsources in the scene so the exposure of the camera should be not so difficult after all. I'd have to choose one featuring no clean sun, you'll need sort of an overcast sky in my opinion. Also, for the moment, loose the outer tree since it is really dropping the realism down right now: you'll be always able to add it later, when the central subject of the render is someway done.

Another general tip: when trying to copy a real life image start with guessing the same image proportions and camera position: this will reproduce the composition of the reference image, and - I assure you - that is generally half of the job.

[thednx]

The kind of lighting you need is unfortunately not on a newbie wishlist: I tend to approximate it to an EXR (or HDR) environment. Other than sun and sky there is also the option to have a map as the main lightsource of the scene, and I think this is the case. At least, there are no other lightsources in the scene so the exposure of the camera should be not so difficult after all.

Thanks! That actually dawned on me yesterday that I could try with an environment map.
So I will try with an exr / HDR and see what happens
...or how do You mean "approximate" it to an exr / HDR?

[Pibuz]

CG approximates reality: in your case, the real sky condition would be similar to an overcast EXR, in my opinion. That is all.

[thednx]

Hello,

here is my updated lighting: PLEASE ignore the artifacts / hovering objects, this was a quick and dirty scene setup, emphasis is the LIGHTING

Tonemapping is Reinhard, Multipath RT, powered by ranchcomputing.com (my laptop doesnt want to double as heater anymore).

I think the lighting has improved drastically, ey?
...and I worked on the scaling. HUGE improvement. thanks for that tip, too.

[Pibuz]

Much better indeed! Next steps: detailing and vertical shot!
Good improvement: keep going!