What's a Simple Way to Lighten Up Ceilings in Shaded Render?

[Ed Wachter]

We use Shaded render for a lot of our work. When we present interior spaces the ceilings always appear too dark. I assume that Shaded (like Open GL) can support up to eight light sources. What's a simple way to use Shaded, but get the ceilings brighter, and evenly illuminated?

 

Thanks,

Ed

 

[mjm]

if you're in 2023 or 2024, Shaded allows more than eight lights and shadows. check your document settings - this'll allow any number of options

[Jeff Prince]

1 hour ago, Ed Wachter said:

We use Shaded render for a lot of our work. When we present interior spaces the ceilings always appear too dark. I assume that Shaded (like Open GL) can support up to eight light sources. What's a simple way to use Shaded, but get the ceilings brighter, and evenly illuminated?

 

Thanks,

Ed

 

 

Give your ceilings a texture that has "reflectivity" set to glow with a low brightness value and set to "emit".

It's a similar trick we use to make plants, signs, and anything that needs to be a little more visible in the dark.  You just have to be very subtle with it.

 

Alternatively, if the ceilings aren't visible in a shot, just turn them off and it will be like a TV set 🙂.

Add lights in the space above to get the desired effect.

[Ed Wachter]

Oh great! The ceiling that "glows" is what I was hoping for. I'll give that a try. I'll reply again after I do, but it might take me a few days to get to it.

 

Thanks,

Ed

[Jeff Prince]

1 hour ago, Ed Wachter said:

Oh great! The ceiling that "glows" is what I was hoping for. I'll give that a try. I'll reply again after I do, but it might take me a few days to get to it.

 

Thanks,

Ed

 

If you are just doing shaded view renderings, Lighting Options might be a more effective solution.  Bump the Ambient Brightness for real time effects.

 

 

Here are some examples of both Final Renderworks and Shaded using glowing ceilings with low intensity brightness:

Both the ceiling in the main space and the curved one in the back are "glowing"

 

No glow Shaded

 

Glow Shaded

[markdd]

Another option is to add a Directional Light object pointing up. If you turn off shadows for this light and experiment with the intensity, you should see a marked improvement.