JSiegel Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 Hi All, How do you get a ceiling to appear as a white ceiling? In the attached screenshot the rendering is Custom Renderworks. Lighting=Use Shadows. Shadow Mapped Shadows= High,High. The ceiling is a texture, BM White Cloud color w/ phong reflectivity. I have (7) spot lights & the (4) Undercabinet flourescents. Any thoughts are appreciated. TY J Quote Link to comment
Danielj1 Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 The problem traditionally has been that any white 3-D object often renders as grey, and appears excessively dark (I think it actually renders accurately, it's only a perception issue I believe). Adding and adjusting lights is too time-consuming and often yields unexpected results (and increased rendering times). There's no texture combination (meaning with reflectivity, etc.), to my knowledge, that can lighten the appearance of such a 3-D object in a controlled fashion other than Constant, and that one is uniformly white with little ability to accept subtle shadows. There is, however, a way to do this. For a ceiling: make an extruded 3-D object with a white fill. Duplicate it in place, and nudge the duplicate down by a couple of pixels, just enough to see in close-up wireframe. Create a Constant texture, and give it about 80% transparency. Apply this texture to the nudged duplicate 3-D object. The transparency of the Constant texture will allow the underlying object to be seen as a solid, but the 20% texture visibility will create a lighter appearance, while allowing subtle shade and shadow effects upon its surface. An example of such a texture can be seen here: http://www.danjansenson.com/whiteceiling/ Note that the ceiling above and the wall to the right both have white fills. It's only the ceiling duplicate that received the 80% transparent Constant shader. The white-ness of the ceiling can be controlled by altering the amount of transparency in the texture. Dan Jansenson Quote Link to comment
Jonathan Pickup Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 white ceilings are never really white, it depends in the light hitting the ceiling. my ceiling is white near the light fixtures, but it is grey in the corners of the room. Quote Link to comment
Ray Libby Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 Also keep in mind when you look up at a ceiling your eyes adjust to make the ceiling look brighter. Quote Link to comment
Horst M. Posted May 27, 2010 Share Posted May 27, 2010 (edited) Hallo, You get a much more realistic look of your Ceiling if you enable Final Gather. For the final renderings I also enable "Use Ray tracing" and set the refractions to 4 or 8. If you keep the Final Gather accuracy low (like 30% to 50%), you still have acceptable render times (depending on your patience..). The light sources for the attached renderings are 6 Point lights (like bulbs) 0.3m (1ft) below the ceiling. The ceiling and the walls have the Stucco_medium_White texture, and receive a lot of yellow light, because the reflectivity of the Floor (a carpet of nature colored sisal) is set too high, but you can see the effect of the Final Gather for the ceiling. What Ray and Jonathan write is correct, because if you have the lights close to the ceiling, the ceiling gets most of its ilumination from the reflections caused by the walls, the floor and the furniture, therefore it is really darker (but never dark grey!), but we adapt that and "see" it as bright as the walls. That is what Final Gather adds to the Renderings. Edited May 27, 2010 by Horst M. Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 28, 2010 Author Share Posted May 28, 2010 I gave Horst's suggestion a shot and 3.5 hours later I am still looking at the color wheel...so apparently I am not that patient. I have tried to Escape the Rendering & Force Quit Vectorworks each to no avail, so I am shutting down my computer. I will try Dan's suggestion & post the result tomorrow. Thanks for you comments. J Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 28, 2010 Author Share Posted May 28, 2010 Additionally, why is it that the 24W flourescent lights below the upper cabinets reduced to 5% brightness shine as brightly as they do? TY J Quote Link to comment
Horst M. Posted May 28, 2010 Share Posted May 28, 2010 (edited) Hi Jeremy. I feel guilty. 3.5 hours is far more patience than I have. The renderings above, with Final gather at 30% and Ray Tracing at 8 refrations took about 3-5 minutes to render. Final Quality Renderworks takes about 1 minute. both on my Mackbook Pro. I think Rebnderworks crasehd in your case. I will try later on if the extreme slowness could be caused by Line lights, which seem to be part of your Scene. Edited May 28, 2010 by Horst M. Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted May 28, 2010 Share Posted May 28, 2010 A quick way is to give it constant reflectivity....... Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 28, 2010 Author Share Posted May 28, 2010 I ran some tests, removed the line lights and FQRW & Custom RW each took @ 2.5-3 mins. As soon as I started with the Final Gather & Ray Tracing, I get the color wheel time suck & bailed after 20 mins. BTW I am unable to either "Esc" or "Force Quit" out of these renderings. Dan, when you refer to "Constant Texture" and adjusting transparency am I correct in assuming that you mean adjust the "Opacity" of the new texture in Tools>Organization>Class Palette. Let me know as I don't see where else I would make these adjustments. I have attached a CRW screen shot, ceiling is solid fill white, no texture. TY J Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted May 28, 2010 Share Posted May 28, 2010 (edited) I have noticed that in general to get the ceiling (other white/light objects) to look white 'enough' when using phong/matte etc reflectivity, you need to, a) give all textures an ambience of about 60% ie decrease their default ambience, and the ceiling 100% then go to View>Lighting>Set Lighting options and fiddle(increase) with the brightness until the whole render looks good. So basically you are decreasing ambience in all other textures and increasing the brightness of the scene........ Edited May 28, 2010 by Vincent C Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted May 28, 2010 Share Posted May 28, 2010 The thing that has not been mentioned yet in this thread is that one way to speed up test renders is to turn down the DPI of your layers. If you go down to 72 dpi it will take about 1/16 the time as 300 dpi. That way you can do the tests fast to get the lighting/textures right and them turn up the resolution for final output. Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 28, 2010 Author Share Posted May 28, 2010 Vincent C, I am not sure where to change the texture ambience, please post a screen shot. TY J Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 28, 2010 Author Share Posted May 28, 2010 Attached is my attempt at Dan's suggestion... I am doing something wrong with the Constant texture at 80% transparency. A screen shot of the appropriate menu would be greatly appreciated. TY J Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 30, 2010 Author Share Posted May 30, 2010 This may be helpful for others, 1. Ceiling: is a Texture BM Decorator White- Plain Color, no reflectivity, transparency or bump. 2. Lighting Options: Ambient on at 45% Brightness, Color Temp 3400K 3. Lights: (8) point lights in the recessed cans 850 Lumens, 25% dimmer, (6) point lights 1'-0" below ceiling 1150 Lumens, 2800K, 35% dimmer, smooth distance fall off, (1) spotlight outside window 50% brightness I would still like to brighten it a bit. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 (edited) Vincent C, I am not sure where to change the texture ambience, please post a screen shot. TY J Right click the texture in the Resourse Brouwser and choose edit, then click on the Edit button next to reflectivity and voila! Edited May 31, 2010 by Vincent C Quote Link to comment
Horst M. Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 (edited) Hi J, I still don't think, that the vertical jagged lines are are caused by the dpi setting, because the two clours are rendered with very precise edges, and they are bigger than 1 Pixel. Could you post a File with just one Cabinett door inside. I'm almost shure, there must be something with the geometry or RW that causes this effect. To finalise your Image, brighten the whole thing up, or just certain Areas, I would like to suggest using Photoshop or Gimp. Less waiting and more possibities, and you could also get rid of those Vertical dashed Lines as well. :-) I use Photoshop Elements, and find it not too complicated, and for colour-, brightnesscorrection, and some makeup its fine, and also cheap enough. Edited May 31, 2010 by Horst M. Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 31, 2010 Author Share Posted May 31, 2010 Vincent & Horst, See attached. I am not getting the submenu to edit the ambient on my texture?? TY J Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 Have you clicked here?......... Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 31, 2010 Author Share Posted May 31, 2010 Vincent, Horst, Ray et al, thanks for all your help attached is the final image. J Quote Link to comment
Ray Libby Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 Looks great, nice job! How are you going to support the countertop overhangs at the island? Quote Link to comment
Horst M. Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 (edited) Hi, I did some Renderings, and can't reproduce the dashed effect, but I opened your Cabinet Symbol, and found that you constructed your Cabinet with the Multiple Extrude Tool (which I don't like very much, because I found that it created Objects that don't snap very well) and that the basic 2d Polygons for these Extrudes are drawn with with a dashed Line Style! I'm very curious, what happens with your rendering, when you Edit the 2d polygons of the Multiple Extrudes and set the lines Style to Solid.... Edited May 31, 2010 by Horst M. Quote Link to comment
JSiegel Posted May 31, 2010 Author Share Posted May 31, 2010 Ray, the counter is still an open question, it will be supported either with steel angles, concealed in corbel/bracket or per my prior "Lathe" inquiry, I may support the ends on a column/leg. Horst, the Cabinet symbol is simply the ungrouped stock VW cabinets & I did not notice that they were "dashed" lines when revising them. Great find, apparently there will be (1) more final rendering. Many thanks, J Quote Link to comment
Horst M. Posted June 1, 2010 Share Posted June 1, 2010 Jeremy, if the effect of the dasehd Lines in the rendering is really caused by the dashed Style of the Basic 2d Polygons for the Extrudes, I see that as a bug!, because the line Styles of the resulting Extrudes in your cabinet are solid! Quote Link to comment
Ray Libby Posted June 1, 2010 Share Posted June 1, 2010 Solids can't have line attributes. Higher resolution will get rid of the broken lines. Quote Link to comment
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