Help with lighting a render

[RJenni]

I'm looking for some advice on lighting a render. I work in retail and need to do quick renders to show how product would be displayed.  A lot of these renders are only one wall.  The light always lets them down as they don't look realistic.  I need to show ambient lighting or spotlights as well as some feature lighting.  Would this be because I am not closing the area off (with 4 walls) or is there certain tips I could use to enhance the way I am lighting.

 

In the images shown it's almost like a grey film over the top and they don't seem as sharp as they shoud be.  Any help would be much appreciated.

 

 

Edited January 28 by RJenni

[RJenni]

I've managed the under shelf lighting but had to leave the spotlights out as it was throwing the brightness off. Also the lightbox on the backwall was hard to achieve as I had to put the image on in photoshop after I had rendered but it should really have more of a glow.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 28 by RJenni

[Kevin Allen]

Well, the lightbox, I wouldn't use lighting as much as a glow texture on the image. Similarly, I would add a white glow texture to the downlighting in the ceiling. In this case, the texture would have "cast Shadows" turned off so that the VWX lIght Objects above could pass through.

[Kevin K]

@RJenni Yeah, Kevin Allen is spot on suggesting simply adding a 'glow' to the texture. It works wonders when using recessed lighting in ceilings, etc. I use it often in my renderings.

 

 

[Kevin K]

@RJenni Also, sometimes the output resolution for a particular sheet layer can make a huge difference relating to your comment about sharpness, etc. Pump that baby up!!  Depending, but on sheet layers for an 8x11 page I usually use between 400-600 dpi minimum. 

[RJenni]

@Kevin Allen @Kevin K thank you both for your comments. I’ll give the glow texture a try. Also I tried the resolution on another render and that worked a treat.

 

@Kevin K your render looks great. I see a lot of the light would be external sunlight coming in through the glazed roof, would I need to do an extra light source if I turned the spotlights to glow. Thanks!

[Kevin K]

@RJenni Yes, with that particular render, I used a directional light with shadows to get some natural light streaming in from the exterior. 

[Luis M Ruiz]

I'd recommend you use a combination of glow textures and spotlight pointing down. Do not fall on the trap of adding a point light, that triggers rays in all directions and your shadows will not look correct. Also, once the render is done, add a little cone of light image (.png) to enhance the effect. Here is a sample. 

[scottmoore]

Kind of late to the party. All of the above suggestions are good ones. Indirect lighting (multiple bounces” makes a huge difference in the appearance of renders. Not having all the walls to reflect off of will impact the overall look. Otherwise, spending time adjusting light levels, possibly selecting various ies files, is critical. It can take a while to get right but usually worth the effort. 

[Luis M Ruiz]

Here is a work in progress, but I wanted to share an interior rendering of an idea for a home office.  Lots of items here and several light objects using realistic, smooth, backlit and glow attributes.  The final rendering was rendered in the cloud using a rendering style, settings included here. Once the final project is ready, I'll make the file available.

[Luis M Ruiz]

Just a follow up with my previous post.  I'll invite you to check out the making of this file here:

 

[Luis M Ruiz]

And if you'd like to see its 360 panorama, here is the link:
https://cloud.vectorworks.net/links/11eb93ee57b32cfe85ba12bd733fbe07/

 

[Mark Aceto]

On 1/27/2021 at 2:43 PM, RJenni said:

Also the lightbox on the backwall was hard to achieve as I had to put the image on in photoshop after I had rendered but it should really have more of a glow.

 

You can bump the glow texture above 100% in the Reflectivity shader settings. 400% is pretty common but you could do 1,000% or 10,000% if that's what you need (whatever works).

[AlanW]

@RJenniHi if you truly want a realistic rendering export this as a cinema4d and import in Twin Motion.

[Mark Aceto]

18 hours ago, AlanW said:

if you truly want a realistic rendering

 

More like if you want a fast render. But they'll have to add shadow decals, reflection probes, random lights, replace textures, juke myriad effects... If realistic is the priority (as of June 2021), better off keeping it in RW and using VW Cloud Publish. A year from now, could be a totally different story.

[Pat Stanford]

Have you crystal ball set to years or months mr Aceto?  ;-)

[Luis M Ruiz]

Based on my current experience the and rendering pros I hang out with, truly realistic renderings can be achieved using other systems. Blender, V-Ray, Unreal, Cinema4D, etc. Ray tracing is super important.  Lumion, Twinmotion, Enscape are all nice and produce fast renderings but still nothing compared to the bigger brothers. Then again, not every single design firm needs ultra incredible movie level type animations or renderings.  Speed, quality, budget, computer requirements, all of these are factors to consider.

[Mark Aceto]

1 hour ago, Pat Stanford said:

Have you crystal ball set to years or months mr Aceto?  ;-)

 

Metric dog years :)

[Mark Aceto]

The still images in the OP are textbook examples of where custom RW shines. The only things missing are a window for physical sky and a heliodon. Interiors like this also expose the weaknesses of GPU biased renderers like TM. It’s all about the right tool for the job. I love TM for exterior animations but for a few still images of interiors…. not worth taking it outside of VW IMHO.

[Luis M Ruiz]

I personally think I squeezed as much as possible out of renderworks for interiors.  Now, I am realizing exteriors are a different challenge. The benefits of a single light source for exteriors along with a nice environmental light and the speed at what these other third party rendering process animation. I just won't decide, I'll just embrace them all. To me, the 3d modeling is the key, 60% of my time goes into that aspect, 30% on getting those materials and lights just right, the rest is just production.  
Here is a another sample project, single light source and done with the help of the direct link to Enscape. only done in 2 min.

 

[AlanW]

@Mark AcetoHi, all you mentioned is so simple and quick, you get a result in a few minutes. No going back for us. There is nothing that cant be done in a few minutes if you take the time to learn the program like most things.

[grant_PD]

Renderworks would be much more usable if one could export alpha channels.  I love all of the render engines, but having an alpha channel in your back pocket is a lifesaver.  

[Mark Aceto]

12 hours ago, AlanW said:

@Mark AcetoHi, all you mentioned is so simple and quick, you get a result in a few minutes. No going back for us. There is nothing that cant be done in a few minutes if you take the time to learn the program like most things.

 

Would love to know how you accomplish the following in TM:

• Displacement mapping
• Interior shadows under furniture without using a decal to fake it
• Glass reflections without using a probe to fake it
• VW lighting devices

[Mark Aceto]

 

On 6/22/2021 at 10:59 AM, Luis M Ruiz said:

V-Ray

 

Any plans for a V-Ray plug-in on the roadmap?

 

https://www.chaosgroup.com/vray/free-trials

 

Edited June 23 by Mark Aceto

[zoomer]

33 minutes ago, Mark Aceto said:

 

Would love to know how you accomplish the following in TM:

• Displacement mapping
• Interior shadows under furniture without using a decal to fake it
• Glass reflections without using a probe to fake it
• VW lighting devices

 

 

I will never go back faking like in mid 90ies.

That's what makes me nervous when I watch TM or Unreal Tutorials.

I am, or hope for being able to PBR-only since around 2005.

 

That's why I prefer Enscape or just CPU Raytracing over TM if necessary.

But in reality TM's latest "GI" quality is mostly sufficient for me though.

And basically UE 5 preview shows that they already have more Rendering

bells and whistles technology that I would ever need.

(If it was only packed in a useful GUI)