Help with lighting a render

[RJenni 0]

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 0]

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 258]

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 157]

@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 157]

@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 0]

@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 157]

@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 245]

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.