Need Advice on Dim Home Theatre Lighting Setup

Forums: Need Advice on Dim Home Theatre Lighting Setup
Poser (Integrated Plugin developed by Paul Kinnane)

Moderator: face_off

Forum rules
Please keep character renders sensibly modest, please do not post sexually explicit scenes of characters.

Need Advice on Dim Home Theatre Lighting Setup

Postby dysfunctional » Fri Sep 06, 2013 7:03 pm

dysfunctional Fri Sep 06, 2013 7:03 pm
Hi, everyone.

So, despite having the Octane plugin since its release, I still struggle horribly with lighting when not using the included 'Daylight' or HDRI options. I'm attaching a scene, and I really need advice on how to best light it.

Image

This image was rendered to 16k Ms/px in 3 hrs. 30 min on a GTX 680. The scene is a closed off room, so no HDRI or daylight options will work. The room is currently being lit solely by mesh emitters. I have a few half cylinders lighting the areas behind the walls and above the roof. These half cylinders are only 5 polys each, as I remember reading here that the fewer polys that make up an emitter, the better the lighting will be. So, there are two behind the far wall where the television is, two overhead above the dropped roof, and two (out of frame) behind the wall that juts out where the wall speakers are installed.

Overhead, there is a set of track lighting with six lights total. Each of these six mesh emitters has about 200 polys (they're all tris, and part of the actual lamp from the prop itself). They are shaped like a cornea; basically a convex circular plane.

I am asking for any and all advice anyone can provide for optimal settings to light this room and get rid of all the hotpixels and noise. I dialed down the hotpixel from 1.0 in increments of 0.1, and as the hotpixels vanished, the dark areas became more muddled with black splotches. Using caustic blur yielded the same result. What I'd really love to see is for this to look as realistic as possible, as I've seen renders of rooms with no windows on these forums look fantastic, and I'd like to duplicate that approach. I am rendering with the pathtracing kernel but will switch to whatever gets the best results.
Windows 7 64-bit, Intel i7 3.6 GHz Quad Core, 32 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan 6 GB (render card)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 4 GB (render card)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 610 (display card)
Currently Running Poser Octane Plugin Version: 2.5.23
User avatar
dysfunctional
Licensed Customer
Licensed Customer
 
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:22 pm
Location: San Diego, CA

Re: Need Advice on Dim Home Theatre Lighting Setup

Postby sdwhitton » Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:34 pm

sdwhitton Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:34 pm
With these dusk shots or 'lit' shots, what I tend to do is render the scene with an hdri (or could just be a dark colour), with no emitters - that will give your basic ambient look, without too much noise - can either save this out as a png or better a tonemapped exr

then I do another render with a black environment, and the emitters on, I guess this would be PMC to reduce the noise as best you can, could be half res, and then comp this over in photoshop either 'screen' or 'linear dodge/add' if 16 bit, or 'linear dodge/add' if exr (only option available in 32 bit)

if going down the exr route, you will need to add an exposure layer to each render in photoshop, and group them together, and play with the gamma settings...

as I say, it's certainly the way I do it, in realistic 'render' times, and I do this regardless of whichever render engine I'm using I guess, force of habit - hope this is useful..
workstation well past its sell-by-date, Vista 64 bit (!) with a pitiful amount of RAM, re-invigorated with a GX 590

3ds Max Design 2011 (have 2013 but can't be bothered to re-do all the UI), CS5, and that free z-brush program, whatever it's called
sdwhitton
Licensed Customer
Licensed Customer
 
Posts: 126
Joined: Sat Oct 15, 2011 5:26 pm

Re: Need Advice on Dim Home Theatre Lighting Setup

Postby mlru » Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:44 am

mlru Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:44 am
I'd render indoor scenes with pmc.
reduce the ray bounces to what is really needed (usually 4-6) and raise the caustic blur level.
instead of the light meshes of the ceiling lights use a single square, opacity set to 0, maybe with an ies.
change all glossy materials to diffuse, where applicable.
that's all I can think off, right now.
Win11/64Bit | GTX 4090 24GB | NVidia Driver 546.29 | Octane 4.05 | DAZ Studio 4.21
mlru
Licensed Customer
Licensed Customer
 
Posts: 239
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 9:26 pm

Re: Need Advice on Dim Home Theatre Lighting Setup

Postby face_off » Sat Sep 07, 2013 7:38 am

face_off Sat Sep 07, 2013 7:38 am
I also increase caustic_blur and reduce the bounces to 5 or 6. If there is a particularly troublesome material causing issues (the wine bottle), try reducing the specular. For this scene - I'd also be tempted to turn off the spot lights in the roof an add a single poly plane near each light and attach an IES light. Do those spotlights have a glass outer? If so, have that shell opacity 0 so the light is not going through the glass. Also, have you tried Direct Lighting - it may be very effective for this scene.
Win7/Win10/Mavericks/Mint 17 - GTX550Ti/GT640M
Octane Plugin Support : Poser, ArchiCAD, Revit, Inventor, AutoCAD, Rhino, Modo, Nuke
Pls read before submitting a support question
User avatar
face_off
Octane Plugin Developer
Octane Plugin Developer
 
Posts: 15471
Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia

Re: Need Advice on Dim Home Theatre Lighting Setup

Postby bpzen » Thu Sep 12, 2013 7:37 pm

bpzen Thu Sep 12, 2013 7:37 pm
Hi Paul, sorry for noob question but wht do you mean by direct lighting?

thanks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Win 7 64bit, Titan 6 Gig and GTX770 4Gig, Intel 3.75GHZ, 24Gig RAM, Poser 2014 patched
bpzen
Licensed Customer
Licensed Customer
 
Posts: 329
Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2012 1:44 am

Re: Need Advice on Dim Home Theatre Lighting Setup

Postby face_off » Thu Sep 12, 2013 9:57 pm

face_off Thu Sep 12, 2013 9:57 pm
Hi Paul, sorry for noob question but wht do you mean by direct lighting?

The kernel "directlighting". It's faster but not as physically accurate.
Win7/Win10/Mavericks/Mint 17 - GTX550Ti/GT640M
Octane Plugin Support : Poser, ArchiCAD, Revit, Inventor, AutoCAD, Rhino, Modo, Nuke
Pls read before submitting a support question
User avatar
face_off
Octane Plugin Developer
Octane Plugin Developer
 
Posts: 15471
Joined: Fri May 25, 2012 10:52 am
Location: Adelaide, Australia

Return to Poser


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests

Fri Mar 29, 2024 8:04 am [ UTC ]