Question about making a windowless hallway

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DavidT
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Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:55 pm

I was wanting to model a hallway with no windows. The only light would be from ceiling fixtures. Since light from meshes isn't supported yet, I was going to try placing square holes in the ceiling, covered by a material that is almost completely transparent. The material would be like a softbox diffuser on a light fixture, to hide the fact that it is just holes where the lights would be. This would allow the outer environment light in, faking light fixtures.

I did a very quick test of creating a hallway and rendering with pathtracing. One thing I noticed is the rendering took a while to reduce noise, even with less than 1000 triangles in the scene. I'm attaching a picture for reference. It was rendered in 17 minutes and still has some noise.

I was hoping some of the experts on this site could give me some advice on the best way to fake this type of lighting. Also, what could I do to help the rendering times for doing something like this?
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OctaneHallwayTest_17min.png
Windows 7 64-bit | GTX 470 | i7 920 | 12 GB
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Proupin
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17 minutes is not that bad for the output you got... is this beta 1.21?

I was able to cut in half the render time in an interior by adjusting the max bounces to a minimum where you don't see black reflections etc... try it!
Win 7 64bits / Intel i5 750 @ 2.67Ghz / Geforce GTX 470 / 8GB Ram / 3DS Max 2012 64bits
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radiance
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These kinds of scenes really need area lights/mesh emitters to render efficiently...
Still 17 minutes is not bad at all.

Radiance
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DavidT
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Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:55 pm

OK, it's good to know the render time isn't too unusual. I figure keeping all the materials on the default glossy is probably effecting render times.

I was planning on doing a project like this with no windows, so I was curious if I could fake the ceiling lights to get photorealistic renders more quickly in Octane or if I would have to use a slower renderer that supported area lights. I think I will do a few more simple experiments to see what I come up with before deciding.
Proupin wrote:17 minutes is not that bad for the output you got... is this beta 1.21?
Yes, it was with the new 1.21 beta. Thanks for the advice on bounces. I will try experimenting.
Windows 7 64-bit | GTX 470 | i7 920 | 12 GB
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