Best Practices for Lighting in Virtual Environments

[PeirCrud]

I'm a new user diving into the world of OctaneVR, and I'm really excited about the potential for creating immersive virtual experiences. However, I’m struggling a bit with lighting techniques.

What are some best practices for achieving realistic lighting in virtual environments using OctaneVR? Are there specific settings or approaches you recommend for different types of scenes (like indoor vs. outdoor)? Any tips on optimizing performance while maintaining high-quality visuals would also be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your help!

[ermycelium]

I'm a new user diving into the world of OctaneVR, and I'm really excited about the potential for creating immersive virtual experiences. However, I’m struggling a bit with lighting techniques.

What are some best practices for achieving realistic lighting in virtual environments using OctaneVR? Are there specific settings or approaches you recommend for different types of scenes (like indoor vs. outdoor)? Any tips on optimizing performance while maintaining high-quality visuals would also be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your help!

For realistic lighting, here are some tips:

Indoor Scenes: Use area lights or emissive materials to simulate natural light sources (like lamps or windows). Keep the light soft for realism. You can also add a HDRI sky image for subtle environmental lighting.

Outdoor Scenes: Use Sun & Sky or a directional light for the sun. A high-quality HDRI will add extra atmosphere. Adjust the sky settings to match the time of day.

Performance Tips:

Use adaptive sampling to focus quality on important parts of the scene.
Light Portals help speed up light transport in interiors.
Reduce max bounces in the settings to save render time while maintaining quality.
Experiment with these and adjust based on the scene's needs. Enjoy creating!