Interior Lighting and shadows through windows

[KyriakosCY]

Hi Guys,

I have been using the Standalone Demo for a few hrs now and Im really impressed..! Spent 20mins setting up and rendering a scene that would take me hours in Maya, yet I have a few issues...

When I render in Maya / Mental Ray using Physical Sun & Sky I can set the sun direction/angle which in turn cast shadows inside my interior, on the walls & floors etc... I have not been able to replicate this in Octane yet... I have setup my window glass material as Specular and also enabled fake shadows yet still nothing seems to be happening... Im moderately pleased with the way my render is looking (yet not very realistic), but I believe it is the lighting that will give it the realism that I'm after, it seems a bit flat at the moment, I want to add some volume...

How do you guys usually go about casting light and shadows through windows..?

I have attached a screenshot of my render and the settings for my glass material... I hope that somebody can help me out with this as Im really looking forward to purchasing this software once I finish this test...

Also any general tips as to how I can improve the look and feel of the scene taking into account the limitations of the demo will be greatly appreciated...

Thanks in advance..!

[abreukers]

Hi KyriakosCY, this might help: http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=30412

[KyriakosCY]

Hey, thanks for the link..! That was very helpful... I noticed that I was not using the Path Tracing kernel and once I selected it I got the light and shadows coming through that I was after... Is there any way to achieve / simulate this using the Direct Lighting kernel? It is very difficult to tweak the settings with PT as the whole computer just slows down drastically (might be time for multiple Titans)... I have attached an image of the effect/light I want to simulate using the Direct Light if it is possible...

[mib2berlin]

Hi, you could try "Fake shadows" in specular material during Direct L., also try diffuse setting.
It is a bit slower than DL but more natural.
You could fake a ArchViz glas with a glossy material with .5 specular and 0.2 opacity but i think "Fake shadows" is better in your example.

Cheers, mib.

[KyriakosCY]

Thanks, I will try that out and see what I can come up with... If you see the first image I posted I am using the fake shadows option in the DL kernel on a specular window material but nothing seems to be affected, do tha wall and floor materials also need to be setup to receive these shadows/reflections?... When I purchase the full version and have access to the material database will I see huge improvements with glass naterials etc..?

[glimpse]

It is very difficult to tweak the settings with PT as the whole computer just slows down drastically (might be time for multiple Titans)... I have attached an image of the effect/light I want to simulate using the Direct Light if it is possible...

if You want to make Your system a bit more snapy simply go to file > preferences > cuda devices > use priority /tick this box/ what it does? well, it will leave some resources for Your screen, in this way render time might be few percent higher, but increased interactivity would make the one You spending much more enjoyable =p at least You can do something.

[mib2berlin]

If you see the first image I posted I am using the fake shadows option in the DL kernel on a specular window material but nothing seems to be affected, do tha wall and floor materials also need to be setup to receive these shadows/reflections?

Oh, and no.

The samples setting in PT is very high (16), you often need only 3-6 and it is much faster then.

CHeers, mib.

[KyriakosCY]

Thanks for all the responses guys.. I will try out all the suggestions to see if I can get this working... I have the Priority setting ticked yet I still get complete UI slowdown on my computer when using PT, yet when I turn on PMC everything is smooth as butter but the render time triples & everything is too dark...

I can live with slowdowns and costing render times if I can get the photorealistic result I am after...

Could anyone quickly run through a basic interior lighting setup for a realistic render... Would you only use the daylight, or would you also use a hidden area light to boost the scene... I may be setting this up wrong, but I have to ridiculously boost the Power to add light into the scene... and I am not getting the correct light for the corresponding time of day to render a light simulation...

[KyriakosCY]

Also... Do you completely close the room/box or do you leave one side (away from the camera) open..?

[mib2berlin]

Hi KyriakosCY, could you post the scene?
.obj and .mtl would be nice.
I think we don´t need the interior, only the room, windows and so on.
People can play with it to get realistic light with short render time.

Cheers, mib.