realistic lighting

Ok here is a cheeky one. We have been creating 3d models for some time now for presentation to clients etc and use raytraced images with antialias. Although we are geting pretty good at these, we fall down every time on realistic lighting. The final image tends to be too bleached and always looks just like a 3d graphic rather than a building in a real world environment. I've attached an example image.

Does anyone have a set of settings that they regularly use as default lighting settings? (that's the cheeky bit)

We often have to have lighting levels set high just to get "white" materials to look white!

Any help gratefuly received!

Keith Cameron

Parents
  • Since you have very sharp shadows and are talking about Raytracing with antialias, I presume you are using a version prior to V8i. Since I do not have V8 anymore, I must do this from memory, so bear with me.
    Also some suggestions to improve image quality.

    #1 Lightring
    Search the Bentley Select area to find a lightring created by Jerry Flynn. This is a ring with distant lights placed in a circle. One of these lights is a very bright one, replacing the solar light. The lightring works as a Light Probe as described by Louis-Paul, except that a light probe is way cooler.
    Reference the lightring into your design and turn on the 'Use Lights' option in the reference dialog.
    Turn off all other lights (solar, ambient, anything) in your design.
    Test render to see if you like the results.
    Rotate the Light Ring reference to your needs.
    Alter the lights in the light ring to your needs.

    #2 Particle Trace
    There's a render mode called Particle Trace which you should definitly have a look at. The results and handling are different from Raytracing, so it needs some getting used to. This takes some time.

    #3 Image quality
    Up the amount of antialiase samples, and us Depth of field for close ups.
    Also a you could turn on fog/distant cueing, to simulate the effect of details becoming vague when far away from camera. Use very moderatly though.
    See if you can reduce the Moiré effect on the roofs. There's a toggle for this somewhere.

    #4 Material
    Make the cars stand out less. They draw attention away from a beautyful design.
    In the material editor, increase the light diffusion for your building. It can improve the white, without messing with lights.

    Kind regards

    Ivo Blaauw

    Ivo Blaauw
    = = = = = = = = = = = = =
    Look what the CAD dragged in...

  • Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. We do use V8i but we are going to download Select Series 1 (took us a while to work out what it was!) and see how that goes. The difficulty we always have is that every major release of Microstation completely changes the lighting and material modules, we just get used to working with the current system , then it all changes.....
  • Well, it wil not come as a surprise then... It has all changed big time.


    Read this to get to know the new things.
    http://communities.bentley.com/forums/thread/105703.aspx
    Regards

    Ivo Blaauw

    Ivo Blaauw
    = = = = = = = = = = = = =
    Look what the CAD dragged in...

Reply Children
  • I've been using SelectSeries1 this week and the results "straight from the box" are mind blowing compared to what i was capable of before! Thing is, I am only using default lighting and this tends to have an orangey tint to it. If I switch off default lighting, it goes mad and everything is way too bright. I would have hoped that default lighting would be a starting point and I could subtlely change the odd setting.

    Would attach an image but I can't see how I can in this reply!!

  • Hi Keith. The version of Luxology delivered with SS1 has serious problems in the area of post render lighting adjustment and preview. You need to install the latest Luxology beta over the top of SS1.

    Another problem area is crazy material settings. Make sure none of your materials have silly parameters that make them unrealistic. A single silly material can throw Luxology way off. Most common materials should have Diffuse set at 50% or less.

    I have a suggestion for simple lighting of outdoor (and many indoor) scenes. Create a gray hdri light probe to use for lighting your scene. Load the hdr file into Photoshop or other and desaturate to gray. Provides great light without tinting your image.

    Yesterday I was able to use the "Insert Image" button to add an image to a reply. The button is now gone.

    -Gary

  • Many thanks Gary. We work largely in 2D, therefore I don't get huge amounts of time to investigate 3d imaging, hence the cheeky shortcut requests. We are happy with the images we are getting at present as they are "night and day" compared to the previous raytrace images we used to produce(and we used to think they were very good!)

    I will try out your suggestions, even though you could hear a tumbleweed rolling past in my head as I read about the hdr file bit!  I could creat a light probe but wouldn't know what to do with the other settings, do you simply switch off ambient and solar lighting?

    You may have gathered I'm not an expert user!

    And the add image button doesn't show on my screen either...

    Thanks again

    -Keith

  • Hi Keith. To use an hdr image as a light probe open the Environment Settings dialog, Enable the Environment, Override Existing Lights, turn off Camera visibility, choose Light Probe as the type, select the file using the File browser magnifying glass. You can use one of the hdr images delivered with Microstation.. At this point all of your lighting will come from the light probe image.

  • Thanks Gary, I'll download the new luxology release and give it a go. I'm enjoying baffling everyone else in the office when i start talking about "luxology engines" etc...

    And that add image button still isn't on my page!!!

    Cheers

    -Keith