2006 Photoworks lighting 1

[smcadman]

I like the ease of attaching decals to objects, but I noticed the lighting seems not as bright as it was in 2005. I find myself having to crank the lights and Photoworks material properties way up. Having to render white has been a real chore because I am getting more of a gray than white. I'll open a copy of a part in both SW 2005 SP4.0, and SW 2006 SP1.0, and match all settings exactly the same, and it's just too dark in 2006. Hopefully they'll be a fix in SP1.1 or somewhere along the line.

Flores
SW 2006 SP1.0

 

[Theophilus]

I need to double-check a setting. Meanwhile, are you rendering to your screen or to a file? Have you checked your gamma setting to make sure it's not at 1.5 instead of 1.0 (what should be the default, but wasn't through at least 2004)?


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[Theophilus]

OK, right--that setting is in PhotoWorks options, system options as the "screen image gamma correction"--but I think you'll notice the discrepancy only if you're rendering to file--since this applies to file renderings instead of screen renderings.

Otherwise, are you using indirect illumination? If not, I strongly recommend you get to learn it (frustrating at first) since the more photoreal results can be had only with this option of lighting. A recent rendering of mine can be seen at:

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com/employment.html

(getting ready to redo a lot of my site)
Anyway, you can get some great effects from the indirect lighting settings, and the indirect lighting settings tend to brighten your scene considerably--in fact, too much with your existing scene lighting. You'll need to turn down your lights to keep from washing everything out.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[smcadman]

Indirect illumination was on, my material lighting was cranked up, as well as the scene lighting also. I just gave up on the Photoworks Studio scenes. I have used them several times in 2005, but I'm not sure what happened with the Studio 2006 scenes.
By the way, do you mind sharing which material you used on the floor of that rendering :

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com/employment.html

I just can't get a pure white in SW 2006 Photoworks, the closest I can get is a light gray. Again, it's not the monitor or my graphics card because I can achieve what I want in SW 2005 Photoworks.

Flores
SW 2006 SP1.0

 

[Theophilus]

Sure. In fact, I had the same problem with the white floor base as you are having (don't use the studios of any kind, or their flooring). I asked Brian Hill about this and he told me how to do it.
(

http://www.bxhdesigns.com/

)

Probably the best thing to do would be to email me at the address on my contact page and I'll send you the part file for the floor--you can check everything out from that point. It's fairly simple, but emailing it to you will actually take me less time than looking it up and explaining everything. This floor works only with indirect lighting and I use a custom scene in which there is a single directional light at .5 - .7 brightness (depending on the light's angle). In fact, all my renderings start at this point and only grow more complex if necessary.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[smcadman]

Awesome! I emailed you already. You only used a single directional light? That looks pretty good, and seems too easy too be true! I was following the "3 point light" found on

http://www.3drender.com/light/

but am anxious what can be done with just 1 light.

Flores
SW 2006 SP1.0

 

[Theophilus]

Well, the single directional light is coupled with a reflective white floor, indirect lighting, and the constant gray setting of the spherical environment. And this is why the results are more appealing than what is seen in the three point lighting tutorial you referred to (in my opinion, anyway.)

What I discovered before I began using indirect lighting was that more lights can make an object difficult to visually understand. What happens is you naturally lose a lot of the contrast of the shadows--and it's through the shading that one can easily perceive a 3D object in two dimensions (rendering). So with PhotoWorks 1, indirect lighting was not an option for filling in behind an object to more properly light it and everything looked more like a moonscape since the environment itself didn't help much in filling in light for dark areas. Now, however, PhotoWorks 2 makes great use of indirect lighting to accomplish this. So a scene set up properly ends up being less reliant on the lights and more reliant on the environment's "ambient" reflected light--indirect light. It takes away a lot of the work of setting up all sorts of lights, since natural scenes often have only one or two light sources anyway (window--directional light, plus a lamp--spot or point light).


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[smcadman]

Thanks Jeff for all your help.

Flores
SW 2006 SP1.0