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[CB]

Does anyone know of a good thread or tutorial regarding daylight rendering with lights on?      I'm not having much luck rendering or finding the right info. The rendering competition for additions is beckoning. Thanks

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi Chris,

There are two situations, which do you have.

1) One is an Exterior view where you need or want some exterior or interior lights on.
2) The other is an Interior view where you have lights on and you want to see the Sun shinning in.


Very basic solution.

1 Lower added light brightness (use very low powered 'bulb', use dark color)
2 Increase added light brightness (increase to over 10,000 watt - use Exterior Streets on the interior).

Which do you have?




Jack

[CB]

Hi Jack.  I have an exterior view and want some interior lights on.

[CB]

I remember reading somewhere that if you want a daylight image with interior lights, then you need to turn off daylight and add external lighting.
The interior lighting seems to be ok, but I cannot get enough external lighting to simulate the sun. Daylight is switched off.
A group of four lights have been placed 9000mm (27') off ground, but they show no light..

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi Chris,

I guess you have a third scenario, where the lights are inside / camera view outside.

I would recommend using Street Lamps off camera and set to mimic the Sun. And use Advanced Render.

If you increased the interior light brightness with the Sun, you would get very odd 'shadows' through the windows on the grass.

I don't have examples available, moved them to external HDrive, but with Advanced and fake Sun , you should be OK.

Jack

[CB]

Not sure what you mean by 'fake sun'. Do you mean placing them high? or is there another setting somewhere. Is there a difference between interior and exterior light?

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi Chris,

Yes, fake sun is done by using the higher powered Street Lamp and raising / locating it so it 'fakes' the Sun. I've had some success using it but not a lot when combining exterior with interior lights.

You can see in this example that there is a raised ' street lamp sun' on the right casting shadows but at the building there are recessed lights, highlighting the wall and lighting the covered entry. In order to NOT have the recessed light 'bulbs' cast a harsh light out into the parking lot, I made the recessed lights higher and moved the light bulb up into the light. That blocked the outward light forcing it just downward and on the walls only.

You may have to do something similar to the interior lights. If you just place a 'lamp' inside, it will light the room but it will also send light out of the windows onto the grass or walks.

Maybe that is what you should try. Make a 'tall' recessed light , move the bulb up into it. Set the bulb (light source) to either 400 or 1000 street light for interior lighting.

Then use the regular Sun on a cloudy day.

Jack

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi Chris,

I tested.

You don't have to resize a recessed light, just turn off the lense and raise the bulb up so it is just inside the fixture. This will give you a large 'circular' light on the floor. See attachment.

The higher you raise the 'bulb' the smaller the circle will be.

I used Halogen Street light 1000 watt and bumped it from 100% to 500 %, in the light source settings.

I moved the fixtures so that some light from the 'circle' hit on the windows, so some light is outside on the grass. It really becomes a exercise in bulb placement to adjust diameter of the circle of light and fixture location in the room so that the exterior rendering is showing what you want to see illuminated on the interior.

Then a Basic light setting was used to do the Exterior rendering with Full Sun (no fake Sun added).

Jack

[stephan]

I've used that method quite a few times, but when I have more than one outside light, only one will work. Any suggestion for that Jack.

Stephan

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi Stephan,

There shouldn't be a restriction on number of lights. So all I could suggest is to delete the one that isn't working and replace it.

You could also try to copy the one the does work.

I normally try to keep the number of different lights to as low a number as possible and never over 8 different types.

Jack

[stephan]

Jack,
I've never used more than two outside lights at a time. I've deleted the culprit, copied the working, but then the original working becomes null and void.

Stephan

[CB]

Thanks for your suggestions Jack, I will have a look at all of you info over the weekend.

[Allan Chesney]

Hi Stephan.

I've never used more than two outside lights at a time. I've deleted the culprit, copied the working, but then the original working becomes null and void.

I have one project (June competition winner) that uses dozens if outside lights (all working), although not a lot of outside is visible. Actually all lights in the whole project use the same bulb, dimmed in some cases by using a dark coloured lens.

Allan

[Jack Zimmer]

Stephan,

Have you by chance changed some aspect of the light while it is in the model? I've seen this happen when the original light is added, then changed in the model without giving it a new name and adding it to the catalog.

Try renaming the one that works. Delete the other and add the newly named one back to the model.

Jack

[stephan]

Yes Jack,

I did change the light. Will test with your suggestion.

Thank You
Stephan