Interior night renderings?
Here’s what the help file sez–
Night ShotsTo create a night shot, you need to first set your background to a night scene. Once your background is set, all you need to do is set the time to a time of day when there is no sun.OK, did that.So, is this a v15 bug?Yup.
If what the Help file says is really is all I need to do for a night render, it’s a v15 bug.
Created a brand new v15 model of a trivial building. Before Render.png and After Render.png tell the story. Time was set to midnight.
I’m thinking this just became a support issue.
Jrv,
Here is a render of your BLD. i wrote on the setting page what i would adjust. Project 1 (with black sky pic ) got a little brighter than i would have liked it. project2 i used the night sky 1 but that has stars in the sky and i did not take time to figure out why they become like a blurry shining object in the sky and mess up the window so i would recommend using the black sky. also make sure you change the settings to what i have below and try the black sky pic but here’s a tip you can render faster in rendered outline mode but it does not work if you want the lights and the night effect to show up. forgot to add the only reason you’re window is white is because of the 3d pic you tried to make out of a 2d pic.
On my previous post with my nighttime render you can actually see the deck floor outside the house due to the fact that i put lights right outside the door so it lights up part of the deck.
Hope this helps,
Conrad
Conrad, thanks for your reply. Below are the settings, and the results (Project1PerConrad) that I got. Still “Blinded by the Light.” (Apologies to my fellow New Jersey-ite, The Boss.) (And revealing my age.)
Honestly, I don’t see much difference between my first and second renders, except that I brightened up the first to override the ‘atmospheric’ darkness I see in most renders from this program. And I do clearly see the can lights illuminated in my first render, regardless of incorrect Display Mode. In the past, Display Mode hasn’t affected 3D TrueView, but maybe it does now.
Could you post Project2.bld so I can render it and see if I get the same results? Because the settings might be correct, but clearly didn’t make a dark window!
BTW, I’m betting when you couldn’t reply, you were told you needed to log on. And you tried, and you were probably already logged on, and it didn’t make any difference. Or you logged on and it didn’t make any difference. Been there, done that, a BUNCH of times since I got active again on this board, with minor variations. Reported it to support a couple times too. It comes and goes. Sound about right?
Hey Jack, hope you’re well!
Yep, that worked in Project2.bld and my “real” model.
What’s funny is I missed AM/PM when I set the time, so my “night” rendering was taken at 11:40AM on 22 Dec! Here in Houston, TX, US, there’s plenty of daylight at that time. I did turn off Enable Sunlight and Enable Sun Shadows. But the window is transparent, the foreground outside is dimly lit and the distant background is black, and there’s no daylighting in the room. So maybe time of day is irrelevant; extinguishing the sun is what really matters.
Whatever. At least the window isn’t retina-searing white, and I have a way to do night renderings, as long as it works consistently, unlike everything I’ve tried to date.
If “Use physically accurate lighting” is the One True Answer for nighttime renderings, Cadsoft must update their Help text, quoted previously.
And with that said, a blazing white window in a rendering with a night background and time set to nighttime hours is not even a minimally reasonable approximation of “physically accurate lighting” when said option is turned off. The program sometimes gets it right, sometimes doesn’t. And the difference between them is, one might say, “night and day”.
The way the Help file describes it makes sense, and your method does as well. None of the other solutions presented do–they may work, at least sometimes–but are far from obvious. Just random attempts that have anecdotally been found to work. Sometimes.
Cadsoft, please share: What should the Help text really say?
