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One horse versus another. Very nice.
Now that you showed where to find shadow buffers, I'll have to experiment with this technique a bit.
Tim_A: I have almost all of my render settings turned up to 11...full raytracing on the shadow (which is what I uploaded here) took over an hour. The shadow buffer version - which was the only setting change I made - took 31 minutes.
You can lose some detail in the shadows though. I'm still spending time staring at both images...but one thing is immediately noticeable; in my uploaded version, you can see individual hair strands in the shadow on the wall. The buffered version is just an amorphous blob roughly in the shape of the model. So it depends on the detail that you are going for.
Shadow Buffering does not honour transparency either...so if that is important in your scene, proceed with caution.
I prefer shadow buffers for animations because the eye doesn't have time to focus on the shadows for very long. If I have a scene with many lights that utilize soft shadows, then that is where I'll try and save some time. The other advantage is if you're using GI with a light for accents or an outdoor scene with sunlight, the hair figure can't be excluded from the GI lighting and will take time to render no matter what. You could save a little time by excluding the hair figure from the sunlight or accent light if it uses soft shadows. Many times, I'll use the duplicate light with the plain old standard hard shadows and forego the shadow buffers if I don't want the amorphous blobby shadow. Each scene is different and what you do to optimize your render will ultimately come down to how it looks.
Light linking has another advantage and it has nothing to do with saving time. It's about artistic license. Rim lights are useful to separate a figure or object from the background. Sometimes, the lighting in your scene fails to provide a rim light, or even a good light for highlights or fill. With light linking you can mitigate the problem if you do it intelligently.
The examples below use light linking to force a highlight on the figures without affecting other scene elements. I designed them to fit with the scenes.
The first example has a rim light linked to the chicken, egg and other foreground elements. The background elements are excluded from the light. The scene is supposed to be at night, but since the focus is tight on the bird and egg, it is logical to assume that there could be a window off to the left letting in moonlight.
The second image uses light linking to provide a rim light for the figure. Without it, she blended into the background. The light is a simple spot light and the color is set to match the sunlight and the lens flare effect. I knew what color to make it by doing a test render and seeing what the flare effect did to the temperature of the sunlight. I then kept that as a reference image and adjusted the brightness and color saturation of the light. Since the image uses no GI it rendered fairly quickly so low res test renders were no problem. The same with the chicken and egg picture.
For the jungle picture, note that the sunlight and the spotlight aren't aimed the same way, yet when the rendered image is viewed it doesn't inherently look wrong. The fact that the sunlight has a bright glare helps to hide that it's not "correct."
some one post some thing - 100 pages
Making a few tweaks to my earlier image.
* added a bit more red to her lips
* tried to whiten the teeth (not sure how successful there)
* greatly improved (I think! ;) ) the shader for her clothes...looks more fabric like and less latex
* changed head position and expression
* tinkered with the back wall shader
Somewhere in there, my fill light got deleted. So I re-created that and probably did not get quite the same settings.
Lastly, I turned up the A/C in her apartment... :coolsmirk:
Next up will be playing with the light linking trick evilproducer was describing.
HowieFarkes - Japan Garden
I don't know if I wanna!
I don't think you can make me! ;-P
Not yet?!? Dammit! :shut:
Reminded me of one from several years ago (in my C7 folder)...
Vorlon in a Garden
ncamp
here's some Lemons Garstor ... "The Adventures of Undercover Lemon and His Sidekick Squirt."
Ha! We're still not there...but the end must be in sight now...
Remember 2008 -
http://youtu.be/tYAVCECi6_o
Pete
Post it again and then title it, re-Pete! :lol:
And then there's this demo reel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw67NrdrDug
I prefer shadow buffers for animations because the eye doesn't have time to focus on the shadows for very long. If I have a scene with many lights that utilize soft shadows, then that is where I'll try and save some time. The other advantage is if you're using GI with a light for accents or an outdoor scene with sunlight, the hair figure can't be excluded from the GI lighting and will take time to render no matter what. You could save a little time by excluding the hair figure from the sunlight or accent light if it uses soft shadows. Many times, I'll use the duplicate light with the plain old standard hard shadows and forego the shadow buffers if I don't want the amorphous blobby shadow. Each scene is different and what you do to optimize your render will ultimately come down to how it looks.
Light linking has another advantage and it has nothing to do with saving time. It's about artistic license. Rim lights are useful to separate a figure or object from the background. Sometimes, the lighting in your scene fails to provide a rim light, or even a good light for highlights or fill. With light linking you can mitigate the problem if you do it intelligently.
The examples below use light linking to force a highlight on the figures without affecting other scene elements. I designed them to fit with the scenes.
The first example has a rim light linked to the chicken, egg and other foreground elements. The background elements are excluded from the light. The scene is supposed to be at night, but since the focus is tight on the bird and egg, it is logical to assume that there could be a window off to the left letting in moonlight.
The second image uses light linking to provide a rim light for the figure. Without it, she blended into the background. The light is a simple spot light and the color is set to match the sunlight and the lens flare effect. I knew what color to make it by doing a test render and seeing what the flare effect did to the temperature of the sunlight. I then kept that as a reference image and adjusted the brightness and color saturation of the light. Since the image uses no GI it rendered fairly quickly so low res test renders were no problem. The same with the chicken and egg picture.
For the jungle picture, note that the sunlight and the spotlight aren't aimed the same way, yet when the rendered image is viewed it doesn't inherently look wrong. The fact that the sunlight has a bright glare helps to hide that it's not "correct."
run and hide they are coming :roll:
Pete say Hi to all
archviz in carrara; AO + direct lights + AG lighting
Very cool!
Anything Glows lighting...? What is the light object?
*waves hello at beaver or groundhog*
My render LOL:
thank you Holly,
yes the anything glows light is being applied to an infinite plane simulating the ground and to the stone floor you see in the image.
Here a quick comparison between thea in direct lighting mode (above) and carrara (no raytraced light through transparency); around 35 minutes renders both
I really love seeing your endeavors in lighting, Remo! Turning ground elements into AG indirect, reflective lighting... ingenious!
ep, that image is really cool. Your techniques in producing lighting particular for the task (scene) at hand sounds near identical to how I design my scenes.
I do use a general default global setup as a starting point for all of my outdoors scenes so that I have a consistent default beginning to scene creation. That setup is mostly used for the scenery elements, and an additional lighting scheme is then added to the focal point of my image for additional pop.
I try to think of it cinematically. Sure, natural lighting is great, but sometimes it needs a little push. That's why photographers use reflectors and other tools.
I try to think of it cinematically. Sure, natural lighting is great, but sometimes it needs a little push. That's why photographers use reflectors and other tools.
yes it;s our job to improve on reality, not mimic it.... ;)
In truth, some of my background stuff is glowing so it doesn't need lighting ;) But only a little.