Lighting Products for Dim Renders - Suggestions?

Gemini Queen

I'm aware that there are a bunch of different lighting products that are available on the store and that's a good thing cause lighting is not my strong suit. However, recently, I decided to work on a side idea of mine that takes place for the most part in dimmly lit rooms (picture below for examples). And the lighting just isn't hitting the way I want it to. It doesn't have that "wow" effect that I'm looking for. Here's my thought on why it doesn't have the "wow" factor:

The bottom half of the image isn't as well lit as the top half. There's a chandelier that's not visible that's creating the light, and this is supposed to be like a victorian day (candles) and age where cellphone lights don't exist. So I end up with this lightbulb style lighting that look instead of a candle flame look. I did have an image that had a more "flame" lighting look to it, and it looked like there was a full on house fire in the room or it looked like you'd need a torch just to see in there. I finally decided that maybe it's time to look into some lighting products that have presets done, but there are so many to choose from that I'm just kerfuffled. And while I'm sure there's some post work that might make this a little better as well, I figured I'd get as much done in program before I start spreading out to GIMP/3D Paint or anything else. Thanks in advanced. 

nemesis10

I think I would try a few things...

a good hdri; I would suggest something like https://www.daz3d.com/platinum-pack-one-16k-hdris-for-iray to start, specifically the Victorian room

next, search the store for ghost lights or other scene emissives 

next, make sure you aren't rendering in a closed box: hide walls, look into Iray planes or the iray stand set https://www.daz3d.com/iray-stand-kit.  Treat the scene like a movie set rather than a scene on location

and finally, borrow from movies and shoot the scene in bright light and color grade the scene so that it is dark and atmospheric and full of detail

ebergerly

Here's my 2 cents on how I'd approach it. 

• First, are you using Iray? If you want realistic looking light and shadows I'd recommend Iray, otherwise images tend to look a bit flat and lacking real shadows IMO.
• Second, remove or make invisible all lights from your scene INCLUDING all environment lights (assuming this is an indoor scene). Go to Render Settings/Environment, and set Environment Intensity and Environment Map both to zero. Start simple, and think about what actual lights would/should be lighting your scene, and model those rather than just throwing some lights in the scene.
• Third, assuming you want the look of a room lit by candles, think about the color of the light. Candles have what's call a low "color temperature", which means they tend to emit light that's more yellow/orange than, say, daylight, which is high color temperature (blue/whitish). For candles you'll want something around 2,000 Kelvin, compared to daylight which is closer to 6,500 Kelvin. The attached image shows a ceiling light where the light bulbs are modelled with a 2,000 K color temperature.
• Fourth, any object/mesh can act as a light, so you might want to, after you've disabled all lights, add a simple sphere (Create/New Primitive), then select the sphere and go to the Surfaces tab, and under Emission set the Emission temperature to about 2,000 K, then set Luminance Units to "kcd/m^2, then adjust the Luminance slider until it looks right.   

That should give you a physically accurate starting point, and you can add more candles/spheres and adjust Luminance as desired. 

Gemini Queen

 nemesis10 - Thank you for suggesting the IRAY Stand Kit! I didn't even know that was a thing. The room that's being used in that picture has walls that can't be removed. So this would be very nice. 

ebergerly - Yeah, I'm using IRAY. I know some people use 3Delight, but I'm not sure how or if I want to use that. But thank you for mentioning the Kelvins and the Lumins. I normally have them set the W cause that's the one I learned first, but I'll try it! 

nemesis10

I thought I would show you this since IRAY section planes are such powerful tools:  https://youtu.be/GCJfIlk-4Yo  The Iray stand kit is a group of specially parented iray planes and cameras but you can do a much simpler setup on your own.  The advantages of using section planes is that you have faster render times, much more detail and all of the control of your favorite graphic editor to control exposure and make the image as dark as you like.  If you really want to try a light a scene with dim lights, the scene will be gainy and take forever to render.