There's been much asked/written about lighting, but I don't think this exact question has been asked:
Let's say there's a floor lamp; the light coming from it seems to be way too bright on a wall that's close to the lamp.
Is there some way to dim this down to a more realistic brightness?
In the attached image, I dimmed the bulb down to 15w (and lowered the power/scale to 4 out of 100). Why does it wash out the wall next to it. Overall, the lighting seems correct (fyi there is also an unseen recess light in the center of the room). So how can I dim the light at that close wall?
I also moved the lightbulb into the center of the shade (it was up above it by default) and made the shade totally opaque, but the light seems to go right through the shade.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Hi George,
There are a number of little issues with lighting that they are still working through and slowly getting there. In the meantime there are ways of doing things so that they work.
As you have found, sometimes the wattage of lights does not always have the effect you expect and it seems that the wattage of other lights used can affect others in the scene. You may find for example that if you set your room light and lamp light to the same wattage that it would improve the situation, but it may not.
The program works like a camera as far as overall brightness is concerned, so all lamps will affect how it adjusts the total brightness. In a real life situation a lamp placed close to a wall will cause extreme brightness on the wall but our brain accepts and allows that and takes no notice. In a photo (which this virtually is) it does not look right. Unfortunately turning down the wattage does not always fix it, but one thing that will (there are likely others too that will probably be dealt with in Jack's upcoming rendering video), is to move the light (NOT the lamp stand) away from the wall, by adjusting the X coordinate, in the same way that you lowered it previously. You may want to lower it a little further too to lessen the brightness on the ceiling That is step 2 in the attached image. I have used this before somewhere for Adding Light Bulbs I think (or it may have been on the Envisioneer forum) and you are obviously familiar with these settings but included it here in case someone else has the same issue.
The light from the actual lampshade is not from the light bulb but comes from the Emmissive setting of the lampshade Appearance properties. You can change the brightness of the lampshade up or down by changing the Emmissive setting (might only need 1 or 2% - default is 30%). With Emmissive turned on, the lamp (or any object's texture) will appear to be lit, even if there is no lightbulb at all. Turn it right off and it will appear solid but this will not affect the light coming from the lamp bulb. The second image shows where to change the Emmissive setting for those who may not know.
I hope that throws so more lights on the subject!! (Sorry about that - you wanted LESS light didn't you? ;D )
Allan
Hi George,
I use Envisioneer the full version. As soon as an update for that comes out, I'll be creating an extensive Rendering training series. But until that time, I'll give you two tips that will be part of the training.
First, don't just have the one lamp in the room. Add a recessed light, even if it is off camera. This will help the program balance the lighting.
Second, if it is still two bright, go into the lights property settings. Leave the wattage as is if you want, but darken the color. The darker the color setting the lower the light brightness.
Two cool free tips , from the upcoming Rendering Training Vids :P
Jack
ps . don't tell anyone else until after my training vids are out :)
Hi Jack,
I never thought of changing the colour to reduce the light - thought of it as far as changing the colour of the light itself but should have registered that it was changing the brightness too. Easier than moving the bulb for just general all round brightness.
I promise not to tell anyone. ;)
Allan
Thanks Allan & Jack!
QuoteFirst, don't just have the one lamp in the room. Add a recessed light, even if it is off camera. This will help the program balance the lighting.
As I stated, I did. It didnt really help; Upon further review, I think I have to bump up the wattage of the off-camera balancing lights. Also, it changes all the shadows & the look of a room, which I don't terribly like.
I love the idea of changing the color of the light- but that's going to take a whole lot of trial & error.
As for this specific question (wash-out at the wall next to the light), it didnt seem to dim the wash-out at all when I lowered the bulb so that it was 'inside' the shade. Logically, shouldn't putting the bulb inside the shade dim the light tremendously- maybe even block it? I made the shade 0 transparency and 0 emmissive- how can any light get through it at all?
Here's a second, related question set: Is there any difference between all these hundreds of bulbs (e.g. a 60w Incandescent Post Cone and a 60w Incandescent DecoPost bulb)? Do lights have three and only 3 properties: wattage (fixed), scale, color? Or is there more to it than that?
thanks again
George
Hi George,
Sorry about the delay in replying - been busy (CO with us this week) and wanted to do some tests to illustrate the effects.
Quote from: George Smith on June 15, 2010, 12:07:31 PM
As for this specific question (wash-out at the wall next to the light), it didnt seem to dim the wash-out at all when I lowered the bulb so that it was 'inside' the shade. Logically, shouldn't putting the bulb inside the shade dim the light tremendously- maybe even block it? I made the shade 0 transparency and 0 emmissive- how can any light get through it at all?
The various material groups seem to have some preset characteristics - lamps shades do not block the light as you have found. In the tests below you will see the standard light, then with a dark grey bulb (RGB 64,64,64) and as you see there is little difference. Adding a second light in the room causes the dark grey light to dim (hence the significance of having a second light in the room).
The last two examples are with a lamp shade made of a circular piece of wall which does block the light, the second one benefiting from a second light in the room.
Quote from: George Smith on June 15, 2010, 12:07:31 PM
Here's a second, related question set: Is there any difference between all these hundreds of bulbs (e.g. a 60w Incandescent Post Cone and a 60w Incandescent DecoPost bulb)? Do lights have three and only 3 properties: wattage (fixed), scale, color? Or is there more to it than that?
Yes there is more to it than that, as the second image illustrates. The different types of globes do have different effects. I have only compared 4 types here but the effects are obvious, especially the ground flood ('Up' light).
You can also add additional bulbs - eg on a twin flood light for example, you may want to add a second bulb and move them both away from the fitting so that the lights appear to be pointing in two different directions. (3rd image)
Don't know if that helps at all.
Allan
When doing room lighting, first ask yourself "what is the end result goal?"
Usually its one of two things
- simulate the actual lighting in the room to see how the lighting plan works (both natural/outside/sunlight and artificial light alone and together and at different times of the day/night.
- effectively light the scene so it looks really good and not necessarily how the actual room lights work.
In the first case you will likely do a lot of trial and error. Perhaps the best way to learn how TFP works (it is supposed to be technically correct but play with bulb wattage once and you will learn it is not as expected)... make a room exactly as one in your house and play with any setting you can until you learn how TFP represents lighting a scene so it looks the same as your real room. This may be a large learning curve but you can then apply what you know to any new design scene and can believe it may be close to reality if the room is built. TFP is NOT particularly easy nor readily capable of making a realistic scene as it is limited by its rendering capabilities. If lighting is critical, I suggest you use another 3D program that has more controls, is easier, and does more accurate renders. I sometimes export the TFP as a 3D object set and do other renders in another program....especially if I need better camera controls for animation or special lighting methods such as caustics or global illumination or to save ambient occlusion or a photoshop layer format with a transparency channel.
For the second case, my usual solution to get a great looking rendered scene lighting is to play quite a bit with adding more lights wherever needed to solve the lighting situation....including many lights that are invisible and provide specific lighting...like spotlights or or flood lights or bare bulbs....think like a photographer. Don't use so many distributed lights so as to make a "flat" (really low contrast) image. We see things by seeing contrast in color and luminance (brightness), Make the scene "pop" by emphasizing something as the focal point (not centered) as if you are making a great photo or a piece of art.
And be aware (see render test runs by Allan) of certain limitations/bugs of lighting with the sun thru windows/doors/openings and with/without a roof or completed room walls.
Allan and Doug,
Thanks for the really helpful responses. It is much appreciated.
I've come to a few conclusions:
1. TurboFloorPlan is an incredible program, and well worth the price of admission. I enjoy using it and would recommend it to anyone and everyone.
2. It is good at producing quick, good-looking, generic, not terribly realistic renders.
3. It is not good at all at producing realistic renders in a reasonable amount of time. It takes less than 10 minutes to draw a very simple house with finishes and lighting and sunlight at a certain time of day, but could take hundreds of hours to create realistic views of each room in the house at a bunch of different times of day. Trial and error, over and over, changing lights, lightbulbs, finishes, sheens, power of bulbs, color of bulbs, locations of lights, fake (extra) lights, moving walls to allow views, and on and on.
If you have one room, and one view of that room, and you already know in your mind's eye how it should look, then yes, you can, by trial-and-error, work out an accurate render using a bunch of tricks and workarounds.
It's with sadness that I say, for myself, I think I'm going to wait 5 years until the software advances to where it works all these things out itself, and I can just insert lights and sunlight, and get an accurate render.
Hi George,
As Doug said, you need to know what you are aiming for and work accordingly. My aim is realism and you would realise, from our off forum discussions, that I do not have hundreds of hours to spare! Generally I use only 4 lights, predefined in my catalogue as follows - a stip fluro (with the bulb 1500mm below the fitting), downlight (1000mm below), wall light and ceiling fixture both with the bulb just below the fitting) and essentially the same bulb in each. (see image example). The fittings are irrelevent really, the bulb, and position of it, are what matter. After a little experimenting you know how they work and it is a relatively simple prosess to get a decent interior render - as long as you turn off the sun! Getting the balance between the sun and artificial light, is the thing that takes some experimenting and more time than it should - eg http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,1159.0.html (http://forums.turbofloorplan.com/index.php/topic,1159.0.html).
I agree with you that the whole process should be simpler than it is and versions before V12 were easier. V12 came from a new developer and a totally new rendering engine. They are working on it, it is improving and hopefully you will not have to wait 5 years before it does what you want. I have certainly passed on my findings, as has Jack and a number of others and I know some updates in the rendering area are pending in an Envisioneer patch shortly and these usually flows on to TFP soon after. What advancement it will make we will have to wait and see.
Jack is also putting together some videos on rendering techniques, that will be released soon after the Envisioneer update, so that should bring us all up to speed quickly.
EDIT: Update to Envisioneer released (TFP shortly hopefully).
On the rendering issue it states: (http://www.cadsoft.com/v6.php#61 (http://www.cadsoft.com/v6.php#61))
Force wall to exterior setting
Walls sides can now be tagged as being exterior which presents effective solutions to the following situations:
Use of interior lights and sunlight at the same time
Rendering of structures that do not have a closed perimeter
Multiple gable end walls within other gable ends
Single walls that need a veneer
"Force wall to exterior setting" was introduced in TURBOfloorplan V15 but still did not work quite right, although solving some of the issues listed in the Envisioneer update. I presume, now that it has been introduced in Envisioneer, that the remaining isses are solved and will flow on to TFP shortly.
I am particulalry intregued by the comment: Use of interior lights and sunlight at the same time. This was not listed for TFP V15, so obviously is new. I cannot quite see how forcing wall setting to be exterior (hence outside the model) can change the inside rendering with interior lighting and sun. This has always been the bigest problem with Advanced rendering, trying to keep the interior lights on if the sun is in the room, so I am hoping this is finally fixed, or at least improved.
I guess, when V15.1 is released, we will find out.
Allan
The truth is that for any 3D program, rendering a high quality image uses significant CPU cycles and takes more time than most people like to wait for.
The "solution" is to use a render "farm" (if the rendering program supports it; high end and even moderate programs do, but TFP does not).
Hollywood movie studios all use render farms; literally rooms full of banks of computers that simply run 24/7/365 just rendering images and nothing else. There may be as many as 8 to 64 or more high end machines all networked together (very fast CPUs and plenty of RAM, no displays or keyboards, maybe with a hard drive) to render one image at a time...of course they are almost always rendering animations so they render lots of images (for example 90 minutes at 24 frames per sec. 90x60x24= _______ at high pixel resolution and with rendering solutions of lighting and materials and atmospheres that consume lots of CPU cycles). All adds up to lots of $$$ to keep total render times to a reasonable level.....still may be 5 to 100 hours per frame.
TFP renders at a reasonable speed and is typical of most render engines and time. The only solution for "less render time" is to settle for less quality or get a faster PC....or get a more expensive program and more/multiple hardware.
An alternative is to buy a reasonably cheap PC (low cost display, no sound card, moderate HD, but a fast CPU and plenty of RAM) and use it only for rendering and let it run 24/7 while you do your other work on your regular PC.
TFP is an excellent program for the cost of purchase....and the learning curve is quite good...and productivity is very good too.