Rendering an interior room without any windows Arnold in Maya 2017
polycounter lvl 4
Hello guys!
I'm new here!
Im studying 3D animation in Belgium. And I need to model an interior room. I got it, but now I have to do the lights.
There is no windows or any external lights on the scene, what do you guys recommand me to use with Arnold?
I need like a medieval castle ambiance (see the screen right there without the textures, on how is my room doing!), but I have no idea on what to use as lights and how to place them...
Thanks a lot for the help, and sorry if the question was already asked...
I'm new here!
Im studying 3D animation in Belgium. And I need to model an interior room. I got it, but now I have to do the lights.
There is no windows or any external lights on the scene, what do you guys recommand me to use with Arnold?
I need like a medieval castle ambiance (see the screen right there without the textures, on how is my room doing!), but I have no idea on what to use as lights and how to place them...
Thanks a lot for the help, and sorry if the question was already asked...
Replies
The renderer is pure brute-forcing the rays and it could take an eternity to clean up the noise. Material values will also play a role. So if the walls are bright it will help illuminate the scene due to light bounce/colour bleed. But in your case it's a dark, grey castle so that won't be the case.
Have you done any tests yet? Usually with a biased renderer you can cheat(which can break physicality) but this is not the purpose of unbiased rendering.
I would advise setting up the lights - spherical area lights - and doing some tests. Then show us your results and we may be able to give more help.
So, I tested 2 different ways. One with only the torch lights, like yellow/orange, and one with these lights + some bright area lights to add some other colors!
There you go the 2 pics:
These are fake flames to have an idea, dont mind about the chest/rock texture, i have to change them!
Anyway, don't be afraid to kick up the ambient or use extra area lights, even if they don't physically make sense. It's not uncommon to throw a little blue or cyan in either of those to get a bit of a mystical look in the scene.
Where should i put these area lights in the scene?
Experiment. Have fun. The technical work is done. Just play around with colours/intensity/composition and find something pleasing to your artistic vision.
I have oe question left: My teacher doesnt stop saying that this looks too much like a videogame
How can I change that? I dont have any idea left...
I know the story is like a videogame. My teacher wants it more "realistic". Here's what i changed.
I'm happy with the floor, but it has a lot of polys, and idk how to have the same result with a map or something. So for now ill leave ot like that. I believe this is more realistic looking like that. What do you think? What can i change to get out of this videogame style?
For added realism variation and apparent randomness are key. You need to add some 'chaos'. Right now everything is too uniform. Variation in everything from textures to layout to set dressing to geometry. Always aim for variety. This is offline rendering so you can really push the detailing envelope. Adding things like clutter and debris or spider webs or blocker meshes to cast off-camera shadows. All this helps to break up the sterile nature of the scene.
The pillars are all exactly the same and perfectly aligned and the same height. Same with the torches. The chest is the focal point of the story and you should really put the effort into the asset as it will feature as the 'antagonist', if you will. And will surely be in close-up camera shots.
The rock that the chest is on is cartoony looking and definitely draws the scene away from realism. In realistic rendering the texturing/shading plays a massive role and can make or break the believability.
Personally I think you should go with stylised/comic as it would make a more entertaining story, with opportunity for gags/pratfalls/etc. Although I haven't seen the protagonist character so hard to call. His own personality will obviously drive the style.
Planning a look-dev stage for your assets can greatly assist in locking off solid assets one at a time, rather than rendering the entire scene over and over whilst tweaking everything at once.
As for the raw beauty render output. Don't spend a crazy amount of time trying to perfect everything in the final render. This is what post is for. You can colour correct, composite passes, add elements like flame/smoke and environment/lens dust. You can add volumetric lighting, camera shake, motion blur, depth of field.....etc Most of these are easier to add in post and very flexible to edit, as opposed to spending weeks on test-rendering full 3D effects. Quality stock, matted elements like fire/dust/smoke are easy to come by.
All this will add to the ambiance/realism/atmosphere. And then there's the soundtrack which can really polish everything off.
What is the render time subdivision you're talking about? Im new to maya and the 3D so I still have a lot of words to learn! I want more a cartoony scene but well my teacher doesn't like it!
Ill add some details and randomness so! Shouldn't be that hard to do!
For the fire yes i planned to do it in Maya, didn't know in could do it later, going to check how i van do it.
Thabks a lot for all these advices, taking it really seriously!
EDIT: I changed the place for the chest, and there will be torches around the chest to make him visible instantly and so we'll understand what's the goal of the film. And there will be an other torch at the right of the character, that he will take to go to the chest. Here's the new place, it look a bit dark but I dont have other pics right now!