Lighting & Rendering tips please :)
Hi there, i'm currently working on a project for Uni, and currently wondering the best ways to approach making my lighting and rendering look top notch. My project is an asylum
i've found that rendering in the AO Render layer makes everything look nice and defined, but how do I add this to my final renders?
also need to undertake some beginners work on making a camera flythrough and a decent method for attaching nCloth's to objects (like a curtain etc)
this is my scene on quite low mental ray settings, not sure why the blotchiness is there. Any hints/tips would be amazing, thanks
i've found that rendering in the AO Render layer makes everything look nice and defined, but how do I add this to my final renders?
also need to undertake some beginners work on making a camera flythrough and a decent method for attaching nCloth's to objects (like a curtain etc)
this is my scene on quite low mental ray settings, not sure why the blotchiness is there. Any hints/tips would be amazing, thanks
Replies
1) save out the AO pass as a separate image.
2) In Photoshop, overlay that over the regular render on a new layer, and set it to "Multiply"
Thanks
You can then composite all of them in editing programs like Nuke (free for non commercial use btw). The real power behind it is , for example your lighting is too strong, you can just tweak it in the editing program instead of rendering the whole sequence again - saving tons of time and giving a lot of flexibility (you can tweak the color of the light and many more things).
If your uni has a digital tutors membership - they have a ton of intro level videos covering the basics of mental ray lighting. If not, check YouTube - lots of other artists record tutorials covering these topics (I found a lot searching for 'lighting interiors in mental ray').
I always approach mental ray lighting very slowly. Start with a primary light... add some secondary lights... start slowly upping the quality as you get closer to the overall result you want. The process is going to be different for every scene - try and gather some real world reference to work from if you can. Don't overlook your arsenal of lights - point/spot/area/etc. all have different uses.
To get an AO map to composite with your beauty renders, you'll want to take advantage of the render passes feature in Maya. This way you can 'split' every frame of your render into distinct images such as diffuse color, specular color, etc. I skipped around this video but it seems like a pretty good explanation of the process.
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The splotchy-ness you're seeing is probably from low photon count from your Global Illumination settings. Check out this write-up to understand what GI is and what the settings do.
http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-global-illumination/
Will also ask about the digital tutors thing too
My idea is to have 5-6 fly throughs, around 5 seconds each, though ive never animated a camera before
A lot of my geometry, when i render, comes out with light fragments, these walls/floors are all built to the grid and are all snapped together, but still it persists. Any help would be amazing
If you're rendering in mental ray, I've found that I've always had to give my walls some actual thickness, and make sure they overlap each other, not just snap together, if that makes any sense. Otherwise I always get some stray photons finding their way in.
Also, are you using portal lights at all? If you arent they would make a big difference for your doors.
Keep at it! Rendering can be very daunting, just work at it little by little!
Never done portal lights but will have a look online for something thanks
Yeah, seems i might have to make all of my walls thick instead of just flat planes
It appears that I left my account open accidentally on one of my school's computers and some toss bag decided to write messages on my behalf. Could you please delete the junk-spam messages created be "me" and then, this message as well?
Thank you very much!
Sorry again, for the inconvenience.