Animation - Camera path indoor to outdoor Lighting with Arnold in 3DS Max - Physical Sky Environment

Machiavelli

Hi everyone, can someone shoot me some ideas as to how to overcome a lighting problem I have when dollying a physical based camera in 3ds max using Arnold with a physical sky in the environment shader.

Task: Camera path is to then go from inside a construction site cabin to outside of the cabin to focus on happenings on site.

Lighting within inside the cabin doesn't work with a physical sky in the environment slot turned. I could split the animation from when the camera passes the door frame however this would cause issues on frame blending in post.. 

This isn't real-time rendering so I don't know if this is the best place to ask however there's lots of experts on these forums with a wealth of experience who may have an idea..

I have dropped the Elevation to 25 and the Azimuth to 150. I have created an Arnold spotlight looking in through the windows...

The cheat would be to remove the ceiling of the cabin which isn't in shot but Id like to learn to see if this is possible without cheating.

Thanks

Matthew

Eric Chadwick

Animate the camera exposure as the camera leaves the cabin.

Low light usually takes a lot longer to render, since there ends up being a lot of bounces needed with fewer rays, and thus a lot of noise. So you may also need to animate the lighting amounts, to boost them really strong while inside, then animate them down to reasonable levels as you go outside.

There may also be specific tricks & optimizations in Arnold for handling interiors lit only by external lights, like "portals" in the windows, etc. Not sure, not an Arnold user.

Machiavelli

Hi Eric, thankyou for the advice its much appreciated. I have a real problem with noise so I'm going to just have to cut the animation between shots from an interior to outdoor environment light setup.

Thanks again.

Matthew