Lighting outdoors

bevdog896_d08d9c913a

Bit of a broad question. So I've got pretty good at lighting scenes in a studio type environment (paper roll background etc) using mesh lighting. Now I'm just wondering where to start when it comes to lighting exterior scenes or interior scenes that involve windows (realistically). I use iray, there's just so many factors to take into account when lighting outdoors, especially in comparison to studio scenes. 

BeeMKay

The Sun&Sky setting in the Iray render settings would be a start.

There are plenty of other options, of course, but the Sun&Sky is pretty nice.

Oso3D

One trick I like is to make a big skysphere (1000 m), center on camera, make it Refraction Index 1/Weight 1, and give it a refraction color of some cloud map. Then, with Sun/Sky, you are essentially overlaying a cloud map. (For extra fun, if you put the same map into Refraction weight, you can tease out more variation, though it takes some tweaking)

 

pds

timmins.william said:

One trick I like is to make a big skysphere (1000 m), center on camera, make it Refraction Index 1/Weight 1, and give it a refraction color of some cloud map. Then, with Sun/Sky, you are essentially overlaying a cloud map. (For extra fun, if you put the same map into Refraction weight, you can tease out more variation, though it takes some tweaking)

 

This sounds interesting...would you have any renders you could share as examples?