iray indoor lighting question, different types of lighting and how much i can use them

mahhen

Ok, there is several ways to lighting iray indoor scenes and lights for it. For example lighting shaders, painters lights, chost lights,,, 

So my question is this, is there lights that doesn't get along with each other the best way and are there lights that work perfectly with eash other. Can i use for example use painters light, ghost light and light shaders in the same scene or is it recomented to use only certain types of lights together.  What lights should i use light the skin in scene (so character will fit in naturally with rest of the scene)  or dark areas that need something exstra.

And also the amount how much i can use ghost lights in the scene would be nice to know (for example, never use over 10% over all lighting in the scene) I personally have noticed that light shaders give the most natural finish, but they are also the most slowes to render. Ghost lights give that nice finishing with other lights and reduce render time but skin doesn't like ghost lights. Can i use painters lights? render studio lights? adwanced spotlights? 

Example picture of indoor scene with any character and what lighting what was used and if ghost lights were involved how much they were involved would be nice. Any nice natural finish example will do, if i dont have lights that was used in it i will buy them.

BeeMKay

Light shader speed depends on the number of polygons you have them applied to. The more polygons, the slower the render. This is also true for the sheer number of light sources - the more you have in an image, the longer the render times.

you can use any number of lights, though certain lights were created with a purpse (like painter lights will work better for portraits).

mahhen

BeeMKay ok that is good to know, i didn't know that more light sources can increase render time (noob = more lights means faster iray, and dark iray is slow :D ). So it's more important that lights you have on the scene are set cerrectly, than increacing light souces to fix problems.

Ok, If the room is well lighted (light shaders)  and natural looking and i have used ghost lights as little as possiple or none at all, but character could use some little extra lighting (lets say face clearly visible in well light room). What would be the best approach increasing it?

fastbike1

@mahhen "but character could use some little extra lighting"

Lot's of choices. One way is a point light near the face (or wherever), with appropriate setting. The actual light won't be visble in the render. Here's an example:

This scene has a spotlight above the figure, pointing down. There are 3 point lights, one ito the left of Katie's chest, one midpoint behind to backlight her hair a bit, and one directly to the right of her shins. The 3 point lights are all within the camera view.

 

DustRider

I seldom use any purchased lights other than HDRI's (I have Ultra Genesis Studio Lights, but seldom use them, not that they aren't great, but I'm just used to setting up my own). I learned to create/use my own lighting in Carrara first, then using mesh lights with Reality/Lux and Octane Render. I simply find it much easier to create my own lighting, and typically use a combination of single plane mesh lights and/or spot/point lights (also with HDRI's). I will also use the "lights" in the scenes (if included aa mesh lights, or I convert to mesh lights). For "ghost" lights, I simply turn the opacity of the mesh lights down if needed.

This scene was lit with plane (from primitives) 2 mesh lights, the light that came with the scene/prop, 3 spot lights, and and Iray Worlds sky dome/lights (really just used for the exterior environment). To create the illusion of the wall light on the left being brighter on the figure (hair), I used a spot light of the same color as the wall light (about 4500K ?).

The lighting for this scene was a bit more complicated. I turned all of the cieling lights into mesh lights, added a couple of spots for rim lights, and used and HDRI for outside light coming in through the window. To improve the lighting from the HDRI sun on the figure, I used a plane primitive mesh light just inside the window at approximately the same location as the sunlight.

For this image, IIRC, I used the lights in the scene as mesh lights (don't remember if they were already setup or not, but if they were, I'm sure I adjusted brightness), a primitive plane mesh light, a spot (maybe two) for highlights, and an HDRI (the default one that comes with DS IIRC). I used a sectional plane to get the light from the HDRI into the enclosed interior.

As a final example, this scene isn't an interior, but it is light more like an interior to keep the background dark. I used 3 primitive plane mesh lights, 3 spot lights, and the default DS HDRI (set to 0.1 intensity for ambient light, since the scene wasn't an enclosed interior).

DustRider

fastbike1 said:

@mahhen "but character could use some little extra lighting"

Lot's of choices. One way is a point light near the face (or wherever), with appropriate setting. The actual light won't be visble in the render. Here's an example:

This scene has a spotlight above the figure, pointing down. There are 3 point lights, one ito the left of Katie's chest, one midpoint behind to backlight her hair a bit, and one directly to the right of her shins. The 3 point lights are all within the camera view.

 

Awesome lighting!!!

mahhen

Wery cool, didn't know point light work in iray also, probably because i have been using  AoA Advanced lights in 3delight and they dont work in iray.

Now i have new tool for my iray renders thanks fastbike1 :)

mahhen

Thank you DustRider very beautiful pictures and very helpful information, especially the firs one.