Is there an alternative for ghostlights for interiors?
Illidanstorm
Posts: 655
in The Commons
I like Ghostlights but when I try to use it figures look too plain, like there are no highlights no nothing like I'm used to when I use hdris.
I often use hdri's in interiors but when the wall is white or bright it becomes unseeable as the hdri casts too much light on the walls.
Is there a better product or way to light interiors?
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There is this, https://www.daz3d.com/architectural-lighting-rig-for-iray . To be honest, ive never been able to figure out how it works. I should really see if it has any documentation.
If I use HRDI indoors you can add a gray color to the diffuse of the wall to prevent it from being over-exposed.
I have a question about using hdri indoors. I dont mean to jack the conversation but since hdri and interiors have been brought up I thought id ask. If you have a full interior (4 walls, floor, ceiling) whats the best way to "fit" an hdri into that space? Ive only been able to do it successfully once.
I just tend to remove the ceiling and unseen walls . But you can also raise or lower it.
One of the other things you can do is apply a lighted shader to the ceiling or wall out of sight. You can get dramatic lights that way as well.
Do you mess with the scale of the hdri at all?
I use this camera https://heroineadventures.deviantart.com/art/Iray-interior-camera-for-DAZ3D-728244344
Just need to remove the ceiling and 90% of the time any HDRI works, unless they are too close to a wall. No need to mess with the scale or anything.
You can also add some regular lights, giving them area if desired, to supplement the Ghostlights (varying light intensity and providing something to reflect for highlights).
Thanks for the link! Will certainly check this out.
You can also use multiple ghost lights (or other emissive lights). Flat lightning generally means all the light is coming from one direction, and if you have put your ghost light either at the window of the interior (if one) or a single horizontal light close to the ceiling, then basically all the light will be coming from one direction, and highlights etc will not be seen. Just ensure that varing light is coming from different directions, which afterall is what a HDRI light is doing.
No. Sun and sky also works fast as well, if you aren’t going to see the ceiling and don’t care about the hdri reflections sun sky will do the job quicker.
Ghost lights are also flat as they don't add any specular effects - they are (nearly) invisible so they don't show as reflections in shiny surfaces. Ghost lights are not intended to be a complete lighting solutuion, they are intended to supplement the artistic or realistic lights that make the scene interesting so that there are fewer corners relying on indirect lighting to bounce into them, which will make the render slow to converge.
I am a huge fan of the iray plane to which is easy to use, takes a large load off the rendering time and allows you to light the scene as you normally would.... The ability to use them is built into Daz Studio; I have enough computing power to use the IRAY preview but I just render at a distance to make sure I cut out enough of the scene to let light in and put my cameras where I want them.
Heres a test I ran with the camera Illdanstorm mentioned, https://heroineadventures.deviantart.com/art/Iray-interior-camera-for-DAZ3D-728244344
This is inside a fully closed environment (4 walls, floor, ceiling) from https://www.daz3d.com/collective3d-create-a-room-base-set and an hdri set to infinate sphrere from https://www.daz3d.com/iradiance-studio-hdris-for-iray . Camera headlamp off. It turned out a little grainy but as you can see, the room is fully lit.
If that is a fully enclosed space then the HDRI in the Dome isn't casting any inside light as it is outside the box.
So im not getting light from the dome? I thought the camera allowed outside light into interiors. At least thats what I understood from the description. Curious. Maybe im using it wrong...
The camera has Iray section planes associated with it. @AnotherUserName stated that an HDRI was used. If the section planes were not working, then the scene would be black.
That's awesome. Now why hasn't the store come up with something so useful? I'm goign to give it a spin.
So when I load the camera, it throws an error. Its looking for a camera preset the author made I suppose. After the panels load, I parent them to my own camera and then zero any perameters. Id like to see your results.
This is how it looks for me. I stopped it after 50 lterations. I think I also got no error message when I first tried it, it's just a normal camera with section planes.
I created a grey cube, put these circles in there and set the render to dome only with the standard hdri.
Nice! I agree with Serene Night. Why has this never been put up in the store?
Heres another example. Fully enclosed environment and only hdri lighting. You can even see the hdri lights reflection in the vase.
Well this is really clever.
I just click the eye on the ceiling to hide it in the scene tab and use Sun & Sky - sometimes early or late in the day hardly ever between 11:00 - 13:00 and because the walls are still there gives pretty good ambient light too.
I should have read the synopsis for the camera before I posted
When I do an interior I tend to just use Emissive lights on any in the scene and for ambient I put the ceiling texture in the Emissive channel and set level to suit.
Like this one. There were only two walls and a floor so I copied and moved the walls to form a box. I can't remember if there was a ceiling or if I used a plane set to Emissive and there is a reading light set to Emissive over the desk.
2017-08-22 08:52:43.012 Total Rendering Time: 13 hours 27 minutes 38.47 seconds
This image has been resized to fit in the page. Click to enlarge.
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This looks like one before I enclosed it so the Ambient light will be from the HDRI (I think
)
2017-08-20 23:32:13.311 Total Rendering Time: 1 hours 52 minutes 56.90 seconds
If you're not doing animation, you could create a three-point lighting rig with ordinary lights or emissive planes and parent them all to the camera. That way as you adjust your camera's viewpoint, the lights will move with it and you don't have to fiddle with quite so many things to create your shot.
Just add an Iray section plane where you need one. They have been availble in Studio since, oddly enough, Iray. I suspect that if someone tried to sell something like this, people would ask why they should pay for capability that already exists. In most cases for interiors, you won't even need the section planes if the ceiling can be removed or hidden.
Here's some demos. All use default HDRI as only light. First and second are with and without an Iray section plane, camera and sphere are inside cube. Third and fourth have cube replaced by open top box, camera, sphere, light unchanged. Fourth has half height walls compared to third.
Well... ghosts lights are also just planes with an emissive surface added and the opacity set close to zero, everyone could do that with a few clicks.
But it sells...
Plus having it on a camera is more easy to use instead of making section planes for every single scene. Just removing the ceiling dosen't cut it and is sometimes impossible if it is a weird ceiling.
Great Googly Moogly! I never knew about Section Planes? That is awesome! Nice 5min tutorial on section planes HERE by SnowSultan. Thanks for the camera link!
Just make sure your mirror in your scene captures a reflection if your planning on using iray section planes.