How to render dark scenes?

Dave McH

I just can't find some good working way to do so.

What should I do if I need to render some dark scene with very little sourse of light.

Iray makes a lot of noise, and 15000 iterations not enough, rendering with high ISO and then reduce it in photoshop also not an option.

What the right way to do so?

L'Adair

I love a good dark scene, so I've got some experience with this.

Iray doesn't really like the dark, as you've seen. One of the best ways to get around this is to give the scene more light than you want in the final render, and then in Tone Mapping, change the Exposure Value so the image renders darker.

Here's an image I did not too long ago, (best viewed full-screen, because it's so dark.) I used a lot of Ghost lights to throw light at the creatures in the background so they wouldn't be totally obscured. And once I had the balance of light I liked between the background and the primary figure in the viewport, draw mode Nivida Iray, I went into Tone Mapping, (in the Render Settings,) unlocked the Exposure Value parameter, and tweaked until I was happy with the image in my viewport.

I opened the PS file to see what postwork I did. It's very minimal. Basically, I added some dust to the light streaming down on the main character. I think most people wouldn't notice the difference in the the original render and the finished image unless they could see them side by side, it's that subtle.

Anyway, give that a try and see if the image doesn't render faster and cleaner.

Dave McH

L'Adair said:

I love a good dark scene, so I've got some experience with this.

Iray doesn't really like the dark, as you've seen. One of the best ways to get around this is to give the scene more light than you want in the final render, and then in Tone Mapping, change the Exposure Value so the image renders darker.

Here's an image I did not too long ago, (best viewed full-screen, because it's so dark.) I used a lot of Ghost lights to throw light at the creatures in the background so they wouldn't be totally obscured. And once I had the balance of light I liked between the background and the primary figure in the viewport, draw mode Nivida Iray, I went into Tone Mapping, (in the Render Settings,) unlocked the Exposure Value parameter, and tweaked until I was happy with the image in my viewport.

I opened the PS file to see what postwork I did. It's very minimal. Basically, I added some dust to the light streaming down on the main character. I think most people wouldn't notice the difference in the the original render and the finished image unless they could see them side by side, it's that subtle.

Anyway, give that a try and see if the image doesn't render faster and cleaner.

Thanks for advice, your picture looks just what I try to render. So now I see it's possible

LosingSignal

This tutorial by Sickleyield covers three different techniques for night renders.  Another thing to try is just lighting the crap out of the scene, then dial up the Exposure Value or F/Stop settings under Tone Mapping on the Render Settings Tab. (I take too long typing... )  Several other settings on that Tone Mapping tab might be helpful, too.  Try dialing down the blue under White Point to 0.75 to give the light a little more bluish/cool tint or dial up Crush Blacks to make the shadows a little deeper.

L'Adair

LosingSignal said:

This tutorial by Sickleyield covers three different techniques for night renders.  Another thing to try is just lighting the crap out of the scene, then dial up the Exposure Value or F/Stop settings under Tone Mapping on the Render Settings Tab. (I take too long typing... )  Several other settings on that Tone Mapping tab might be helpful, too.  Try dialing down the blue under White Point to 0.75 to give the light a little more bluish/cool tint or dial up Crush Blacks to make the shadows a little deeper.

That's usually my problem, too! Glad to know I'm in good company.

chezhouse

Great information about the use of Tone Mapping properties to darken a more heavily lit scene.  That really helps a lot without going nuts on how many iterations per frame.

Thanks much!