[superbad]

I am kind of struggling with lighting here. I do tons of furniture renders essentially like this, and I'm trying to get away from the flat dull lighting I normally use. I'm still not really happy with this one though. Can't really say why- maybe I've just been looking at it too long. Any ideas? My current setup is 4-5 emitter planes of various sizes scattered up around the model, roughly where lights would be in real life. I'm using that gradient MXI texture posted by glypticmax in the main forum. Also, I know the wood texture isn't great (it's got a dark blotch where I made it seamless), and the pillows are kind of crap. That stuff I can fix.



This got to SL14.8 in 4.5 hours, but it was usable hours before that. I was doing something else so I let it run for a while. Dual Xeon Mac Pro. Adjusted the levels and sharpness a bit after the render. (That brought out the noise in the mirror, and I was too lazy to mask it out first.)

And here is the lighting setup I normally use (textures are different on this one, so it's not a direct comparison). This uses a smaller number of bigger emitter planes, emitting pure white light.

[michaelplogue]

Great wood textures there!

Personally, I would rather see these in an actual bedroom setup - as they would be in real life. Take a look at some catalogs from Pottery Barn, or Crate and Barrel. You wouldn't necessarily need to fully furnish the room like they do, but I think the atmosphere they use is really nice. windows with curtains, moulding, a couple of pictures, and a rug or two would really make the furniture look nice!

[SunlightRocker]

Yes, I was about to say that too. I actually think wallpaper and a real floor will give it a real goo.

[superbad]

Thanks for the comments. I do full room setups for money shots, but those 1) take a lot longer to setup and 2) take a lot longer to run. Actually, a side project I'm working on is to do room renders photorealistic enough that we don't have to send the physical furniture out for photography. We spend thousands of dollars a year sending furniture to a photo studio where they stick it in a room like you see in a C&B or PB catalog.

Anyway, the problem here is that my default render needs to be able to be setup and fully rendered in under an hour. I literally turn out a couple of these a day sometimes. These are usually for internal use only, so not having a bunch of props may actually be good- the focus should be on the furniture.

[Frances]

Are your emitter panels very large? If you use some small emitters, you might get some more defined highlights and shadows. I think using a box rather than the curved backdrop would be enough to hint at a room.

[superbad]

I'll try replacing that backdrop with something more square. Most of the emitters are maybe 12-20" square or so. There's one that's about 3 or 4 feet. I'll try going smaller, although I'm worried that I'll have to spend ages focusing them- not an easy task in Studio.

[Frances]

I'll try replacing that backdrop with something more square. Most of the emitters are maybe 12-20" square or so. There's one that's about 3 or 4 feet. I'll try going smaller, although I'm worried that I'll have to spend ages focusing them- not an easy task in Studio.

Just try replacing a couple of the larger ones with small ones so that the lighting isn't quite so even. Heck, what are those - key lights? I don't know that stone-age professional lighting stuff.

[Mihai]

What bothers me are the shadows on the walls, doesn't make a nice soft impression.

I would suggest trying to place a pretty large emitter above, slightly rotated towards the bed, and two emitters on either side, a bit smaller. Kind of like this:



Or you could place the emitter on the right vertically a bit farther away to simulate daylight coming in through a door.

Placing the emitters like this will avoid to cast those ugly shadows on the wall.

[Frances]

What bothers me are the shadows on the walls, doesn't make a nice soft impression.

I would suggest trying to place a pretty large emitter above, slightly rotated towards the bed, and two emitters on either side, a bit smaller. Kind of like this:



Or you could place the emitter on the right vertically a bit farther away to simulate daylight coming in through a door.

Placing the emitters like this will avoid to cast those ugly shadows on the wall.

Yeah, what Mihai said.

[superbad]

I tried a bunch of different variations on what both of you suggested, and ended up here:



Only post work was to de-noise the mirror and add a little sharpness.

I've got a big reflector above the bed like Mihai suggested (using at as an emitter was producing strange shadows on the floor), a couple largish emitters off the footboard corners of the bed, and a couple small ones off the headboard. I also have a very low level white skydome to smooth out the shadows.

This rendered to SL12 in 1.5 hours, which is slightly longer than I would like. It looks a lot better at SL13 (more like 2 hours), when most of that shadow noise goes. This resolution is a little higher than I probably need for day-to-day purposes, so taking that down a bit will help.

I'm picking up some nice highlights on the dresser drawer edges, and some good reflections here and there that show the gloss level of the surface, which are the two things I was most unhappy with before. I'm not sure I agree that the flat walls really add anything.

Anyway, thanks for all the help. There are a couple spots that could be better, but this is good enough for now.

[SunlightRocker]

Maybe its a little bit to late, but Im annoyed about the closet in the midle of the scene... I cant see the sides of it, witch makes it look flat, like it has no depth.. (I hope Im clear enough, with my english... )

The rest is looking better now.

[superbad]

Good suggestion. I'll try moving the camera a bit to pick up the side.

[superbad]

OK, last one (probably). Moved the camera around a bit, and took Mihai's suggestion in another thread to make all the emitters slightly yellow-orange, and make the skydome very slightly blue. I can't really "see" this anymore, so I don't know how photreal it really is, but I do think it looks good.