[Primus]

Hi all

Im a photographer and also doing a lot of 3D Stuff. A few weeks now, I'm studying maxwell renderer. I have a basic question.

Is it possible to simulate with maxwell flashlights as well ? My idea is, to simulate the whole studio setup with soft boxes , dishes and shadow catcher etc. etc. in maxwell ? Only to get a "feeling" about how the light will be before i setup .

Did some this stuff in the past ? I know, that there a a lot of light kits available for different 3D-Programms ( Cinema etc.) , but here you get only a creative light, which has often nothing to do with reality.

Some hints or tips are helpful & thanks a lot .

Best,
Thomas

[Maximus3D]

Not really no, what you can do is simulate the light that the flashes outputs in the scene itself but not how a real flash works. It would require something like a short animation with animated lightsources that quickly flashes the light (1/250th or shorter flash). This is just not gonna work with Maxwell, or any other renderengine for that matter.

As a photographer you're welcome to contribute to 'the daily photo thread' here on the forum.

/ Magnus

[Primus]

ok, thank you ... nevertheless i will try that stuff ;9.

...and i jumped in in you "daily photo thread " .

Best,
Thomas

[Maximus3D]

Anytime

You can use stuff like umbrellas, reflectors, softboxes, grids with Maxwell. However since most of the light is reflected off other surfaces and/or passed through thin cloth it will require massive amounts of time to render clean (if at all) and there could be some pretty persistant noise in shadows and dark corners. Unfortunately you have to cut some corners with your studiosetups when working with Maxwell at the moment but if you do you can get a very realistic look and feel with some great results and acceptable rendertimes.

Excellent! i'm looking forward to see your work in the photothread.

/ Magnus

[brodie_geers]

I'm not totally sure what you're going for but you could perhaps setup a shot in real life and then create an HDRI using a chrome sphere (there are some tutorials around about making HDRI's) and then translate your lighting info into Maxwell that way. However, I don't know how easy it would be to manipulate it once you have that to see what different lighting setups would look like.

If you haven't run across these yet here are some free HDRI studio packs which are pretty nice

HDRi Pack1: http://zbyg.deviantart.com/art/HDRi-Pack-1-97402522
HDRi Pack2: http://zbyg.deviantart.com/art/HDRi-Pack-2-103458406
HDRi Pack3: http://zbyg.deviantart.com/art/HDRi-Pack-3-112847728

-Brodie

[richardyot]

The best thing to do would be for someone to make high quality HDR images of individual softboxes, umbrellas etc and use the resulting iimages as emitters mapped onto simple geometry. That way you would get really great reflections of actual lighting equipment, and the flexibility to position them as you wish.

[richardyot]

I found a couple here:

http://oliverwolfson.com/studio-light-hdr-images/

[Mihai]

You can work exactly like in a photo studio in Maxwell. You don't have to model an actual softbox with a small emitter inside that passes through a cloth, just paint an image of what the light passing through that cloth looks like in Photoshop, or use one of the hdrs posted above. Create an emitter material, set it to use that hdr and apply it to a flat plane geometry. Then you can model different light modifiers to place in front of this plane, for example a grid for more parallel lighting.

To create your own image emitters in PS, work in 32 bit mode, start with a black canvas and then paint with white where the light is going to spill out, for example whiter in the middle and darker in the corners. By working in 32b mode you can change the exposure while painting so you get an idea of where the strongest light will be (lower the exposure until everything gets almost black for example then paint more with white in the middle). Then save this image as an hdr and load it in an emitter material.

You also have a commercial solution which isn't exactly cheap but if you do a lot of product renders it will quickly pay for itself. It's called HDR Light Studio and they now have a plugin for Maxwell. With HLS and Maxwell FIRE you "paint" an HDR environment while you see the lighting update your scene in realtime using FIRE in Maxwell Studio.

You can see a video demo here:
http://www.hdrlightstudio.com/blog/hdr- ... ve-plugin/

[Primus]

Thank you Mihai and brodie !

Luckily i just own HDT Light Studio Pro since some days now. With all your tips i will start now and try the described solution, i understand it, thank you. I think i will model the studio and position the surfaces for the lights in cinema4D and than in maxwell i will try it .

My aim is only to simulate the spirit of the light setup, perhaps it helps a bit before i do it in "hardware" .


Best,
Thomas


PS: I hope HDR Light STudio Pro will be available on Mac as well in the next version. Today i´m running it under Parallels, it works but its not so comfortable.

[itsallgoode9]

I think you can...it might not be 100% correct, but it can come pretty darn close...pretty much as close as it can come when using a rendering solution.

Somewhere around there is a cornell box that was shot with a camera...measuring all light intensities and distances and whatnot and the same setup, with real world numbers used in maxwell and it looks pretty damn close. I just cant find it right now


a real world example I can tell you about...Through doing work with maxwell I have been able to easily direct a photographer friend of mine to setup lights to photograph some high end bottle photography for a client of mine. He hasn't really done any bottle photography, and I have minimal studio lighting setup. I did some in college so I know the basics but other than that, it's all knowledge through maxwell.

Overall, it sound like the answer to your question is "yes". As was mentioned, if you want to get super accurate, you could use HDR images of actual umbrellas and softboxes (or take your own).