How much is enough? Recently I had a comment on one of my images which stated that I should work on the shadows. Prior to post I indeed questioned the amount of shadows in the image. I felt there might be too many. So in my next image I worked with the lighting (this can consume so much time as you know - unless you're a pro) until the shadows were non-existent... again prior to post I said to myself... 'There are no shawdows.' I felt something was wrong and sure enough someone commented on the fact... so my question is: How much is enough? How do you find the balance? I read recently about grouping spotlights in a grid to achieve a desired (implied-radiosity) effect... but am not quite sure what this means. Although I do have some ideas. I know this is a vast subject and there are many 'tuts' on this... but some quick tips and tricks will be greatly appreciated. -Susan

In my opinion, you can have the greatest lighting ever, but without shadows, it can still look like crap. You need shadows to show where the light is. Without shadows, objects will lose their anchor to the floor. Maybe try playing with one main light source generating the show and set the shadows to be soft. Soft shadows do increase render time, but I think they can really add a bit of realism to a picture.

Attached Link: http://www.freewriters.ca/blogger/bryce/2004/07/bryce-5-and-radiosity_27.html

shadows make up for a huge chunk of realism. the problem with bryce is that it takes forever to render scenes with lots of lights. this is compounded immensly when you add shadows (soft shadows in particular) to the effect. In general, shadow banding (like 10 shadows from 10 light sources overlapping each other over an object) is considered "meh.." Technical terminology aside, the only solution is to have only one shadow source in all your works. bunching up 10 lights is the exact same as having one light with 10x the power. It does not even begin to give you radiosity. using a radiosity dome, however, fakes it decently well, provided the right reflectivity settings are placed on all objects in the scene and you handle shadows properly (i.e. one shadow source, balancing the light levels between that light/shadow source and the rest of the light dome). radiosity is the effect you see in real life when light bounces off most surfaces and continues to light the room. it's not reflectivity, it's a property of real life light. bryce doesn't have that. therefore you need to fake it. there are different techniques for this (follow the link for explanation, etc.) drac

Is there a listing somewhere of the brightness settings to use for various light sources? Something like: standard candle - 10 brightness, 60W lightbulb - 30 brightness, etc. I seem to recall hearing about this some time ago... it would be a handy resource to have.

Well usually it is best to have only a few lights that are shadow casting and then use the rest as fillers. The shadow casting lights should have soft shadows for closer light sources (lamps, light bulbs etc) and hard shadows for distant light sources (the sun). In the case of an overcast scene, the lighting should be done with a dome where all lights have shadow casting abilities.

Attached Link: Interior lighting test

Thought I'd post this here as it is pertinent to the topic.. The brightness of the lights depends on the scale of the image. quite often this is extremely important as when you don't give lights the proper fall-off or brightness, the entire scale of your image goes to waste. here's an interior lighting test I just did that may help you. I made a note of all my lights in the image's description.

how much is enough is your personal taste just do what feels good in your eyes.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=755168

just added a foto with nice shadows and reflections have a look at the difrence in darekness and light in that pic. just my 2 cents

http://www.castironflamingo.com/home/index.html links to basic lighting color chart. OK, links close to the chart.

No matter how many lights I use in a scene, I always try to keep the number of lights that are casting shadows down to an absolute minimum. I'm a little obssesed with optimizing my Bryce scenes. Some renders I get away with just only the sun casting a shadow, while I may have a dozen fill lights. Other renders, maybe all the lights need to cast. Whatever looks best for that particular scene. AS