Hi friends

BB' envsphere is perfect to reflex lights in a good way for outdoor renderings.

there is something that so perfectly reflects the light, but that is not spherical?

thanks.

You could scale a box to the required size, but why would you do that?

What do you want to do?

The sphere is not only reflecting light but is providing an ambient illumination as an emitter.  Turn off all scene lights and render with just the dome, the scene will still be lit.  Just about anything can become a light emitter by setting the ambient channel to a value greater than 1.

which problem are you trying to solve, and... which shape did you have in mind? Pyramid?

EnvSphere works with indoor equirectangular images, as well. Such as

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37936580@N03/4650355683/in/photolist-85WhJg-85ZoWN-85WfGi-85Wfsp-85Whrv-85Zk4Y-85ZrP9-85ZqLu-85WgVX-85Wjqi-85Warx-85WeRk-85Wcfr-85Zpa7-85ZkYy-85ZpFE-85ZkA3-85ZuHA-85Zt9d-85WamR-85WdGx-85Zqvs-85We6V-85ZtxN-85Zrm9-85ZmkE-85Zkaf-85Wgua-85WjJe-85WcZT-85Sa3Z-cA4iJA-cA4fwE-cA4gMj-cA4icE-cA4gd1-cA4eWu-cA4hJ3-abc1tS-8vkjNc-bukgq3

I need to light a room with 6 windows on 3 different sides....

Tomorrow i'll post a picture to show my problem.

Meantime thanks to everybody

Are the windows "real windows"?

If that is the case, I would put the room with its windows inside the envirosphere and light it "through the windows" - perhaps with a dimmed point light somewhere in the middle of the room, it depends a little of the size of the windows and the colour of the walls and stuff like that.

If you really need to use a different shape, couldn't you copy the shader from the environsphere to your other shape? I would imagine it's the shader rather that the geometry that lights things up so well. Granted there might be some over lighting in the corners.

Quote - If you really need to use a different shape, couldn't you copy the shader from the environsphere to your other shape? I would imagine it's the shader rather that the geometry that lights things up so well. Granted there might be some over lighting in the corners.

The EnvSphere standard shader is overkill, but would work. If you don't care about gamma, or you have a Poser that does gamma on its own, then you just plug the image into Ambient_Color and set the luminance you want in Ambient_Value.

If you like having the HSV controls for controlling hue and saturation, you can insert that.

I state:

Poser Pro 2014 sr1
GC 2.2 on
IDL ON (indirect light)
BB 'sphere (invisible to the room) for the sun outside
SkyDome (shadows OFF) to the sky
Sunlight 850%

This is the room, it is actually a bungalow on the beach (I presume the Caribbean) then externally there is plenty of light, good sun

this is the structure of the room with red arrows to see windows from where the light should come in

may look good, but it is actually absent the reflection which should come from the windows, especially from the right side from the door and windows on the same side ....

Looking at the shadow by the door could it be the main light source is directly above the building?

I would say: just BB's environment sphere as a skydome for the ambient lighting, and a single infinite light for Sun (and shadows and some specular), should do the job.

It mimics what we have outside (single sky, single sun), and what other programs (like Vue) are doing. Poser IDL is not that different.

Extra lights are required for the same reasons as one could use a flash when taking pictures in real life, but that's about it then.

i added a trash to see how shadows works

at this point every test I've done has failed, I can not play optimally reflected light coming through windows surrounding

**
**

any ideas ?

Sun light is directly over the room, -90°, as it was mid-day

Sorry I wasn't saying the lighting was wrong. My thought was that the render does not look unreasonable, the reason there is no shadow in the building could be that only the scattered light from the blue sky is coming in from the outside and its not strong enough to make an impact.  That's why I mentioned the door shadow as that is out side of the building. 

That said, I assumed the internal floor was darker than the board out side, if they are the same colour then my reasoning doesn't hold up.

For everyone.

English is not my native language, you might be as simple and straightforward as possible when you explain something, otherwise i do not quite understand.

thanks and sorry

BB 'sphere (invisible to the room) for the sun outside
SkyDome (shadows OFF) to the sky

• Sunlight 850% right over the room (-90°)

• A little internal light without shadows for help lighting

• A light outside balcony for light from right side through the door (point light, 25%,shadows blur radius 5%)

and this is the result.

I think that still is not good lighting.

Ideas ???

I deleted the BB external sphere to the skydome that contains the sky, useless, had no effect on rendering.

Let's put this into perspective, if the first image were a photograph then the lighting would be somewhat correct.  There are 2 extremes occurring here, a well balanced outdoor and indoor exposure which cannot be done photographically under these conditions.  Either the outdoor scene is going to be overexposed or the indoor scene will be underexposed. 

Now, we have a problem, our eyes are going to percieve something entirely different to compensate for the extreme difference in lighting.  Look outside, everything well exposed; look inside, everything well exposed.  What xpdev is trying to create a scene from an interior perspective, having both interior and exterior equally well exposed. 

The only resolutions I can imagine would either angle the infinite lighting so the light enters through the door or inset fill lights for the interior as a professional photographer would to balance the scene.

nice. What happens when bounces and the various IDL quality settings are raised to the max?

thank ironsoul

some questons:

1 - settings for bright skydome ?

2 - there is a strange glow on the legs of the dummy, legs should be totally in the shadow but it is not

3 - have you tried to insert a character with skin like M4 or V4.

What happens to the skin? In my opinion it is burned, and we get a terrible effect.

hborre

You are really really right.

I have found the trouble you describe every time i have tried to build a scene like that, but i'm still looking for a solution in Poser.

I set the skydome to 5 to get that shadow. The strange glow will be the sss in Andy's material. I will try with a V4 render tonight.

If the floor is polished? One trick I sometimes do is to insert a specular only point light into the scene, this will give extra interest/form to the scene without washing out the overall light effect.

 aRtBee - I had to set the IDL levels very high to get decent shadows, not sure about the bounces

hborre's comment is about dynamic range, the way photographer's increase the dynamic range is to use HDR and tone mapping. Possibly the HDR and tone mapping options in Poser will help if you  need to increase the light levels outside.

Sorry ironsoul, you used the BB skydome ?

Wich parameter you set to 5 ?

thanks.

ironsoul

"One trick I sometimes do is to insert a specular only point light into the scene, this will give extra interest/form to the scene without washing out the overall light effect."

I think this is a problem, if you use the sss on M4 skin, the specular light will create problem on M4 skin...

Good point, I've not used that trick with sss. If this was Carrara or Vue I would cheat and set-up a light that only worked with the floor but that is not an option with Poser :)

Sorry ironsoul, did you worked on room material for your render ?

No postwork.

Only rendered in Poser Pro 2014

Very nice.

Excellent work with the models and render, makes me want to book a holiday.

You need to move the Sun; it is only directly overhead at noon on the equator...

Quote - You need to move the Sun; it is only directly overhead at noon on the equator...

I am not so sure. I have read some rumors that the earth is to be round, which could  mean it is directly overhead always at some place.

Is it only me or is the room too dark (nice render by the way)?

I always have this feeling with indoor renders. Looking at my (real) room here I see a lot of light outside (sunny day) but also a well illuminated inside. This of course could be due to the ability of the eye (brain) to interpret very differnt light intensities as being more equel than they are physically. Maybe such a render represents the physical part but not the perception part?

Don't forget this a non HDR image and you are also viewing it through a computer screen that has a much smaller dynamic range than the human eye. Better to compare it with a jpeg photograph.

@ madno2: if the last render still appears too dark, you may need to check your monitor calibration.  Depending on age, display settings will shift for the worst until they are beyond salvaging.

not sure, madno2 is comparing the render with his reallife impression of indoor lighting.

When the render was done with bounces set so its max, and the outdoor fence appeared overlit, then you'd have a point, but neither is the case IMHO. Although dark walls and furniture reduce lighting levels as well.

If it was the monitor, then everything would darken instead of indoor render images alone, wouldn't it?

I asked because I am really unsure. Hborre, good hint, but fortunately its not the monitor. I am watching the render on a NEC Spectraview Reference (wide gamut) calibrated to sRGB gamma curve and 150 Candela. Color management is activated in Firefox with the ICC profile loaded. As aRtBee said I am just watching around in rooms of real life and compare them to the Poser renders. My perception is that the illuminaton from IDL through openings in walls (doors, windows etc.) is much to weak. And this is also my feeling when pointing the distant light (sun) through the windows into the room. But because it can be only me, I asked what you think about the amount of light in the shown render (which is a nice one). Its of course not about physical correctness but maybe more a question of what one like.

I guess that's where the "art" bit comes in, should the lighting be for effect or should it be for realism. Render engines like Maxwell are clearly designed to to simulate a camera so the expectation is the images should look like photographs. Never been sure with Poser. Sorry if I missed the point of your question.

I ran the render trhough Photoshop, and Auto-levels/curves immediately brightened up the interior without brightening up the exterior. This confirms OPs findings that the interior is, or at least feels, too dark.

In Poser IDL, this happens mainly when Bounces is set too low. This setting make Poser to kill a light ray before it dies due to normal energy loss. Nature does not put a  limit on bounces, which is why one best select the highest value possible in his final render. Interiors do brighten up considerably, from this setting.