kwhitt

Renee - Nice! Have you tried ACES tone mapping? I just did in the scene below. It almost makes post-production in Photoshop unnecessary.

Jason – you don’t use area lights arbitrarily where you feel you need more light like you would with ambient lighting. Forget the notion that they provide overall lighting for your scene (as I interpret your statement). Area lights are used to replace light fixtures such as overhead ceiling lights so, in a way, they do exist in the real world and this is the rendering engine's way of simulating them.. They can also be used as softboxes to provide “fill” light like a photographer would in an interior setting. It’s all about balancing the light. You don’t want everything overly lit. You want shadows and dark areas to create contrast or the images appear flat. I’d also recommend you try copying the lighting as seen in real photographs. After time, this will train your eye. I would recommend you first calibrate your scene with natural lighting using a backdrop or HDRI before adding any area lights (or turn them off prior). In other words, create a camera view as if the scene was lit entirely from exterior (natural) lighting and adjust the exposure to your liking (I would not recommend using auto-exposure). I would then add overhead lighting if needed - or for effect. It can be quite nice to have natural cool light coming from outdoors illuminating most of the scene and highlight an area with warm overhead lighting above a feature in the room such as a vanity. It is also very important that the materials are physically correct. None of your whites should exceed 90% for the Value (in HSV) and those are for very white materials such as snow. You also do not want the materials too saturated so keep the S (Saturation) below this 90% threshold as well. I also try to keep all blacks above a 20% value with the lower end reserved for very dark materials such as coal. For RGB calculations, none of the channels should exceed 229 (.90 x 255 = 229.5). This keeps all materials within the physically correct range. The albedo of surfaces in the real world is never as bright or dark as we perceive them with our eyes. Chief’s materials out of the box are not suitable for PBR. You’ll have to experiment but once you’ve added several successful materials to your library, they should work well in all scenes without too much tweaking required. Good models and materials are key and for the most part, I use my own that I import into Chief. Chief is perfectly capable of handling high-poly count and high-res image maps if you have a decent graphics card. I’m working on a sample file for study if anyone is interested. I’d love to see Chief’s gallery rival that of higher-end software. Chief is much more capable than most give it credit for – especially now with the introduction of X16.

Rob - that's why I say that area lights are a game changer for rendering within Chief. There is absolutely no comparison to be made between object-base lighting (area light) and the Add Light feature (which is only a point or spotlight emanating from a single point in space). Area lights more closely resemble lighting in the real world. I really think this is going to take Chief to a whole new level and I look forward to seeing what users are able to create with it.

Ryan - that is what I am exploring today - making a library of various sized planes to simulate softboxes and other studio lighting. I think for now that is the best solution.

For me, the ability to turn off visibility, shadows, and reflections of a light source is not needed. I can; however, see a place for it in product visualizations. I’ve had this ability available to me in Corona Renderer for years and have never used it. I guess I see this as a cheat and not physically accurate. Then again, the very act of using a computer to create a image is the ultimate cheat. My take is that a well-placed fill light would accomplish the same and would be more accurate, but you are right, most high-end engines offer it.

That’s exactly what I’m asking for – a predefined emitter object. As stated in the original post, I am now using a face and assigning an emissive material to simulate this behavior. I am sure it will be added eventually.

Chief’s “Add Light” is not an Area Light, nor do they call it that. It is merely a point or spotlight that lights an area. Every physically based rendering engine calls object-based emitters “Area Lights”. This would apply to Vray and Corona Renderer (the standards in the visualization market) – both of which I have used for many years among others. Below is a definition from the PBR Book. https://www.pbr-book.org/3ed-2018/Light_Sources/Area_Lights#:~:text=Area%20lights%20are%20light%20sources,each%20point%20on%20the%20surface It’s a huge leap to equate Chief’s “Add Light” with an Area Light and would be inaccurate.

LOL. It was not my first choice nor was the whole country scene! The client had specifics!

Here is that same sphere in X16.

Renee – In X15 and prior, an emissive material assigned to an object such as a sphere would not illuminate the scene using PBR. Attached is such a sphere with Lighting White applied in a room with the auto-light turned off and there is no illumination. In X16 you can now do the same thing, and the sphere will light the room. Prior to X16 we did not have real area lights. Attached is an excerpt from the X16 features list.

I guess I don’t need so many beadboard planks as the pattern is tillable (seamless) but when I created it I used it for a T & G ceiling and I wanted variation in the woodgrain so that the texture didn’t repeat too much. This image was created prior to the introduction of area lights and could be much improved with the new features. I’ll make a smaller version once I’ve caught up on my projects.

Thanks Michael. It is just a face that can be sized parametrically and can be rotated/tilted in plan view for convenience - like what i had to create manually. It is used to simulate a soft light box like they use in interior photography. Yes, the beadboard was intentionally placed this way. I used a normal map that I created in Substance Designer. It's attached if you want to use it. I had to lower the resolution to be uploaded to the forum but i can send you a high-res version. The normal made the most sense as opposed to modeling every door size independently. The normal allows you to resize the doors without "stretching" the beadboard.

Thanks DB. That's an excellent suggestion and I will follow through after Thanksgiving. We don't use electrical devices at standard placement on kitchen backsplashes. We use a slanted rough-in box to hide all devices beneath the wall cabinets. I don't think Bob was saying that Chief's area lights were any different - only that we have them now.

The introduction of Area Lights and Translucency in PBR is a game changer in X16. I feel like we have almost everything we now need to create high quality images within Chief without the use of 3rd party renderers. I have more shaders and features on my wish list, but I have to say I am very pleased with this release. Thanks Chief! One of the first things I’d have Chief implement is an Area Light fixture tool. Right now, I must create a face of the appropriate size (in an elevation view) and point it in the right direction to be used as a fill light. This can be a little tricky as I can’t figure out a way to rotate a face manually in plan view. Were I to use a 3 solid, all sides with normals would emit light – not ideal. The second feature I’d implement is the ability to adjust emitter intensity per camera view. It would also be nice to open and close doors automatically as needed per camera view. The images below underwent only minor curve adjustments in Photoshop – that’s it.

i always use live views as I do a lot of kitchens and the clients do a lot of changing their minds.