Let's Ray Trace

[TheKitchenAbode]

7 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

 

Thanks Graham , those settings under your the Images Properties Post work really well when all lights are off , the Bonus of course is that you don't need to be an expert in CA Lighting Techniques and anyone (I) can still get good results in about 5mins .  this is one I ran earlier , trying settings though I used Rene's 230,230,230 , and I had previously played with some of the material properties , like emmisiveness etc.  Bloom was not on as for me, it makes the Image too soft for my liking.  If you have any thoughts on improving the image after looking at it please let me know. Thanks again for your Help.

 

M.

 

 

 

Hi Mick, pleased you found those settings beneficial. They are not carved in stone, you can always fine tune them to your liking according to your displays attributes. They should work fine with the lights on but only after you adjust the lights intensity to look proper under these image property settings. Try to resist making other changes until you have the lights properly set. I would leave all of the materials at their default settings and the same for the whatever light you are using except for the intensity and spread angle. For example if you change the emissivity of a material before your lights are set then when you tweak your lights you will likely find that the emissivity is now incorrect and will now have to be adjusted again. The key to all of this is to do things on step at a time and in the appropriate order.

 

As far as the pic you posted the colors seem to be a bit over saturated, this may just be differences between our monitors . You could go into the image properties and reduce the saturation a bit. Another thing that will impact on this is the ambient occlusion setting, it will determine the dynamic range of the ambient light. I only use the min & max ambient occlusion control never the uniform one. To make the scene brighter increase the max, or if the overall brightness is fine then increase or decrease the min to control the depth of the shaded regions where wall to wall and ceiling intersects occur.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Here's the next level of the exterior only lit scene I have been working on. To push it further I dropped it into a photo editor and made some simple adjustments to improve the clarity and sharpness. I did not resize this one so you can see it at it's maximum resolution of 2400 X 1200.

 

 

Keep in mind that the Ray Trace engine is not as sophisticated as a dedicated renderer. If you wish your Ray Traces to take on a more realistic look then you will likely need to do some post render work on it. Don't feel as if this is a compromise, professional photographers do this all of the time. None of those gorgeous magazine pics come straight out of the camera.

 

 

[Kbird1]

9 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

Def lookin good Mick

 

I was playing around with some new textures I've been making...4 min rough render for giggles

 

 

 

Thanks but ALL Credit goes  to Graham ...until i did this RT I had not even noticed the Salt and Pepper Shakers on the Stove ......I still need to play and practice a lot more , and perhaps find my old copy of PS CS2 somewhere for further adjustments if really needed.

 

You certainly have have made alot of Updates, all good,  looks great with the Sun streaming in , I can't say I'm a fan of Wallpaper though   having grown up with many ugly iterations over those years...

[Kbird1]

13 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Hi Mick, pleased you found those settings beneficial. They are not carved in stone, you can always fine tune them to your liking according to your displays attributes. They should work fine with the lights on but only after you adjust the lights intensity to look proper under these image property settings. Try to resist making other changes until you have the lights properly set. I would leave all of the materials at their default settings and the same for the whatever light you are using except for the intensity and spread angle. For example if you change the emissivity of a material before your lights are set then when you tweak your lights you will likely find that the emissivity is now incorrect and will now have to be adjusted again. The key to all of this is to do things on step at a time and in the appropriate order.

 

As far as the pic you posted the colors seem to be a bit over saturated, this may just be differences between our monitors . You could go into the image properties and reduce the saturation a bit. Another thing that will impact on this is the ambient occlusion setting, it will determine the dynamic range of the ambient light. I only use the min & max ambient occlusion control never the uniform one. To make the scene brighter increase the max, or if the overall brightness is fine then increase or decrease the min to control the depth of the shaded regions where wall to wall and ceiling intersects occur.

 

Thanks , you are full of invaluable info as usual.....

 

I actually having been playing with the lighting too and it looked okay except for the weird dome of light on the cabinet Pucks , so I ran that RT with all the Lights Turned off as you suggested instead, and I admit freely , I like a saturated image , perhaps too Saturated , but maybe I need to calibrate my Monitors again....

 

There is still weird issues with the lights which I can't figure out , such as in these two STD Render images below made when I was play with the light data drop off  rate etc settings, all the Recessed lights are set to exactly the same settings but some show a light cone on the wall and others don't .... thought it might be the Light Data ambient setting cause some to shine more than others but that didn't make a difference.

 

In one image 2 of 3 lights have light cones and on the other side 1 of 3 does, yet all appear to be on etc....

 

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

Mick, I don't have the plan open but suspect that the lights that don't appear on is because the tilt angle is different than the ones were the cone of light shows on the wall. The lights are in a sloped ceiling, the default for a downward recessed can is -90, they may have changed this for one or the other to compensate for the ceiling angle. Also9 if you increase the drop rate it will soften the edge where light meets dark, try say 3 or 4, 0 is the hardest transition.

 

Keep working at this one item at a time, once the recessed lights are good you can work on those under cabinet pucks.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Mick, also make sure the spots cut off angles are the same, really wide angles will diminish or prevent the wall tear drop effect.

[MarkMc]

Graham (and Rene) this and the last thread have both been great.

I haven't had a lot of time to use all of this yet since I don't use RTs to sell a job. I only do them later in the process and at that I'm more interested in decent and fast than super realism. To me, since I provide product, super realism can become a dangerous can of worms so we always approach RTs with a grain of salt when it comes to the relationship to real life. When Thea was first being marketed to Kyrathea users I snagged a copy since the price was good and figured it would be good to have in the toolbox. Eventually I came to think otherwise and have not used it in years. Anyway the current status of work is not quite up to using all the tips but I have played a little and this has been an enormous help.

 

Question- what are you using for ceiling texture?

The other question is that Chief places a light source at the ceiling that I can't access and often creates a glow in the middle of the ceiling. How can that be gotten rid of?

[TheKitchenAbode]

Hi Mark, pleased that you have found this information of interest. I fully agree with you about the level of realism, not good if the renderings look better than the finished project.

 

The ceilings in my renderings are always flat. In my area no one wants texture any more. When they have it we are always scrapping it off.

 

The light source you are referring to is the generic on that CA places when no other light source is in the plan. It's horrible, just place any fixture somewhere in the plan and the generic one will disappear, even if the one you placed is turned off.

[MarkMc]

1 hour ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Hi Mark, pleased that you have found this information of interest. I fully agree with you about the level of realism, not good if the renderings look better than the finished project.

 

The ceilings in my renderings are always flat. In my area no one wants texture any more. When they have it we are always scrapping it off.

 

The light source you are referring to is the generic on that CA places when no other light source is in the plan. It's horrible, just place any fixture somewhere in the plan and the generic one will disappear, even if the one you placed is turned off.

I'm not looking for a texture that is not flat- I'm asking about material or texture that shows reasonably white?

[Renerabbitt]

1 hour ago, MarkMc said:

Graham (and Rene) this and the last thread have both been great.

 

Yes thanks to everyone that has been contributing

Mark, for me, the renderings are built into the product..95 percent of the work is complete in the design stage within CA, so the last 5 is worth the Media it produces for our online presence. I don't even do palette design in chief anymore, I put color blocks in chief because my catalog in Thea has grown to be quite large. Thea now has live update rendering as you are dragging and dropping materials..I don't even setup lights anymore, I just drag a light to CA's "white light" texture and the scene is set. I can setup a full house in just a few hours time, certainly worth the time for my company.

Additionally Thea renders with the ability to relight the scene as well as recolor textures post rendering in COLIMO! which means I can let a client pick their own finishes and choose what time of day it is without me having to do another rendering. Not to mention it provides an alpha channel to drag and drop a picture of the clients backyard in behind the rendering so the views are true.

In fact, I can take a photo with my DSLR and note the height and angles as well as the camera settings and completely copy those settings into my rendering, then set longitude and latitude of the property, the date of the year, and Thea will produce accurate sun settings for that shot. The client reaction is worth every penny spent in the production, they RAVE about the service. They get VR renderings, stills, day and night shots, and live walkthroughs with team viewer all for the production cost of a few hours spent in setup and a days worth of letting my slave computer process the shots. screen-sharing Walkthroughs are instant. Not to mention it always promotes a change in layout, a better product, and additional revenue..all from a happy client.

My long winded two-cents.

CA knows all of this, that's why they are heading that direction, and collaborating with the client really leaves nothing to chance in the build, and high resolution visuals do so much to iron the details out. 

[yusuf-333]

3 hours ago, MarkMc said:

Question- what are you using for ceiling texture?

The other question is that Chief places a light source at the ceiling that I can't access and often creates a glow in the middle of the ceiling. How can that be gotten rid of?

While raytracing goes on, manipulate the intensity versus contrast in image properties. Mostly I<=50 & 50<C<100, so they usually give a value of 100. Like if I=30 the contrast will be nearly a value of 70 to get rid of that glowing center effect.

[TheKitchenAbode]

2 hours ago, MarkMc said:

I'm not looking for a texture that is not flat- I'm asking about material or texture that shows reasonably white?

 

Sorry Mark - the colour/texture I use is Artic White, it's in the Formica catalog under solid colours. For the ceiling the properties are Matte, Diffuse 100%, Roughness 80%. Same colour for trim but then Roughness is 30%. I also use this on white cabinets, same settings as the trim. If I want more sheen/gloss I will change the material to General, add some reflection, specular and roughness. How white this will appear will depend on the lights and image property settings. If you are running Ray Traces with no active lights then you may need to add a bit of emissivity to get a bright white.

[TheKitchenAbode]

f Stop

 

Had a chance to run some Ray Traces with a range of f Stop settings. Here are the results. As you flip through the most noticeable change can be seen in the island stools closest to the camera. These were run at 1200 X 583, 30 passes, took 19 minutes. Hard to see any difference from f9.5 and higher. These are straight out of Ray Trace with no additional post processing.

 

f 3.5

 

f 9.5

 

f 16

 

f 32

[TheKitchenAbode]

Another example, this time using the CA sample gallery five-12-kitchen plan.

 

Ray Trace as per CA sample plan settings.

 

Ray Trace after my lighting and material adjustments.

 

The Ray Trace program is far more capable than it is demonstrated to be. Just my humble opinion but CA should make a greater effort to demonstrate this, provide improved documentation to assist users and configure some specialized lights that will provide additional interior ambient control and to address the exterior direct suns inability to simulate indirect interior lighting effects.

[Ridge_Runner]

Graham, that is an amazing improvement! Just as a guess, how long did it take you to make the adjustments to get your version from what you started with in CA's?

[TheKitchenAbode]

10 minutes ago, Ridge_Runner said:

Graham, that is an amazing improvement! Just as a guess, how long did it take you to make the adjustments to get your version from what you started with in CA's?

 

Hi Mike, Thanks. Changing things like the recessed light fixtures did not take very long as I have those settings memorized. The pendants took a bit longer as I changed them to a spot light configuration and as each is a different height due to the sloped ceiling each one had to be done individually. Most of my time was consumed while I experimented with a new lighting technique to simulate indirect light entering the interior from the exterior. This of course is a one time effort as I can now save this to my library and just drop it into a new plan.

 

I am also learning more as I experiment with these sample plans. The real test concerning time will be on a new plan where I just have to apply my lights and techniques without the need to experiment. Will keep you posted.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Exterior Lighting

 

I have mentioned in past postings that on interior renderings the direct sun feature lacks the ability to simulate the effect of indirect light entering into the interior.

 

This scene has the direct sun set at 15.

 

This one is the same but with my indirect light simulator turned on.

 

With this, the direction, spread, light color and intensity of the indirect exterior lighting effect can be controlled independently from the direct sun setting.

 

This effect can't be accomplished using the environment lighting option. Environment lighting is intended as a means to control the exterior shadow depth only, it allows one to simulate softer exterior shadows with an overcast sky versus a clear sky. Using this to brighten an interior will lead to a washed out scene and some major light bleeding problems when foundations do not have floors or are slab on grade type.

 

[Ridge_Runner]

Graham, I certainly appreciate all of your time spent on this topic. I don't do many raytraces for residential, partly to my limited knowledge and "where to start with the adjustments." However, I seem to be picking up more light commercial work. Just yesterday a client wanted an exterior shot of his restaurant remodel I did for some signage to be done during the construction project. I have been struggling with trial and error to come up with a satisfactory view. I think I have it now, especially looking back at some old threads on exterior settings the great Jintu so kindly shared on this forum. Interior shots are an entirely different animal to me; much more complicated.

 

Thanks again, Mike

[Kbird1]

On 7/10/2017 at 7:03 PM, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Sorry Mark - the colour/texture I use is Artic White, it's in the Formica catalog under solid colours. For the ceiling the properties are Matte, Diffuse 100%, Roughness 80%. Same colour for trim but then Roughness is 30%. I also use this on white cabinets, same settings as the trim. If I want more sheen/gloss I will change the material to General, add some reflection, specular and roughness. How white this will appear will depend on the lights and image property settings. If you are running Ray Traces with no active lights then you may need to add a bit of emissivity to get a bright white.

 

Hi Graham , I haven't been able to check out the thread and Practice my RT for a day or two, but as Mike said those look amazing .... I tried changing backgrounds etc in my plan and adjusting the Exterior lighting but I still wasn't happy about that part of mine, so hopefully you'll post a bit more info on what you are doing for Sunlight , on Interior RT's now too.

 

I made some new Material Colours based on your Reply to Mark about the Arctic White colour, for Cabinets you said to set it to General, and Add some Reflection, Specular and Roughness ...but I don't see a Reflection Option under General ?

 

It turns out what I thought were Puck Lights either side of the Stove causing large light domes in RT , was actually 2 User placed 3D lights Chief had pointing directly at the Wall , if I read the Manual correctly , on how they work all the different light Angles....no idea why they use the "horizon" as a reference for that sort of thing?... perhaps that's a 3D Artist's Concept?

 

The Light Flare on the Doors I was getting, was caused by the Round Door Handles , I changed it to a Lever Handle and it disappeared

 

I turned about 1/2 the lights back on and changed a few materials and their definitions and am happy to say the RT is running in 3.24 for 10 passes using 8 of 12 Cores on my 5820K. (20 passes is almost exactly double that time) . Still doesn't look like your efforts but is way nicer , and way faster than before , so thanks again for your Efforts in this Thread. 

 

Thanks again...

 

M.

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

Mick - Your making progress on this. If I may say so, you are allowing yourself to get off track by playing with the materials and their properties. You will find that when the lighting is right the standard default materials will render up quite well.  Materials should only be tweaked after the lighting has been properly set. I see no shadows, are the recessed lights turned on?

 

If you need to locate the types of lights in the scene then just open up the adjust light DBX and all the lights will be listed with their type and if shadows are on or off. This is the fastest way to get at your lights. Also, when in the list you can either select an individual light or you can group select lights by using the shift and ctrl keys. That way you can select a common light group and change them all at the same time making only one entry.

[TheKitchenAbode]

2 hours ago, Ridge_Runner said:

Graham, I certainly appreciate all of your time spent on this topic. I don't do many raytraces for residential, partly to my limited knowledge and "where to start with the adjustments." However, I seem to be picking up more light commercial work. Just yesterday a client wanted an exterior shot of his restaurant remodel I did for some signage to be done during the construction project. I have been struggling with trial and error to come up with a satisfactory view. I think I have it now, especially looking back at some old threads on exterior settings the great Jintu so kindly shared on this forum. Interior shots are an entirely different animal to me; much more complicated.

 

Thanks again, Mike

 

Mike, exteriors can be easier provided you do not feel the need for the interior to be a part of the exterior shot. However, incorporating the interior can really add drama to your exterior scene. Here is a quick exterior Ray Trace of the home that I have been posting those interior views of. This is just the exterior as done by CA in their sample gallery but with my interior lighting. Just added a different backdrop and some grass from the library.

[Kbird1]

1 hour ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Mick - Your making progress on this. If I may say so, you are allowing yourself to get off track by playing with the materials and their properties. You will find that when the lighting is right the standard default materials will render up quite well.  Materials should only be tweaked after the lighting has been properly set. I see no shadows, are the recessed lights turned on?

 

If you need to locate the types of lights in the scene then just open up the adjust light DBX and all the lights will be listed with their type and if shadows are on or off. This is the fastest way to get at your lights. Also, when in the list you can either select an individual light or you can group select lights by using the shift and ctrl keys. That way you can select a common light group and change them all at the same time making only one entry.

 

Thanks for the advice.....No Shadows as such yet, just a few of the recessed cans along both walls are on to help brighten them up a bit, I think I need to turn down the light intensity (from 50) and turn on a few more lights and Shadows as you say. The wall colours etc I just change to something a bit closer to my Personal preferences along with the Custom Countertop, and I changed the Truss's materials "roughness" to try and add a bit of "Texture" or Grain, as they looked a bit boring and uninspiring to me, and they should feature more in my way of thinking.

 

I did try the group selection of lighting thing last weekend and that was when I stared getting those light cones on the walls from only about 1/2 the lights , so I went back through and adjusted each one individually , before turning them off and following your Other Images Settings for All Lights Off.

 

M.

[Ridge_Runner]

4 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Mike, exteriors can be easier provided you do not feel the need for the interior to be a part of the exterior shot.

That is exactly what I did. The interior would not have shown much so I just kept adjusting the sky color until I got a window glass color I was happy with - thanks Jintu for the suggestion to use a darker gray.

 

Mike

[TheKitchenAbode]

36 minutes ago, Ridge_Runner said:

That is exactly what I did. The interior would not have shown much so I just kept adjusting the sky color until I got a window glass color I was happy with - thanks Jintu for the suggestion to use a darker gray.

 

Mike

Would be interesting to see how this approach looks, would it be possible to post the scene so we can see the effect. Thanks in advance.

[TheKitchenAbode]

14 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

 

I did try the group selection of lighting thing last weekend and that was when I stared getting those light cones on the walls from only about 1/2 the lights , so I went back through and adjusted each one individually , before turning them off and following your Other Images Settings for All Lights Off.

 

M.

When you group select and open up the light DBX you need to look closely at the settings. There can be lights in the group that have different settings. Usually where this occurs the setting box will be greyed out as a way to indicate this. You can then enter a value which will set all the lights in the group the same or go back and hunt down that particular light. If there are different custom intensity settings in the group and you want to change them all to another custom setting then you have to first select one of the standard intensity settings first and then choose custom and put in your new % intensity setting. For some reason it will not allow you to go directly to the custom settings.