Lighting of HIGH-scale scenes in Maya

# 1 19-05-2011 , 04:08 PM

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Hey, I have an interior shot on the same scale as a normal cube scaled 650times... Its pretty large "room" + 10m long "bridge" (leading to the nord end of the room, where should be an altar). As u can immagine, the character is walking through the bridge and reaches the altar. The problem is, if a fill light has an intensity X near the altar and looks NICE (when both character and camera ae there), then we move the camera/character back on the bridge-start this same light's intensity is simply not high enough and you see pitch black... so i can keyframe the intensity like 50X in the start... BUT it seems i need like 20 fill lights for this volume and the movement speed of the camera is not homogenuous (so just keying start-end frame is not enough...). Oh, hope you got an idea what I'm talking about, but I'd really glad to hear how do u light such scenes....Ofcourse decay rate is set to none, but the light rays die anyway...

p.s. My initial scene was a lot smaller and my fill-lighting consisted of only 2 point lights (for an ok look)... but for some other reasons we had to scale it up... now keying 20 (+test rendering...) fill lights so that the result look homogenuous seems like a nightmare :x Please HELP

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# 2 19-05-2011 , 04:13 PM

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use a directional light.

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# 3 19-05-2011 , 05:57 PM

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Thank you for response, but how would you place a directional light? Because if the mid/background gets a fairly nice exposure, then the foreground is totally blown of...

Picture top left is with 20 fill point lights (not final tweek, but to see the difference when comparised with a directional light - the other 2 pics)

p.s. The problem is actually that an EVENLY lit scene (say an intencity of 10 for a directional light) doesnt look always the same - its going to be always OVEREXPOSED near the camera, while the background is going to be darker than desired....

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Last edited by xukca; 19-05-2011 at 06:02 PM.

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# 4 19-05-2011 , 06:50 PM

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the pictures help. so the direction of the light is from behind the camera?

btw, 20 point lights is crazy.

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# 5 19-05-2011 , 07:16 PM

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As Dom said, you can use non shadow casting directionals. And you could create a dummy object for a handle, create a float attribute that's connected to the lights' intensities and key that instead.

This pic is from something else but you get the point.

user added image

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# 6 19-05-2011 , 08:48 PM

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As Dom said, you can use non shadow casting directionals. And you could create a dummy object for a handle, create a float attribute that's connected to the lights' intensities and key that instead.

This pic is from something else but you get the point.

Originally Posted by GecT

Oh, well, I thought about making a GUI, especially for the the 20 point lights setup can be handy user added image

The point is, if I get a directional light, which is parallel to the bridge, I get the entire FG overexposed (2nd pic). If I get tilted directional I get either the left or the right side of the FG overexposed (lastpic).

I initially came on the conclusion that I need a long row of (like 5-10) fill lights, so that I can key the closer to the camera on lower value (let say 1), mid lights on value like (7-15) and the far away lights on super high value (like 50-100).... but since I have this camera movement forward, then once again from altar to the starting point, Im really looking forward to find a smarter solution, than just keying for 1 weak as crazy...

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# 7 19-05-2011 , 09:18 PM

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You could do light linking to stop over exposure on some meshes..........dave

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# 8 19-05-2011 , 09:46 PM

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I now think it just sounds your settings are wrong. you shouldn't really have the directional lights intensity set to 15.

i just made a scene similar to yours and it looks fine with one directional light intesity set at 1.

Light linking is useful in some situations, but i wouldn't use it often. Its doesn't make sense in a real world environment. As an example you wouldn't have a specular light specifically for your watch, which would follow you around. user added image

Last edited by honestdom; 19-05-2011 at 09:56 PM.

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# 9 19-05-2011 , 09:55 PM

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@honestdom

Well, I use GodRays with partivolume, so my settings are not "wrong", just a little bit different, so that I have nice rays coming through holes in the ceiling user added image

@daverave Well, Ye I can do light linking, to the nearest object to the camera (to clip overexposure)... but my camera MOVES, so at defined moment in time ANY object is close to it! So far Im aware, light linking is either on or off...i cant render 50 frames, stop batchrender, recheck objects, do another linking and continue rendering, there are going to be "light holes/jumps" in the final movie.

:/

p.s. I just realise that this light "fade-out" is maybe caused indeed from the partivolume node, but these godrays need to be integrated into the beautypass, cant be rendered separately (because they dont even have an alpha...), this seems to be even more comlicated to resolve than I initially thought...

Last edited by xukca; 19-05-2011 at 10:04 PM.

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# 10 19-05-2011 , 09:56 PM

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That is weird, directionals don't have decay. Maybe there are some hidden lights in there. I just did a test on a meter scale scene, with a 800 unit long cube lined with spheres, the sphere nearest and furthest the camera are lit the same. Also, high intensity lights are big trouble without exposure control.

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# 11 19-05-2011 , 10:10 PM

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Yeah, directional should have no fade out (I think in normal environment even the point lights with "no decay"=on shouldnt have decay?) at all, but its really this parti volume which messes up the light intensities here... user added image

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Lighting of HIGH-scale scenes in Maya

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