Using GI_Joe...need help

# 1 27-01-2003 , 04:32 AM

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Hi guys,

Just installed GI_Joe v2 tonite and have been having a go at it. I've been reading through the documentation on the website but am having some difficulties getting things to look as photorealistic as I want. Can someone post a some tips or a tutorial on basic setup for lighting a scene with it, how to best position, what do I need to pay attention to in render globals, etc.? Also, What exactly is the big domeSurface for? I've been testing with some simple primitives with various materials on them and they look alright (Although a 640 x 480 production render with 16 bottom lights and 64 sky lights is killling my computer!!) but I'm trying to get a better grasp on the script. Any help is muchos appreciated.

Pete

"Terminat Bora Diem, Terminal Auctor opus."

Last edited by NitroLiq; 27-01-2003 at 04:56 AM.

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# 2 27-01-2003 , 04:39 AM

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To tell you the truth, I installed it last night too so I dont really know much about it now, but I think the person you should ask is brian_ellebracht as he is awsome with it!! user added image

-Emo

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# 3 27-01-2003 , 04:51 AM

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Well here are two halfway decent renders, though it still needs alot of playing around with. Took so long to render this simple scene with all the lights. Part of my frustration was the fact that the render view made everything look jagged and crappy with banding and all that. I forgot that that's the way it is....once I brought into photoshop and saw how smooth it was, I felt much better. I still want to get a better grasp on how to use it to the fullest, though.

"Terminat Bora Diem, Terminal Auctor opus."

Last edited by NitroLiq; 27-01-2003 at 04:55 AM.

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# 4 27-01-2003 , 04:59 AM

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I have a sugestion about you last render. Umm... Can't talk long, at my GF's user added image

so, have to be quick, but I would recomend, making the ground color, the same red color that your ground plane is. Hmm... Got a couple of other ideas, but I have to go, I will definetly write more tomorrow. Thanks, good luck,
Brian E

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# 5 27-01-2003 , 05:47 AM

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Here is what I do.... Hopefully this will help in some way... What is the dome for??? Well in most cases you can just hide the dome, and not worry about it. Thats what I usually do. It shows you the ground color and sky color, if you don't delete it or at least hide it, it will show up in your reflections, unless you Go into attributes and turn off visable in reflections. Its also good for trying out HDRI reflections and lighting... Hmmm, hopefully this will get you started... To get good results, you usually have to use 64 lights on top (sorry). Usually at the default settings when you first start GI_Joe, it gives you a really strong blue for the skylight, and a really strong orange, for the gound light, I usually tone these down quite a bit, try to make them a little more white. However, if you have a ground plane, you want to try to match the color of the ground lights to the color of the ground plane as much as possible. THis (kind of) gives you the impression of color bleeding, same goes for the sky lights. I also leave the shadows off for the ground lights as well.. I try to make the intensity, at about .1 on sky lights and .05 on the ground lights, and then add one point light to the scene (to simulate sun light, so give it a slightly yellow color), usually with an intensity of about .8, with a depthmap shadow with the resolution of about 1200. You can also give it ray trace shadows, witch is what I like to do, but really increases you render time if you have to turn on raytracing... So... This should at least get you off to a good start. 640X480 is aslo a good resolution to start at. And as far as I know IPR works with GI_Joe... There are a couple of other tricks I have up my sleve, but it wouldn't be fun if I told you everything. user added image

Best way to learn is to Kepp trying over and over again to see what works best for you. If you have any other questions, feel free to send me a PM. Thanks,
Brian

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# 6 27-01-2003 , 05:54 AM

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You want to know how to fix your problem with render view?? user added image

I don't have it in front of me, but If you go up to the file or view (what ever it is) on the tool bar of the render view window, just make sure it is on fit to resolution, or some thing like that, after it is rendered, and it will resize the image so that it will look smooth. THe problem is that when it renders, it sometimes makes the render window smaller than the resolution that you are rendering, wich interns, shrinks the image and makes it look messed up. Also just a little bit of info, the same zoom controls and pan controls work in the render view as well.

P.s. Emo, thanks for the kind words!!:banana:

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# 7 27-01-2003 , 06:01 AM

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wow, thanks a lot for the tips! I'll try them out..

by the way, here is a sample scene with teh defult color blue you were talking about if anybody was wondering how it looked:

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# 8 27-01-2003 , 02:40 PM

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Hi Brian, thanks for all the great tips. I think I have my render windows set up properly...there isn't a "fit to resolution" there but I think you might be talking about "display real size 1:1. It's smooth but sometimes I have to zoom a bit to get it its perfect smoothness.

Anyway, back to GI_Joe, I just threw something together quickly based on emo's scene using your default setup tips and got a strange result. Using the default lambert, I changed the ground attributes to the same color and the sky attributes to a light blue (almost white)....followed your other ideas, added the point light, etc. The result is what you see below. My question is what might be causing the caustics on the floor?

"Terminat Bora Diem, Terminal Auctor opus."

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# 9 27-01-2003 , 02:50 PM

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Hmmm.. ITs really hard to say without taking a look at it. Atleast for me it is. Since it is just a test scene, would there be anyway you could zip it and attach it? THen I can open it and get a better idea about the scene. Thanks,
Brian

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# 10 27-01-2003 , 02:55 PM

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No problem. Here it is.

"Terminat Bora Diem, Terminal Auctor opus."

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# 11 27-01-2003 , 03:07 PM

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Thanks, checking it out right now, quick question, how many lights did you choose for the top and bottom?

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# 12 27-01-2003 , 03:35 PM

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64 for the top and 16 for the bottom.

"Terminat Bora Diem, Terminal Auctor opus."

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# 13 27-01-2003 , 04:35 PM

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Hmm... Well, that seems to be the problem with GI_Joe. Its not true GI, and since it is using 64 skylights, it creates "artifacts". There isn't much you can do... Here is a pic of what I have come up with. I made all of the boxes and cyl polys, and extruded them in a bit. This pretty much stops the white lines that you get when you have two planes or polys tuching. for instance, check out the difference between the top and side of the ground plane boxes between the two images. If you add a point light to simulate sunlight, and if you ad a slight glow to the objects (even if it is really small), it helps "hide" the blochy artifacts. you can also just make the top have 256 lights. user added image

Tried it, takes forever to render, but Decreases the amount of Artifacts. I also tried making the ground lights have shadows, in certain cases it can really help or take away from a scene, I think that it helps with this scene. Well, let me know what you think, I can post the zip of the scene if you like, sorry if this ins't much help.
Brian

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# 14 27-01-2003 , 05:25 PM

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Nice shot...I think maybe my point light needed some readjusting as well. Anyway, I think I have enough to go on for now so I'll just continue to experiment. Thanks for all the help.

"Terminat Bora Diem, Terminal Auctor opus."

Last edited by NitroLiq; 27-01-2003 at 05:30 PM.

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# 15 18-05-2003 , 11:52 AM

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Anyway enough on GI Joe ... this is using spinning lights to simulate GI right? how do you accomplish these kind of results with mental ray GI, i know how to do it in lightwave perfect. My questions on GI are.. 1.how do you do diffuse to diffuse lighting.. is it automaticly calculated (only asking because in lightwave you have to turn on radiosy) 2. With ray traced shadows how do you get the fuzzy look... do you simply use GI or??? And can someone direct me to the .hdr file conversion program... i looked around but i cant find it.. i have loads of hdri maps but there all in .hdr format that is not supported by maya. And is it true that maya clamps hdr values.
Hope this makes sence

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Using GI_Joe...need help

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