Understanding Rendering and Lighting of Living Room

by Maxim A. Ganzha, Russia Web: www.3dmaks.com

Hello everybody, my name is Maksim Ganzha, after many requests from my friends I decided to write a little article about how I’m creating my interiors.  We will look through the process of rendering of one of my last work with super lighting and gorgeous composition =), which I made in Mental Ray. 

Did you ever think why some interior works in galleries are more interesting than others? The main secret is in beautiful lights settings and stylish composition. That’s exactly what we will talk about in this article. 





We will not describe the process of modeling because in this case the article would become too long and boring. Let’s start with the rendering!

Lights Setting and Adjustments

At the beginning let’s open our scene and choose Mental ray render from the list of our available renders. Open the scene.

Go to the render settings by clicking F10. In "Assign renderer" section Press the "Choose renderer" button and choose Mental Ray from the list.

After choosing the renderer, in materials and maps browser the mental ray’s shaders and materials would became available.  Choose the material called "Arch & Design" and adjust the diffuse colors like this: the color of diffuse RGB is about 0,8 0,8 0,8, the other adjustments you can see in screenshot. Also I would like to note that you shouldn’t forget to switch on the "Ambient Occlusion" in your materials.  With this adjustment the shades would look more realistic and in corners of your scene the darkness which is peculiar to realistic lighting would appear. I put the value of "Max Distance" equal approximately 3 meters (this is the distance between the floor and ceiling).

Open the render setup. In "Translator Options" section switch on the Material Override enable and put our gray material in material slot.  With this option we will fill in all our objects in scene with one material. This would help you and your system to adjust lighting easier. The render would be fast. Materials of all objects in our scene will describe later. 

After setting the rendering material of all the objects to gray material we need to create the "Daylight System".

Create and locate the sun, it’s not a problem if it will shine in the opposite side. Go to the system settings and, as it is shown at the screenshot, switch on the "Manual" checkbox. After this step we can place the sun randomly without setting the date and time.  Let’s place the sun as it shown in the picture below. 

While creating the "Daylight System" 3ds max will offer us to put "mr Sky" as environment map. We will agree and let’s continue. 

After we set up the "Daylight System" let’s work with windows. We need to place "mr Sky Portal" inside them. It is situated near photometric lights. 

Click on the button and put on the settings as it shown at the picture below:

As you can see the portal is directed at the opposite side. We need the arrow to be turned at the room direction. To change the direction, we switch on Flip Light Flux Direction, and everything would became at the right places =) 

Next step is to select our portal and with pushed “Shift” key move it to the second window. 3ds max will offer us several types of copying. We choose "Instance".
Finally we set up daylight. Now we need to adjust it. Press "F10" and turn on Final Gather (FG) Global Illumination (GI). The settings are shown below. Don’t forget to reduce the quality of FG Precision Preset. 



Let’s put the resolution of picture 450 x 338 pixels and make the test render.

Push the “8” key and in "Environment" settings in "Exposure Control" section choose "mr Photographic Exposure Control". 

Click the render and look what we get  =)

for this render next exposure settings are corresponding: 

As we can see we got nothing special. The light is pale and ugly. For making the light more interesting we need to adjust the exposure control.  I remembered that I wanted to use an artificial light – to turn on the floor lamp near the sofa. The sun was preventing it that’s why I turned it off. Go to the daylight system settings and turn off "mr Sun Basic Parameters".

Press the “8” key again and adjust the exposure control as it shown at the picture below:

 

And look what we get: 

 

This one looks more interesting and the daylight seems to be more realistic  =) Now let’s move to floor lamp lighting settings. In artificial lighting I like to use photometric lights. Let’s pick up this one:

 

And let’s place it instead light bulb in floor lamp as it shown at the picture below: 

 

In lighting settings turn on the shadows "Ray Traced Shadows" in "Shape/Area Shadows» section setup the disk radius equal to 30 millimetres. Checked the "Light Shape Visible Rendering" and set up 64 samples. This setting will help us to achieve beautiful realistic shadows from the lamp.

Look what we get: 

 

We see that the lamp glow turn out white, but I wanted to make it more looking like simple lamp. For this we need to decrease the lighting temperature. Also we see that light is too intensive. With such camera exposure and daylight we should almost didn’t see it and now it looks like searchlight =)

 Again let’s open the photometric lights settings and set up the temperature and intensity.

Look what we have:

 

Now that’s what I want. The ideal lighting, I like it much, and what about you? The tint of orange and blue lights is the best combination in architectural visualization  =) 

I would like to add some special effects. For this let’s go to the render settings and in "Camera Effects" section check the  "Output" DefaultOutputShader ( Glare ) took the shader by the mouse and drop it in "Material Editor", and choose "Instance" type of copying.

Behind the windows set up the object “plane” this will be our background.

In “plane” object settings turn on check marks as it shown in the picture below: 

And set the material "Arch & Design" to it.

Make test render again and look what we get. For fast rendering I set up a gray material for all objects except background.

So we have a nice picture. A weak haze from glow effect makes picture more alive. Now let’s lookthrough material settings.

Material Settings

Now it’s time to look through the basic materials settings which I use in this scene.Let’s begin with the most interesting one.

The carpet -  As we can see from the grid the geometry is quite simple.

In the carpet the material "Arch & Design" with next settings was used:The diffuse map

In "Displacement" the next texture was used:

 

The Sofa - The Sofa’s grid is difficult one. I use two materials for it: the cloth and the wood for legs.



Let’s look at the textile material.

In diffuse slot drop down "Ambient/ Reflective Occlussion" shader and place two of the same type textures of textile inside it. The only one difference between them is that one is darker than the other. Settings you can see below:

The next parameters ambient occlusion and bump. 



Now the wooden legs.

In diffuse I use the simple parquet map. The settings you can see below:



The bump settings:




Coffee Table - Materials and grid of coffee table looks like this:

The glass is just the "Arch & Design" material/ we pick up the finished material as it shown at the picture below:

Journals - I wanted to create "Arch & Design" magazine, not spending much time for settings of material. I justused glossy plastic.

The magazines grid looks like this:



The settings are next:



The pages I painted with the same material only the diffuse color was changed to white.

Newspaper's box - The box is made from lacquering wood. I painted it with "ProMaterials" Hardwood.

Newspaper Grid



Promaterial Hardwood settings:



Also I used second material for the newspapers itself and made it mat.

The newspapers material settings:

The Flower - I used my favourite "Arch & Design" material again.

 

The settings you can see below:

The Window Shades - I made several experiments with window shades and finally I chose this variant: 

I use the clothes texture in diffuse map of material. Don’t forget about Ambient Occlusion parameter. =)

The Walls - I wanted to made the walls from the old plaster which was painted after. And again I have my favourite "Arch & Design". 

The wall map looks like this:



The reflection settings look like this:

The Parquet Material

 

The Floor Lamp - I used three materials for the floor lamp. These are the lampshade (cloth) upright (metal) and electricwire (plastic).



Let’s start with my favorite "Arch & Design" material – the textile on the lampshade. 

 

It is easy one: the color in diffuse, little transparence and bump. We can see in settings in the pictures below:

For the upright metal material I used ProMaterials: Metal. 

 

The material of plastic wires of floor lamp - ProMaterials: Plastic/Vinyl 

 

I would like to share a very useful link which concerns to materials in Mental Ray. It helps me many times, thanks for the founders of this site. www.mrmaterials.com . Now we finished with materials.

Final Render Settings

Now it’s time to increase render settings and make final render. At the picture below you can  see the settings:



 

 

Press render button and wait the result  =) 

The Composition

There are 10 main composition rules which you need to learn: 

1. Contrast - How you can attract the viewer to your picture?  You need to have a contrast in your scene. The light object should be on dark background and on the contrary. 


author: ms_Dessi 

2. Layout - The key objects should not be placed chaotically. It’s better that they would form a shape of simple geometric figure. 

3. Balance - The objects located in opposite sides of frame should correspond to each other with volume, size and color parameters. 

4. Golden Section - The golden section was known even in ancient Egypt. His properties were studied by Leonardo and Euclid. The simple definition is that the best point to place the object is one third from horizontal or vertical border of frame. The location of key objects in these points seems naturally and attracts the look.

 

5. The Diagonals - One of the most effective composition rule is the diagonal composition. The essence is simple –locate the key objects at the diagonal of frame. For example from the upper left corner to the right lower. This rule is good because it guides the viewer’s look through all the picture.




author: Feodor Ivaneev

6. The Frame Format - If in your scene the vertical objects are prevailing – use vertical format of the frame. And if there are a lot of horizontal objects – use horizontal format of the frame. 


author: Morro 

7. The Point of Shooting - The choice of the shooting point can affect at the emotional perception of the scene. Here are some simple rules. For personage render the best point is situated on the look level. For the full height portrait - the point should be situated on the level of belt. Try to crop the frame in such a way that the horizon won’t divide it for equal parts. Otherwise the viewer could hardly focus on the objects in scene. Try to settle the camera at the level of object otherwise you can get the distorted proportions. For example, if you will look at the object from higher point it seems to be shorter than in real. 


author: Feodor Ivaneev

8. The Direction - Our mind always reads from the left side to the right, in such a way also we perceive the picture. That’s why try to locate the key object in the right part of the frame. This will help the look and the key point to move towards.


author: Dmitry Schuka

9. The Color Spot - If we have some color spot in one part of the frame we need to have something which will attract theviewer’s look in the other side also. This could be some other color spot of some action in frame. 


author: Scionik

10. The Move in the Frame - If you decided to make some dynamic object (car or bicycle) always leave free space behind the object. This will give the feeling that objects is just now enter the frame and not leaving it. 


author: Aleksandr1 

All the works used with the permission of their authors!. 
Now let’s finish the composition and start to post processing the render. 

The Post Processing

Now it’s time to make our picture more interesting with the help of the post processing. I always do it in my everyday projects because there are some things that could be easier in Photoshop than in 3Ds Max.  So what that we have now  =)



The possibilities of Mental Ray are very wide and the picture almost didn’t require any additional effects. But I think it will be good to add several lens effects. This will give the feeling of real photo.  

I noticed that the picture is missing the effect of blue glow around the windows, so that’s why we will open our picture in "Fusion" software and use the "SoftGlow" effect. 

Press the polygon and outline the window as it shown at the picture below. We draw the mask to which the glow effect will be applied. 

 

The next step is to blur the mask borders. For this, press the icon, and in settings at the right part of the window, move the slider Soft Edge to the right direction until you will achieve the blur as I did.



Then, lets outline the mask for second window. We need to get the next result: 

Press the SoftGlow icon and adjust it like at the picture below:

 

We will get the nice glow around the windows. 



Again press the SoftGlow icon and use the effect for the whole picture. Adjust it in such a way that we achieve light blue glow for our picture.

Turn off the check marks for Red, Green and Alpha and move the Gain slider in the right direction. At picture below you can see the result in the left side – without effect and in the right side – after gain effect.



Then press the Sharpen icon add some sharpness to our picture and save the result.



Close the Fusion and let’s open our picture in Photoshop. We will use the Magic Bullet Photo Looks plug-in. 

We apply the Anamorphic Flare effect with the next settings: 



We get nice glow peculiar to real camera. Next step - let’s apply the Vignette effect and add little darkness in the corners of the picture. You can see all required setting in the right part of the picture.

Then we will use one interesting effect called Shutter Streak. It will give us little rays in the upper and lower part of our picture. 

 

Now it’s my favourite step =) We will apply the Chromatic Aberration effect and adjust it like at the picture below:



In picture with high resolution it will be almost unnoticeable but will give our work more realism. Press the button.

And save the picture.   That’s what I received:


source: http://www.cgarena.com/