Author Topic: Bird Flight Exterior Lighting  (Read 3611 times)

2016-05-31, 21:50:03

darrentomkins

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Hi Guys,

I am having a hell of a time trying to get a birds eye view render done of an exterior building (or street).

All my ground shot exterior lighting looks great but as soon as your up in the sky looking down the render just looks horrible. The lighting is too harsh but even dropping the intensity nad fiddling with setting isn't making it look any better. I don't know if it can't be done out of the renderer and it is a post thing with heavy AO or what it is but PLEEEEAASSEEE help :(

2016-05-31, 22:37:49
Reply #1

TomG

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Any chance you could share sample images? Or are they not shareable due to the terms of the project?
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2016-05-31, 23:12:28
Reply #2

darrentomkins

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Hi TomG, they are not supposed to go out due to the project but if you keep them to yourself i'd really appreciate the help. I don't know if it's harsh lighting or dark shadows or just posting right with a more spread AO pass... I'm really stuck :(

Test 3 and 4 are right out of the render. Camera_6 is posted but still not looking hot :(

2016-06-01, 20:35:35
Reply #3

TomG

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Now bear in mind I am no render magician like some others on the forum :) But here are my thoughts

What lighting  set up do you have? I'd be going for just Corona sun and sky.

I think the trees look good here though, which perhaps points to texturing being a large part of the look of the other objects rather than the lighting being a problem. The walls, roofs, pathway and grass in particular look fairly flat and even in colour, whereas the trees have lots of detail to them so look good.

Some pronounced tiling on the roofs would be good, the pathway by the road could use either slabs or some variation in colour to give it some texture, the grass could have more of a bump (or at least a stronger variation in the colours that it has), the walls of the houses might be ok with those other changes, though some variation in colour there might be good, a bit of noise or bump.

I also think the pathways have edges that are too straight and prounced, same with the river (and there are some polygon edges visible back there where it curves). A bit of displacement or just modeling in some variation to the river bank would be good, some smoothing with opensubdiv or turbosmooth for the river banks. For the path edges, either some slight scattered objects for stray grass blades (could even be just planes with a transparency map rather than full geometry) - anything that would give a rougher edge there, something a little less "CGI perfect"

Same with the hedges too now I look, they look a bit too smooth and even.

Hope something here helps!

Just my thoughts on it!
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2016-06-01, 20:47:11
Reply #4

TomG

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PS - I preferred lighting in the first 2 images over the camera 6.

PPS - Do bear in mind that this is a public forum, so choose carefully what you share, as it is open to anyone to see it. For protected works, you could get in touch via email or private message to send things along that aren't seen by all.
Tom Grimes | chaos-corona.com
Product Manager | contact us

2016-06-01, 21:13:49
Reply #5

Edvinas

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Nice comments by TomG.

First of all, grab real aerial photo on google.images with desired mood and lighting. Analyse it hardly.

Having sun behind the camera, as you see, causes very flat view because there is no visible shadows at all. Also try fixing shadow bluriness, since it is too sharp in first images and too blurry in last one. I see that you are trying to add kind of fog, it is good. But in real life it would have blue/cyan tint.

Basicly, for aerials you have to work hard on textures, dirts and tilling things.

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2016-06-02, 16:55:44
Reply #6

darrentomkins

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Guys,Thank You so much for the advice, I really do appreciate it. Jeez, these aerial views are tough compared to ground ones. Maybe just because we are not used to seeing that view so it's hard to tell what looks right or wrong ;)