topic Re: An old adage in Visualization

An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Thu, 11 May 2023 11:21:11 GMT

They used to say when taking photos "Always have the sun at your bacK" and so it would seem when using ArchiCAD's Lightworks rendering engine.

What I have found while trying to work on quite a large model is that the camera light is contradicting the shadows from the "real" sun position.
So you would think the solution would be to just switch off the camera light. Trouble is that the resulting image is dull as ditch water.

I have tried this on the example house project that comes with AC9 and it doesn't exhibit this problem nearly as much. As far as I can tell it does seem to be related to size/length of the project. Small good big bad.

Below I will post some of the resulting images I have made.

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:16:48 GMT

Same settings but no camera light It has a Lightworks Sun (no ArchiCAD sun) and a Lightworks Sky object as the previous image

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:29:42 GMT

I've marked in the attached image where there should be shadows not highlights as the Lightworks render engine has created as a result of using the camera light. Without the camera light the image is not useable at all

One other thing to look at in the first image is the difference in colour in teh stonework from one end of building to the other. The variation is due to the camera light "dropping off" with distance from the camera. I think this is why some of these problems are not apparent in small house images as the distances aren't very big

Re: An old adage

Dwight — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 19:28:12 GMT

instead of the horrid and amateur camera light [what is this? a kid's birthday party?] put in another sun object as a fill light or add strong skylight.

Don't use the LightWorks sun - use the sun object.

With a little practice, your project will be getting the gold medal.

The offer of help still stands.

Re: An old adage

Dwight — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:50:09 GMT

so this is what you get with yellow sun object at 40 and blueish sky object at 45. which is pretty close to it - a littl photoshop boost to the glare and lighten the shado might help...

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:33:21 GMT

Dwight wrote:
so this is what you get with yellow sun object at 40 and blueish sky object at 45. which is pretty close to it - a littl photoshop boost to the glare and lighten the shado might help...

Well I managed to give your settings a go and I've attached the result. which I'm pretty pleased with

One thing I don't know if anyone else has noticed is that sometimes when you do a photorender (while using a marquee) go back and adjust the model and then photorender again the image overexposes. If you select an element 3d view that and then use your marquee again everything goes back to normal when you photorender again. Is this just because I'm using the marquee or just my computer?

Re: An old adage

Ben Odonnell — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 17:39:48 GMT

fuzzytnth3,
It's all starting to look very nice. Good work.

Cheers.
Ben

Re: An old adage

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 19:30:49 GMT

Hi Fuzz,

It sounds like the lightworks sun & sky object are giving you some of the same frustration they gave me...

- If you use the marquee and do not include the sun/sky object, their lighting effects won't be included in your rendering

- Where you place the sun/sky object in plan seems to affect how the shadows are calculated. I have noticed that if my sun/sky objects are placed off to the side of my buildings, when I move around the building the direction indicators on the sun/sky object follow, but that shadows are cast incorrectly. I cannot tell if the height setting for the sun/sky objects is part of the problem (I think it is), but I have tried setting the object heights to 500' and placing them in the center of my buildings - the problem seems less pronounced, but not completely solved. Anyone have an answer?

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:36:50 GMT

wr1nkles wrote:
hey fuzz. Nice work man!

Only one thing i recon id like to see, and im no pro, but maybe a little wrapped bump map would give the walls a little depth?

cheers

nik

Thanks for the suggestion, I did a couple of tests earlier on with bump mapping in the stonework but it was a bit to strong plus when you look at ashlar stonework in Edinburgh the joints are usually only 2 or 3mm wide and the lime pointing is flush. So I decided to not use bump mapping.

I was actually thinking of reducing the joint width in my texture as I don't think it is looking to scale ie to thick at the mo

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:41:30 GMT

Don wrote:
Hi Fuzz,

It sounds like the lightworks sun & sky object are giving you some of the same frustration they gave me...

- If you use the marquee and do not include the sun/sky object, their lighting effects won't be included in your rendering

Thats interesting I've been given a job this morning of making a "lovely" photorendering by close of play today and I've been having exactly the problem you describe but it is also happening when I don't use a marquee.

I shall try positioning the Sky and Sun objects as you suggest and see if that sorts it out.

Thanks

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:43:44 GMT

Here is what I'm getting with a Sun and Sky objects using Dwight's setting.

Re: An old adage

Eduardo Rolon — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:09:36 GMT

I know that you are trying to get lightworks to work but there is an OS X only program that does radiosity and uses HDRI maps besides being a modeler. It is fast and relatively easy, lets you render in the background multiple images and it's price is only $80.00US. You can use it in demo mode and you can save the rendered image but it will not let you save the file. I am working with it right now to find it's limits.

http://homepage.mac.com/mwengenm/Cheetah3D/

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:20:25 GMT

Nah ha!!! None of the above worked and then I remembered that this job was started a few months back when we were still using AC7. So I did a new and reset and merged the old file in and now the Sky and Sun object are working!

The greased pig (to quote Dwight) is maybe tameable after all

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:43:28 GMT

ejrolon wrote:
I know that you are trying to get lightworks to work but there is an OS X only program that does radiosity and uses HDRI maps besides being a modeler. It is fast and relatively easy, lets you render in the background multiple images and it's price is only $80.00US.
http://homepage.mac.com/mwengenm/Cheetah3D/

I will check it out but to be honest what I like about using Lightworks in ArchiCAD is that it is in ArchiCAD! The boss here uses cad images like you would pencil doodles or sketches. Great for him hell for us that have to create 10 versions of the same building

I bet you on Monday everything I've done to day will be in the bin and I will be modelling completely diferrent buildings for this job. So the idea of having to import all the materials get their settings the way I want them in a second app is just to much of a pain.

For lovely radiosity renderings I use Strata 3d CX but for most jobs I don't get to use it as it can take to long to render.

Thanks for the heads up though

I've attached the post merged rendering. Lots to do fix the sky, the trees, the glass and replace all the peeps with photoshop jobs

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 11:31:19 GMT

Thought I would post the finished version.

The image is made up of two renderings one with the glass very transparent the other reflecting like a mirror. With the two renderings on separate layers in Photoshop with the glass areas set to "multiply" and by using the layer opacity slider I had instant feedback on what the finished glass would look like.

The Office interior was rendered separately and then a layer mask added to the windows with a gradient fill to show some of the ceiling reflected on the glass but not the rest of the office space as I didn't have time to do furniture layouts.

Re: An old adage

Dwight — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:13:26 GMT

With all due respect, this is a great way to "fake" what your boss HOPES the glass will look like.

Just like every great illustrator would do.

While the motto of my first book was "Just a bunch of dots," the truth I discovered on this one is "It's all fake!"

Sad when an old man gets cynical.

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:52:25 GMT

What I'm finding is that the more realistic and accurate I try to get an image the more problems I hit with the boss and so I have to fake it to keep him happy.

In the example above the mullions were originally a realistic size of 50x150mm. The boss wanted them more "slender" the eventual size he liked was 20x20mm! Not exactly realistic but he is now happy.

This leads onto the problem of realistic lighting again in the example above, I had gone down the route of thinking like a photo where outside would be brighter than inside. The bosses reaction to the image "the office space is to dark"

I did an office interior a while back using Strata CX the interior hadn't been built and my visual was to show what it would look. The funny thing was the boss said the ceiling was to dark in my image and so I had to fake in lots of lights to brighten up the ceiling. When the office interior was built we got some professional photos done which the boss didn't like because the ceiling was to dark!

Re: An old adage

Dwight — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 15:14:41 GMT

In our twelve step program ArchiCAD Anonymous, the anonymite needs to acknowledge that ArchiCAD has made his life unmanageable.

Then we give him the twelve punches.

With regard to your boss: Let me do the holding.

Does he have similar problems understanding gravity?

Recently I was involved in a transit station where a high aluminum curtain wall needed to be reinforced with steel sections inserted up into the mullions because the system specified aluminum section was all we could use. Still too shakey for me. Somebody's boss.

Re: An old adage

fuzzytnth3 — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 15:56:18 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Does he have similar problems understanding gravity?

It would seem so

A colleague here thinks that the boss knows something we don't as there appears to be a wonder material that can span 20 metres while carrying ten storeys of building, its completely fire resistant, looks like glass or not and its only 2mm thick.

Trouble is our boss keeps designing buildings using it

Re: An old adage

Dwight — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:49:24 GMT

I know it well: phlogiston!
Many of Canada's economic policies use it as foundation material.