An old adage

[fuzzytnth3]

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.

[fuzzytnth3]

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

[fuzzytnth3]

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

[Dwight]

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.

[Dwight]

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...

[fuzzytnth3]

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?

[Ben Odonnell]

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

Cheers.
Ben

[Anonymous]

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?

[fuzzytnth3]

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

[fuzzytnth3]

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