I need ambient light in lightworks

[Anonymous]

I am working on 7 interior renderings for a presentation of a house to a client and I am having problems in light works getting the ambient light to light up the rooms, my ceilings are white, but they look black, I have spot lights located, so everything looks lit, except for my ceilings, I tried changing the ambient light, I set general lights inside the rooms at floor level, ceiling level and in the middle, I've change the size and angle of the lights, but with mixed results

Its my first time using light works for interiors and it is driving me nuts, can somebody guide me to obtain more natural light inside the rooms, I would really appreciated

Luis

[Ben Odonnell]

Luis,
Try using the camera light as well, found under render settings. It should give you more ambient light in your scene.

HTH.
Cheers.
Ben

[Anonymous]

Ben wrote:
Luis,
Try using the camera light as well, found under render settings. It should give you more ambient light in your scene.

HTH.
Cheers.
Ben

Thanks Ben, I am using the camera light at 30%, ambient at 60 and sun at 80%, although I have been changing this numbers to get results, I even added some window lights rotated at 90 deg. and it helped, but not enough, any other suggestion? I really appreciate it, my deadline is tomorrow night

[Ben Odonnell]

Luis,
Are you using the Lightworks light objects? If so you can set their height in degrees individually.

Try lowering the light angel and see if that helps.

Cheers.
Ben

[Dwight]

Don't use the camera light.

For brighter ceilings, shine a window light upward from head height.
Also, Lightworks has a quirk that white surface [undersides] are unreasonably dark. I made a high reflection white material for ceilings to combat this problem.

[Dwight]

and it doesn't hurt to add 20% actual ambient light from the photorendering dialog box.

BTW - in the ArchiCAD sun dialog, be sure that the archicad sun is set to white and ambient is slightly cool.

[Ben Odonnell]

Dwight wrote:
Don't use the camera light.

How come?

Cheers.
Ben

[Dwight]

Well, okay. Some guys might, but it is a crude tool for architectural visualization where some nod to realistic illumination is made.

Light emanating from the viewpoint is like a flash from a camera.
It is not environmental and looks cheap. Cheapandnasty. On the Atkinson scale of rendering sophistication, it is at the bottom of the "Mullet" range.

In cinema, the camera light is used for frontal close to medium shots in difficult light to fill actors faces. Most memorably, in the harsh Monument Valley during one of John Wayne's movies, they used a diffuse panel to fill his craggy visage, especially his deep eye sockets.

Recently, camera light was used in the film "Little Nicky" where Nicky visits three angels [light angel - a wonderful typo: like Tinkerbelle] in a polyester fibrefill "heaven." Everything needed a soft etheral quality so they used a circular array of those special high frequency fluorescents that are so popular for soft lighting, particularly in the exceptional film "Gummo," notable for its soft light.

[Dwight]

In case you think I am being too hard on the camera light method of rendering, it does have its uses. Here's a photo of the class at my last camera light seminar to really express how I feel about this tool.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I won't disagree with the master (completely), but I do think the camera light has its uses. Beyond mining, night-skiing, and night-time mountain ascents. 😉

For example, if you are not creating production level renderings, and do not want to take the time to place meaningful lights in a large, evolving structure: the camera light allows at least something to show up if you do a quick interior render. Suppose all you want to know is how the sunlight falls inside a room ... perhaps in a sun animation even ... and don't really care that the room looks nice: the camera lamp at least lets you see the interior so that you're oriented.

A very low camera light setting for a fill light, when directional lights are to the side (like the fill-flash that Dwight mentions) is another use.

But, for beautiful renderings, listen to Dwight and buy his book. 😉

Karl