Andrzej Sykut - Lighting La Ruelle - 3D Max - VRay - 2011

- Free Scene & TexturesThis download includes the original scene files and textures + the artist final scene setting up

+ v-ray

This series of five tutorials will focus on the topic

of outdoor lighting and more specifically the task

of setting up different light rigs to reflect a variety

of weather scenarios. Each of the chapters will

use the same base scene as a starting point and

show a step by step guide to finding a lighting

and rendering solution to describe a set time of

day under different conditions ranging from a

damp foggy night to sunset / sunrise.

The tutorials will explain the type of lights used

and how to set up their parameters alongside

the combined rendering settings in order to

achieve an effective result. The manipulation

of textures will also be covered in order to turn

a daylight scene into night for example, as

well as a look at some useful post production

techniques in Photoshop in order to enhance a

final still.

Chapter 1 | This IssueFog/Mist at Night-Time

Chapter 2 | Next IssueSunrise/Sunset

Chapter 3 | March Issue 055Moonlight

Chapter 4 | April Issue 056Midday Sun

Chapter 5 | May Issue 057 Overcast

www.3dcreativemag.com Issue 053 January 2010

Environment Lighting: Outdoor Scene - Chapter 1: Fog/Mist (Damp) at Night-Time

Chapter 1 - Fog/Mist (Damp) at Night-TimeSoftware Used: 3ds Max + V-Ray

Before placing a single light in 3d software, its

good to spend a while, looking at the scene,

and thinking, imagining a bit. The assignment is

pretty clear fog/mist (damp), at night - thats

the prime directive. But that is not all that

matters. Composition of the image is important,

regardless of the lighting scenario we have

to achieve and that too can influence light

placement, strength and color. Visual style and

art direction is important also is it supposed

to look real, photo real, stylized? Finding some

reference can suggest a few ideas about how

to achieve our task. Its also good to think about

the technical aspects is it going to be a still

image, or is it for animation, should it render

really fast, or maybe we have some computing

power at our disposal? But nowadays, when

the computers are fast, its not always that

important.

So how does all that theory work in a real life

case? Lets take a look at the viewport capture

(Fig.01) of our scene. First important things

I noticed, were the lamp (marked red), and

cobbled street surface (marked red, as well).

The street would be a great tool to suggest the

dampness, while the lamp would make a nice

main light source, especially if it could cast a

highlight on the road surface. That lamp would

not be enough, so Ive decided to suggest more

lamps along the street, just behind the archway

(that should give us a nice depth in the image),

marked blue. Also, I decided to light up some

windows. But which ones should I choose? The

square one facing the camera (green), or one

of the two on the right side (orange)? I dont

want any lit windows on the walls facing the

camera (marked violet) that would break the

composition thats starting to form in my head,

by leading the eye towards the edges of the

image.

That still does not cover all the light that should

be in the scene. We need some ambient

lighting, to suggest we are outdoors. I dont

mean ambient settings in the 3d software, but

rather the light coming from the environment:

sky, moon, distant city lights, that kind of thing.

In our case, it should come from above, and

slightly from the front. The way I see it, artificial

lights should be warm, the ambient neutral,

or slightly cold/blue. The final tuning of that

balance will be handled in post-production. And

we need the fog this is crucial, without fog all

the above would give us a clear night after the

rain.

To render the scene, Im using 3dsmax with

Vray. Recent releases of Vray contain a very

nice tool VrayEnvironmentFog. Its main

advantage over standard max fog is that it

reacts to the light sources, just like real life fog.


Outdoor Scene - Chapter 1: Fog/Mist (Damp) at Night-Time: Environment Lighting

That means we wont have to fake it by using

volume lights and old-style fog we will work

with lights, and let Vray handle the heavy lifting

of providing the atmosphere. Note of caution

here. While VrayEnvironmentFog can produce

very nice images, it also can take a long time to

render, especially when there are a lot of light

sources, not mentioning the GI. For now in the

initial steps it can stay off, we will add it later on.

First thing I usually do, is set the Color Mapping

to Exponential (Fig.02). While this isnt probably

the most physically correct way, it has some

advantages. The way it works, is by preventing

over bright hotspots, and oversaturated color

transitions. Its also very tolerant its really

hard to whiteout the image, and the lights have

a very wide range of usable multiplier/strength

settings (but that range often ends up being

pretty high, like 512 or so, especially with the

fog on). It has downsides, too, making the

colors look desaturated, and decreasing the

contrast of the image. I actually like it that way,

because I can easily bring back the contrast

and saturation in post production, and for some

scenes it just fits but if you dont like it, theres

HSV exponential mode, which better retains the

color. Generally though, I mainly use the default

setting with Linear Multiply for rendering some

additional passes such as masks.

Next thing was to set up the road

surface (Fig.03). A simple Vray material,

VrayDisplacement modifier, and we are good

to go.

First light Ive placed was the spherical Vray

Light in place of the main lamp (Fig.04). I

started with a very, very saturated orange. I

actually did it with the all other lights as well I

have a tendency to use strong, colored lights

that sometimes get the better of me. That

usually gets fixed in later stages. That first light

was duplicated along the stairway, lighting up

the way into the image. It took some tweaking of

their placement and strength - finally I decided

to place them on the left wall, and add one on

the right (Fig.05).

Now its time for the windows. I started by

placing a Plane (default type) Vray Light in place

of the closer window on the right wall (Fig.06)

kind of by accident really, as it was supposed

to be the other window. But that placement

gave me a nice illumination of the left building,

picking up the bump detail there, so I decided

to keep it. I did try the other window, but didnt



like it as it lit the arch wall way too much. The

same way I lit up the little square window above

the arch (Fig.07). A little trick here. As you

may have noticed, I use double-sided lights.

Its just for preview purposes, as it illuminates

the window behind it, giving me a clue that the

window is bright without me having to do it the

proper way. It looks wrong, but good enough to

experiment with placing window lights, and will

be fixed shortly.

Somewhere at this stage, Ive turned the fog on.

It took me a while to find the right settings its

good to know general scene dimensions, but

its a case of trial and error (Fig.08). Its worth

noticing, that the fog absorbs quite a lot of light,

making the image darker than before and requiring some adjustment to

the lights main light intensity was bumped up to 700.

Another solution is to adjust the exposure. To do that in Vray, we need

to use VRayPhysicalCamera, which allows us to work in a photographic

manner setting f-number, ISO, and shutter speed, among others. I

aligned it to the original camera using the Align tool - but it still needed

some offset to match. After some attempts, I settled on the settings

pictured in (Fig.09). VRayPhysicalCamera also provides the settings for

vignetting, very handy even if it will be finely tuned during post production.

While playing with exposure, we may continue with a more photographic

approach, and change the white balance. When doing night photography,

playing with WB can give nice, rich colors in seemingly plain light (Fig.10).

I took these photos using Shaded / Cloudy settings, and tried to achieve

some of that look in the scene, even if it was a starting to look bit too

warm.

To illuminate the fog a bit, we need more light we need the

aforementioned ambient light. But we are not going to use the Ambient

setting, nor will we use a Skylight solution. Sky will be handled by a big

Vray Light above the whole scene, colored teal (Fig.11), and one smaller

Vray Light, angled slightly towards the camera, placed just above the


Outdoor Scene - Chapter 1: Fog/Mist (Damp) at Night-Time: Environment Lighting

Sure, but looks good, and I couldnt achieve it

with the main lamp placed where its placed in

the scene. If it was a real life movie set, it would

probably be handled in a similar way by placing

a light source just so.

roof. Moonlight will be done using a standard

Max Directional light, placed above the camera.

Because I dont want the front facing walls to

be lit too much, I built a simple shadow-caster

object, simulating the other side of the street

(Fig.12). For placing such lights, where shadow

is even more important than the light, its good

to use viewport shadows display. I use it for

almost all lights in the scene, but it really works

well with one or two as with any more they tend

to cancel each other out.

I didnt want any direct light on the front facing

walls, but I wanted to suggest some world off

screen. I used three Omni lights, projecting

a quickly stitched image of tree branches, to

simulate some streetlights hidden behind the

trees (Fig.13).

At this stage with the main light sources in

place, I took the low quality rendering into

Photoshop, and started tweaking a bit. I quickly

confirmed that most of the colors were way too

saturated, producing an image that was way

too warm. Quick try with Adjustment Layers

provided the direction I should try (Fig.14). I

also noticed that the side walls could use some

specularity to accentuate the damp feeling and

that there was no nice main specular on the

street...

I proceeded to fix those things. Light colors got

desaturated and even turned slightly blue. The

light coming from the sky was now almost gray.

The lack of specular on the street was fixed

by duplicating the main light, turning off Affect

Diffuse option, and using the Place Highlight tool

to position it in the right spot (Fig.15). Fake?

The whole composition was starting to look

unbalanced, gravitating towards the right side.

I therefore added a light in the doorway down

on the street level to the left in order to balance

it a bit. Theres also an angled box, invisible to



the camera, shaping the hotspot to resemble an

open door yet another trick here (Fig.16).

The walls were turned into a Shellac Material,

with a VrayMtl in the shellac slot (Fig.17). After

some tweaking, I achieved a nice looking, damp

wall, catching the highlight from that little square

window.

The image was starting to look quite good

now but a few tweaks were still required. The

metal railings needed a reflective VrayMtl, the

little metal roof high above the street needed

to look wet, too. But the main problem was my

preview windows. I solved that by turning the

lights to be single sided, and duplicating them.

The duplicate is way weaker, as it serves only to

illuminate the wall recession around the window.

Now whats behind the window is another fake

its simply a self-illumination map, using a photo

of a window from the outside, at night (Fig.18).

Itll do for a still image, but it wont hold up for

camera movement we would need at least

some simple interior then. Fortunately we are

working with a still this time.

A few more slight tweaks remained I

constantly find something to tweak, even if

those things are too small to write about, they

are always there. Change the hue here, by a

tiny bit, tweak the material there, that kind of

stuff. When thats done, we can try to finally

render the image at higher resolution. This

scene is quite time-consuming to render, due

to the fog overnight is a good idea. For test

renders, I use low resolution, fixed image

sampling, and lowered subdivs in the fog. Again,

note of caution Fixed sampling produces a lot

of bright noise in specular areas appearing as

though there should be nice, crisp detail when

you do a full render. Much of this disappears

and gets filtered down and smoothed, providing

a much softer looking result in the end. This is

something to bear in mind and so be prepared

to do more than one higher quality render. The

image took 22 hours to render, but I used a

3-year old machine.

Most of the post-production I had already

sorted out, throwing my test renders into

that first PSD test-image. I used a few radial

gradients to enhance the atmosphere, some

color corrections to bring back the cold, blue

hues, upping the gamma a bit, overlaying some

photographic smoke images, some subtle

chromatic aberration - simple things, really,

but as always, crucial to a good looking image.

(Fig.19) shows most of the things I added. The

final image is on (Fig.20).

Id like to point out that this image does not use

GI. Sure, it wouldnt do any harm but it works

quite well even without it, mainly due to the fog

which adds some bright fill to the scene. Apart

from this its nighttime whereupon the bounced

light is way weaker than during the daytime (no

sun, no bright sky).

Tutorial by:

Andrzej SykutFor more from this artist visit:

http://azazel.carbonmade.com/

Or contact them:

[email protected]

- Free Scene & TexturesThis download includes the original scene files and textures + the artist final scene setting up

- Free Scene & TexturesThis download includes the artist final scene set up + textures

+ v-ray


















final still.

Chapter 1 | January Issue 053Fog/Mist at Night-Time

Chapter 2 | This IssueSunrise/Sunset

Chapter 3 | Next IssueMoonlight

Chapter 4 | April Issue 056Midday Sun


www.3dcreativemag.com Issue 054 February 2010

Environment Lighting: Outdoor Scene - Chapter 2: Sunrise / Sunset

Chapter 2 - Sunrise / SunsetSoftware Used: 3ds Max + V-Ray

Before placing a single light in a 3d software,

its good to spend a while, looking at the scene,

and thinking, imagining a bit. The assignment

is pretty clear - sunset/sunrise - thats the

prime directive. But that is not all that matters.

Composition of the image is important,



placement, strength and color. Visual style, art

direction is important as well is it supposed

to look real, photo real, stylized? Finding

some reference can suggest few ideas, how

to achieve our task. Its also good to think

about technical aspects is it going to be a still

image, or is it for animation, should it render

really fast, or maybe we have some computing

power at our disposal? But nowadays, when

the computers are fast, its not always that

important.

So how does all that theory work in real life

case? Well, there are two most obvious (and

easy to recognize) ways of showing a sunset.

In the first one, the sun is behind the camera.

The shadows of the buildings, especially off-

screen ones, can become a very important

element of the scene. Because there are parts

of the image in warm sunlight, and some in the

cooler shadows, there can be quite a lot of color

variation (Fig.01), and the contrast isnt very

high. Second approach, we are looking at the

sun theres a lot of bright light, things are shiny

(because of the glancing angle of the sun rays),

there are nice, long shadows, and the overall

contrast can be quite high, but there can be little

in a way of color variation (Fig.02). Both ways

differ in mood quite a bit - of course, you can

choose somewhere in between it depends on

the scene, and on the story you want to tell.

There are similarities, too. In both cases, sun

is our main (key) light source. Sky acts as a

fill but the ratio between the two is different.

This looks like a great candidate to use Vray

Sun&Sky system as a base of our light setup, at

least at first glance. While it should work for the

first scenario, it may not be flexible enough for

the second one in that particular scene. The

arch at the end of the street blocks the horizon,

(Fig.03, marked red) and whole scene would be

in shadow... unless we try something else.


Outdoor Scene - Chapter 2: Sunrise / Sunset: Environment Lighting

Lets start with the first approach.


Vray, with GI turned on. I most often use

Irradiance Map for first bounce and Brute Force

for the secondary bounces that is the default

setting, which works for me in most cases

(Fig.04 preview setting). Detailed settings, like

number of bounces, or Irradiance Map size of

course vary over time low quality for previews,

higher for final rendering. For still images, as

in this case, I try to use fastest (lowest) setting

possible, while still getting acceptable result.

For animation, the Medium Animation setting is

usually safe, flicker free option. I also use a hint

of global Ambient Occlusion to add some detail

to shadowed parts of the image.

Next thing I did was setting the Color Mapping

to Exponential (Fig.05). While this isnt probably

the most physically correct way, it has some

advantages. The way it works, it prevents

overbright hotspots, and oversaturated color

transitions. Its also very tolerant its really hard

to whiteout the image, and the lights have a very

wide range of usable multiplier/strength setting

(but that range often ends up being pretty high,

like 512 or so, especially with the fog on). It

has downsides, too, making the colors look

desaturated, and decreasing the contrast of the

image. I actually like it that way, because I can

easily bring back the contrast and saturation in

post production, and for some scenes it just fits

but if you dont like it, theres HSV exponential

mode, which keeps the colors better. Generally,

though, main use I have for default, Linear

Multiply, is rendering some additional passes,

like masks.

Then, Ive set up the road surface (Fig.06).

A simple Vray material, VrayDisplacement

modifier, and we are good to go. I also added

some reflections to the windows (using blend

material, VrayMtl for the windows, and a b&w

mask). Metal parts, like railings and lamp also

use shiny, reflective VrayMtl.



Now its time to create the sun. Lets choose VraySun. The pop-up will

appear, asking about adding VraySky in the Environment slot I hit

OK, since Ill need it. Next I switched VraySky to manual sun node, and

pointed the newly created VraySun as the sun node (Fig.07). To have a bit

more control, I used two variants of the sky one for lighting, using Vrays

environment override, and one to be visible. The difference is in the sun

intensity multiplier.

To position the sun, its good to display shadows in the viewport

(Fig.08). That way I can see the shadows in real-time, and finding a

nice composition is really fast... but wait, theres nothing that could cast

shadows on our street. Its easy to fix just draw few skyline-shaped,

angular splines, and extrude them a bit, then place roughly where the

other side of the street would be, and tweak from there (Fig.09). Here I

chose the to have a nice, lit path into the image, and dark shapes on both

sides.

Before rendering anything, I created VRayPhysicalCamera, so I could

control the brightness of the scene in more intuitive way (as I have a

bit of photographic experience). The settings pictured on (Fig.10) took

some trial and error to get them right generally, if the scene is more-

or less build in real world scale, the settings that would work if we were

to take a photo of that scene in real life, are a good starting point. The

Vignetting option is quite useful here, darkening the corners of the image,

and focusing the viewers attention at the central part of the image. I also

adjusted the sun brightness, and size, to get nice, soft shadows.



Lets see what weve got (Fig.11). Not that bad, but could be better Id

like some more blue in the shadows, and some more light in the central

part of the image. I added a big blueish Vray Light above and to the front

of the scene (Fig.12). This gives more color variation, and, as it is, looks

more like a sunrise, - but its easy to go back into sunset territory, with few

tweaks in post-production. Another, smaller light further along the street

(Fig.13) lights up the arch wall, which was bit too dark for my taste. Ive

also added a small light behind the arch, so theres no big flat dark spot in

the center of the image (Fig.14).



Now, lets take the image into Photoshop,

and see what we can do with it. Using Curves

Adjustment Layer, I brought down most of the

blue/violet from the shadows, giving the whole

image a warmer tone (Fig.15), played with

vignetting, and some glows, and heres the final

result: (Fig.16). All in all, this wasnt too hard,

was it?



The second scenario is bit more tricky. Lets

start with the scene Ive just finished, and

remove all lights except the sun. If I set the

sun where I want it, and render, the colors are

all wrong cold, blue, instead of war browns

and oranges. Simply the sun is too high to

have proper warm color (Fig.17). If I swap the

VraySun for the standard Directional Light, I

can have full control of its color. I replaced the

VraySky (the one doing the lighting, in Vray

override tab) with a HDR photo of a sunset

(To be honest, the scene would probably work

even without it, as its effect is subtle, and most

of the lighting will be done by hand. Still, its

some starting point.), bumped up the Primary

Bounces multiplier, played with AO settings, and

Vray camera settings (Fig.18) - and the colors

start to look right, but the scene is way too dark

(Fig.19). The walls of the street are in shade...

as they probably should, but Id like them to

catch some light, so I put a squashed, spherical

Vray Light under the arch (Fig.20). The right

wall has a slightly reflective material (added as

a Shellac to the base shader), so there is a nice

detailed pattern there.

Another light was placed above the roof, to

throw some back-light on the wall on the right

(Fig.21).



Yet another, quite big one, placed above the

street, simulates the light coming from the

sky (Fig.22) - but its not enough, so theres

another, even bigger one above the camera,

facing the scene, providing some fill light on the

forward-facing parts (Fig.23). Using big area

lights has some advantages you can add light

coming from certain direction, but without sharp

shadows, which would clutter the image, and

without a very characteristic in CG, point/spot

light distribution, which is not always desired.

Besides, it works like a big softbox/bounce in

real world, either in photography studio, or on

a movie set. The downside is rendertime, and

sometimes noise, if the sampling of the shadows

is not good enough.

Before final rendering, I tweaked the backlight

above the roof a bit less saturation, bit more

intensity, and rotated it a bit no big deal,

really. Theres another problem here a light

bleeding in the corner. To fix that, I could

use higher quality Irradiance Maps, or try to

use Detail Enhancement - at the expense of

rendertime but as the image will be rendered

in high resolution, the settings I have now,

should be enough (at high resolutions, even

the low Irradiance Map settings provide enough

information to get a clean rendering). Actually,

Ive lowered them even more, but that required

some slight fixing to be done.

What the scene lacks is some atmosphere I

left that for the very end, for the postproduction

stage. I rendered a Zdepth pass, and added

slight fog in Photoshop (Fig.24), along with

some other simple tweaks. - and the final image

looks like (Fig.25).

Seeing those two approaches, we can draw

some conclusions. The automatic Sun/Sky

system is a great starting point, and in some

cases, its probably good enough by itself. But

as good as it is, it is not always flexible enough,

and some scenes will greatly benefit from few

well placed additional lights and some will

have to be lit mostly by hand which is not that

hard, once you have a clear direction of what

you want to achieve. And thats where some

research can be very helpful.

Tutorial by:



Or contact them:

[email protected]



+ v-ray


















final still.


Chapter 2 | February Issue 054Sunrise/Sunset

Chapter 3 | This IssueMoonlight

Chapter 4 | Next IssueMidday Sun


www.3dcreativemag.com Issue 055 March 2010

Environment Lighting Outdoor Scene - Chapter 3: Moonlight

Chapter 3 - MoonlightSoftware Used: 3ds Max + V-Ray

Before placing a single light in a piece of 3d

software, its good to spend a while, looking

at the scene, and thinking, imagining a bit.

The assignment is pretty clear moonlight

is the prime directive. But that is not all that

matters. Composition of the image is important,



placement, strength and color. Visual style and

art direction is important as well is it supposed

to look real, photo real, stylized? Finding some

reference can suggest a few ideas, how to

achieve our task. Its also good to think about

technicals is it going to be a still image, or is

it for animation, should it render really fast, or

maybe we have some computing power at our

disposal? But nowadays, when the computers

are fast, thats not always a problem.

Creating a moonlit scene can be tricky. There

are few reasons for that:

- We dont often see moonlight at work. Sure, full

moon nights with clear sky are common enough,

but light pollution is even more common. Street

lamps and other man-made light sources are

much stronger, and at night, its those that are

most visible. Even in the countryside, youll most

likely see a glow from the nearby city or village.

So pure moonlight is a rare sight.

- At night, human eye sees much less colors

than film or digital sensor can see. Hence, what

we see, and what we can photograph, can be

two different things.

- If we try to photograph a moonlit scene, and

use long enough exposure time, well get an

image looking almost like daylight, with tell-tale

arcs left by stars, as the earth rotates. That kind

of image, while it can be quite interesting, may

not be instantly recognizable as moonlit night.

- Well, its night, its dark we have to be careful,

or the image will end up dim and low-contrast,

with no depth and no colors. Not a very nice

prospect.

So what can we do to, if we need moonlight?

Then same thing the filmmakers do, when

shooting a night scene create the feeling, the

impression of moonlit night, using some well

known visual clues.

- Color palette is crucial dark, often almost

monochromatic, usually cool (most often in

muted gray-blue hues, sometimes muted green

shades as well), with few strong highlights.

Saturation is usually quite low.

- Key light is quite strong, but is usually placed

at an angle, or even at the back strong back

light is quite characteristic here. Having the

moon in the frame nicely motivates said back

light.

- Also worth noting, such light will be at gazing

angle to many surfaces in the scene, and will

catch a strong highlight on the shiny ones.

Special case of such surface is water it

can reflect the moon in a really beautiful way,

and, being very bright, can help balance the

composition, acting as a visual counterweight

to the bright moon face.

- Shadows are important. The Moon usually

produces sharp shadows, unless its covered

by clouds, which can soften the shadows quite

a bit.

- Fill is quite weak, so by contrast, the highlights

seem brighter. For characters, a warm fill might

work well.

- Atmosphere (fog, mist, smoke) can be very

useful, allowing us to use silhouettes of the

objects but its usage depends on the required

mood. You can achieve quite striking images by

working with silhouettes alone.

When looking at a night scene, we kind of

expect to find some of the above properties.

We are used to them, by years of watching

the movies or paintings (just take a look at

nocturne paintings by Grimshaw or Turner -

(Fig.01), compared to actual photos). And if we

want our setting to be instantly recognizable,

and visually attractive, its often good to keep

them in mind.

Now lets take a look at our scene (Fig.02). No


Outdoor Scene - Chapter 3: Moonlight Environment Lighting

above rules are more like guidelines than law,

and you can bend or break them, if you know

what you want to achieve.


Vray, with GI turned on. I most often use

Irradiance Map for first bounce, and Brute

Force for the secondary bounces that is the

default setting, which works for me in most

cases (Fig.03 preview settings). Detailed

settings, like number of bounces, or Irradiance

Map size of course vary over time low quality

for previews, higher for final rendering. For

still images, as in this case, I try to use fastest

(lowest) setting possible, while still getting

acceptable result. For animation, the Medium

Animation setting is usually safe, flicker free

option. I also use a hint of global Ambient

Occlusion to add some detail to shadowed parts

of the image.

One of the first things I usually do is setting

the Color Mapping to Exponential (Fig.04).

While this isnt probably the most physically

correct way, it has some advantages. The way

it works, it prevents over bright hot spots,

and over saturated color transitions. Its also

very tolerant its really hard to whiteout the

water surface here and only a tiny piece of the

sky. We could try to use moon as a back light,

but it could only reach a tiny part of the scene,

with most of it left in the dark. That could work,

but Id like to try something else. Something like

a light coming from the side, filtered through the

tree branches, with slightly soft shadows. Not

much in a way of interesting silhouettes to play

with, so some direct light will be needed. And as

its light thats important here, not atmosphere,

the fog will be very subtle. As youll see, the

image, and the lights have a very wide range of

usable multiplier/strength setting (but that range

often ends up being pretty high, like 512 or so,

especially with the fog on). It has downsides,

too, making the colors look desaturated, and

decreasing the contrast of the image. I actually

like it that way, because I can easily bring back

the contrast and saturation in post production,

and for some scenes it just fits but if you dont

like it, theres HSV exponential mode, which

keeps the colors better. Generally, though,

main use I have for default, Linear Multiply, is

rendering some additional passes, like masks.

The scene needed some preparations adding

VrayDisplacement to the street surface, some

reflections to the windows (using blend material,

VrayMtl for the windows, and a b&w mask).

Metal parts, like railings and lamp also got a

shiny, reflective VrayMtl.

Before rendering anything, I created

VRayPhysicalCamera, so I could control the

brightness of the scene in more intuitive way (as

I have a bit of photographic experience). The

settings pictured on (Fig.05) took some trial and

error to get them right generally, if the scene

is more-or less build in real world scale, the


Environment Lighting Outdoor Scene - Chapter 3: Moonlight

settings that would work if we were to take a photo of that scene in real

life, are a good starting point. The Vignetting option is quite useful here,

darkening the corners of the image, and focusing the viewers attention at

the central part of the image here, I used it very sparingly.

I started lighting by setting up the fill (Fig.06) in this case, a HDR image

of a night city. In nicely introduces some subtle color variation. We need

to add some geometry to block it from the front, though as in real life,

where buildings on the other side of the street would occlude some of the

sky.

Next in line was the moon. It took some tries to find a nice angle, but the

time it takes can be shortened by enabling Viewport Shadows display

(Fig.07). The Moon is a standard blue-colored directional light, with Vray

shadows, and hotspot tweaked to the scene size. I used a tiled black and

white image of tree branches in the projection slot (Fig.08). The projected

image is blurred a bit, to match the real shadow softness. Notice how

nicely the bump mapping on the walls work thats one of the benefits of

light angled to the side (or raking light, as its sometimes called).

And as a last tweaks, I added an area light behind the arch, above the

stairs, so they catch a nice subtle highlight, adding a bit of depth to the

scene (Fig.09), and increased main light multiplier a bit. I was considering

adding some man-made light source, like a window-light or the street

lamp, but in the end, I decided against it it would have lessened the

impact of the moonlight in the scene.

In post production, I did some subtle color correction, adding some red

and green to the shadows, and blue/cyan to the highlights it works quite

well, even if its the opposite of what Id do on a normal, daylight image.

I also added a hint of fog using Zdepth pass, some highlight glow, some

grain, and a tiny amount of chromatic aberration simple tweaks, really

(Fig.10).

As it turns out, achieving a moonlit scene was

quite easy, with just two light sources and some

GI (Fig.11 final image). While technically

simple, that kind of scene requires some

pondering and a bit of cheating I tried to think

about our scene as a movie set, not only as a

real street late at night.

Tutorial by:



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+ v-ray


















final still.


Chapter 2 | February Issue 054Sunrise/Sunset

Chapter 3 | March Issue 055Moonlight

Chapter 4 | This IssueMidday Sun

Chapter 5 | Next Issue Overcast

www.3dcreativemag.com Issue 056 April 2010

Environment Lighting Outdoor Scene - Chapter 4: Midday Sun

Chapter 4- Midday SunSoftware Used: 3ds Max + V-Ray

This months assignment is midday sunlight

the kind you could see every day, if you are

lucky. But since its so common sight, well

have to be careful not to make it too plain. Of

course, if you are working for a client/director,

they may have another vision, but Id like the

image to look good, maybe stylized a bit instead

of plain, but realistic. The stylization I have in

mind lies in color correction I like the colors

of old film photos, like those on the (Fig.01),

so Ill try to incorporate some of that look in

our image. It comes from many sources from

using Lomo camera, which was my childhood

toy, way before becoming hip ;), from processing

your film in wrong chemicals (so-called

cross-processing), or from the film itself, often

producing some color casts/distortions. This has

little to do with the 3d part, and a lot to do with

post-production, so more on that later.

Lighting-wise, midday sunlight is pretty simple,

strong sun as a key light, blues sky, leading to

blue-tinted, hard-edged shadows. Thats it...

well, not yet. Composition, as usual, is most

important. The mentioned hard shadows can

be pretty intense, creating shapes of their own.

Those shapes can either hurt the composition,

becoming a distraction, or help it, guiding the

eye to the focal parts of the image. Fortunately,

its easy to try various sun positions quickly.

Besides... those shadows quite often shouldnt

even be blue neutral colors may work as well,

depending on the situation.

This case is a great occasion to use Vray sun &

sky system thats what its made for. It should

give us a good looking, but neutral generic

image. Im using it in tandem with GI. I mainly

use Irradiance Map for the first bounce and

Brute Force for the secondary bounces that is

the default setting which works for me in most

cases (Fig.02 preview settings). Detailed

settings like number of bounces, or Irradiance

Map size of course vary over time low quality

for previews, higher if the scene requires it. For

still images, as in this case, I try to use fastest

(lowest) setting possible, while still getting

acceptable result. For animation, the Medium

Animation setting is usually safe with the flicker

free option. I also use a hint of global Ambient

Occlusion to add some detail to the shadowed

parts of the image.

One of the first things I usually do is setting

the Color Mapping to Exponential (Fig.03).


Outdoor Scene - Chapter 4: Midday Sun Environment Lighting

While this isnt probably the most physically

correct way, it has some advantages. The way

it works is it prevents over bright hotspots,

and oversaturated color transitions. Its also

very tolerant its really hard to whiteout the

image, and the lights have a very wide range of

usable multiplier/strength setting (but that range

often ends up being pretty high, like 512 or so,

especially with the fog on). It has downsides

also, making the colors look desaturated, and

decreasing the contrast of the image. I actually

like it that way, because I can easily bring back

the contrast and saturation in post production,

and for some scenes it just fits but if you dont

like it, theres HSV exponential mode, which

keeps the colors better. Generally though the

main use I have for default, Linear Multiply, is

rendering some additional passes, like masks.

The scene needed some preparations adding

Vray Displacement to the street surface, some

reflections to the windows (using blend material,

Vray Mtl for the windows, and a black & white

mask). Metal parts, like railings and lamp also

got a shiny reflective Vray Mtl.

Before rendering anything I created

VRayPhysicalCamera, so I could control the

brightness of the scene in a more intuitive way

(as I have a bit of photographic experience).

The settings pictured on (Fig.04) took some

trial and error to get them right generally, if the

scene is more-or less built in real world scale,

the settings that would work if we were to take

a photo of that scene in real life, are a good

starting point. The Vignetting option is quite

useful here, darkening the corners of the image,

and focusing the viewers attention at the central

part of the image.

Now its time to create the sun. Lets choose

Vray Sun. The pop-up will appear, asking about

adding Vray Sky in the Environment slot I hit

OK, since Ill need it. Next I switched Vray Sky

to manual sun node, and pointed the newly

created Vray Sun as the sun node, and tweaked

the parameters a bit (Fig.05). Decreased

Turbidity means more blue sky, and adjusting

the intensity allows me to tune the balance

between sun and sky light.

To position the sun, its good to display shadows

in the viewport (Fig.06). That way I can see

the shadows in real-time, and finding a nice

composition is really fast. I chose to place the

sun almost directly above the scene, so the road

surface is brightly lit (Fig.07).

If we look at the rendered image, we see that

front facing walls are too bright, making the


Environment Lighting Outdoor Scene - Chapter 4: Midday Sun

image look flat. The easiest way to darken them

is by placing an object invisible to the camera,

to occlude some of the skylight (simulating the

buildings at the other side of the street) (Fig.08).

Now comes the time for final rendering and

post-production. I already did some tests on a

low-res preview which is something I really

recommend doing. Its easy to spot problems,

and fix them, before rendering the high-res, and

wasting many hours if its wrong in some way.

What I want to do is to add a bit more contrast,

and shift the highlights towards green, and

shadows towards magenta. I did it by using

Curves in Photoshop, and shaped the curves

for each of the R, G, and B channels separately,

as well as the default RGB one. (Fig.09) shows

the curve shapes. I did some other mostly

localized adjustments, some highlight, some

glow and grain, etc pretty standard fare. As

an afterthought, I decreased the saturation of

the yellow highlights a bit, to get slightly more

neutral image. (Fig.10) shows the final image.

For situations like this, the built-in Sun & Sky

system works great, and saves a lot of time. Of

course, there may be a need to supplement it

with additional lights - but here, its just enough.

Theres a caveat, though images done that

way tend to look quite bland and similar to each

other, so its good to customize the settings a

bit, and do some post-production magic to add a

personal touch treating the rendered image as

a raw material rather than final image..



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Andrzej Sykut - Lighting La Ruelle - 3D Max - VRay - 2011

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