I am getting sick of trying to create something close to realistic rendering scene.
I tried all possible rendereres and lights setup i could come up with.
Still nothing looks even remotely realistic.

I ran into problems like
Scanline: 1 skylight with shadows on at 8 subs looks very good and i love it, but when it comes to rendering inside the house its a total mess caz its not lighting the scene as expected, it only works good for outside lights and not for inside lights.

mentalray: 3.9 minute to render 640x480 scene with single outside of the house MR sun with raytrace shadows, yet results is: i see those weird light circles all over the image while using default “HIGH” preset with slider.

Can someone please attach a scene with single light that and good rendering settings that will render the scene: (outside the House/inside the house) with one light and light bounce system on so that inside the house would look like light outside is real and it bounces off the surface giving enough light inside to cause shadows of objects inside the house.

I also noticed, no mater what i try to do with the geometry, light somehow gets through the wall’s in the edge thus making the result look weird. (image attached)
Look at the picture and tell me, how the hell does light effecting the ceiling when there are no lights inside but the MR SUN outside ?
And why is it so dark in here anyway when light bounce is set ?
High preset for final gather took over 1 and half hour to render and the result is crap.

Can someone attach scene file with single light setup that would work both for inside and outside scene and look decent ?

	Attachment

"Can someone attach scene file with single light setup that would work both for inside and outside scene and look decent?”

That is nearly impossible. Indoor and outdoor lighting are very different approaches. Interior lighting is very hard to get perfect. No matter how physically correct a software’s solution claims to be, I always choose to cheat.  Yes I use FG and GI to get some light bouncing around and to smooth out everything.  But at the end of the day it doesn’t hurt to add some fill lights that wouldn’t be there in real life.

You need some sort of light to fake the skylight coming through the windows; FG just is not up to that task with this scene.  Sky portals are good but slow; you could also just make your own fill lights.

--3ds Max Design 2009 64bit, Direct3D 9, Win Vista Premium 64, 3ghz quadcore Xeon, Quadro FX1700--

can u be more specific about faking light ?
Also what do you mean by fill ?
Thanks.

After trying to use light portals i ended up rendering 1 frame 512x384 for over an hour
Had 5 light portals in each windows. Light portals shadows suck so bad, having them on turns minutes into hours with 64 sample and that’s not even remotely close to decent quality image.
Why are they even there.

When you render a scene it comes out the way a photo would. When you look at a real scene with your eyes your brain fills in the shadows and adjusts the contrasts.  Fill lights are low intensity lights used to “fill” in the shadows. In other words use a light to illuminate the right side of the car.

oh u mean fake light bounce ?
Man i would have to create many lights to accomplish that so it would look natural and more lights = more rendering time.
Kinda wish Max would have some soft of real time light preview so i could add lights and see result instantly, kinda like game map editors do.
BTW why max cant do something any game editor can ? I understand the complexity needed to be displayed when some materials combined and other stuff, but some game engines do amazing job displaying complex materials setup with bump/displace/transparency/reflections/refractions all in real time while max cant even handle complex geometry or multiple objects just as good.
Its like all 3d editing software made to be slow (but i dont know the half of it)

I wonder if mighty V-Ray is any better then mental ray in terms of same quality but faster rendering ?
of any other renderer ?

Sir,

If your scene is not lit to your expectations, change the design of the scene. Incorporate another opening somewhere. In this case, a skylight could do wonders.

If you cannot change the design, then do not worry and carry on :)

Move the sun around so that you have sunlight penetration in to the depth of the space. Begin with January 1st at 09:00 am, and proceed from there. Experiment with the exact position of the sun. Use draft FG for these experiments.

Once decided, turn off FG and improve your GI solution (use photon direction for your mr Sun, too). When you reach an “un-splotchy” GI solution, turn on FG (skyportals will help a lot, by the way) and start at the draft setting. Work your way up. Medium FG setting is usually OK.

You could call this the “simple” workflow for interiors in mental ray. This way, you will know that you have not abandoned physical correctness.

I hope this helps.

thanks will try ASAP
EDIT
Just tried following your tutorial using Global illumination (totally forgot about that).
No Final gather, only GI is enabled and no other lights in the scene are “ON” and got following result.

On the right you should see the daylight setup.
By the way i dont use exposure control.
As you can see i have these weird circles plus walls are so bright which is very strange.
I tried different Sunlight and Sunlight combination all with default settings and get this or other strange results.
Scene geometry is Xform reset and collapsed so am not sure what else might be causing it.

looser 12 March 2010 12:01 AM

thanks will try ASAP
EDIT

By the way i dont use exposure control.

Maybe that has something to do with it?  try enabling mr exposure control, use the INDOOR template and and see what you get… maybe use one big sky portal instead of each window?

Your scene looks to me like a “garage"… those aren’t to bright anyways...unless you turn the garage lights on with the light also coming in from the windows.

If the scene is too dark...do like everybody here is saying and trying to help you....  you definilty sound extremely ticked off with this situation… don;t blame ya… lighting is something very important for your final result.  Lots of variables it seems.  Try using a fill light to fake some more light in your dark scene?  Fill light is just extra low level light to help. 

I think you should try turning on your mr exposure though… and use interior template.  Also enable your Gamma.

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Ok how about those bright walls ? i didnt put any lights there and material is standart yet they glow like Christmas lights.
PS u looking at the older picture.
Thanks for reply

BTW exposure didnt help at all.

dude, your gonna have to ZIP your max file and upload so somebody can take a better look at whats going on.

Intel i7 930 2.8Ghz 8 CORE HT / CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus (no OC yet!)
Nvidia EVGA GTX 260 v296.10 driver (Nitrous in max) / Dual Dell Professional P2311H 23” Displays
ASUS P6X58D-E / Corsair Dominator 12GB 1600 DDR3 / Antec tp750 blue / Antec 300 Illusion
Windows 7 Pro x64 SP1
3ds max design 2012 x64 SP2 (since the 1st DOS version!), Mudbox 2012 x64 SP3, Softimage 2012 x64 SP1, Maya 2012 x64 HF2, Adobe CS5.5 x64, CorelDRAW x5 SP3, Painter 12, etc etc
Wacom Intuos4 v6.2.0w5 / 3DConnexion Space Navigator (drv6.15.2)/ Logitech Performance MX mouse (5.33.14)