Render Studio lighting problem

Max_Kluge

Hello Community

This call goes out to all Render Studio users:

Do you have any idea of how to apply light to the inside of things without using additional light sources?  


We want the inside to be evenly lighted, but all settings that I can find can only achieve to manage the lighting of the world around the model. I also tried to set a light appearance to certain faces, but that did not work out as well.

Has anybody an idea of creating some omnipresent lighting? (looking like in the Assembly or Part Studio)

Thanks!
BR

Max

martin_kopplow

That's diffucult, probably because developers spent much time tweaking the system so that it behaves somewhat like real light and cast shadows, and they were pretty successful. In a similar case I helped myself by making the outer shell slightly diffuse transmissive. Not to the extend that it became transparent, but to make the dark shadows on the instide fade a bit. Else; I usually apply an additional lighting object in a hidden place, ideally two-layered: An opaque layer facing the camera, and an emissive layer shedding some light on the important parts.

Paul_Arden

Martin is exactly right, Render Studio is a "physically based" renderer and so anything that is done essentially has to be something you can reproduce in the real-world in some way. 

The "Add emission" and "Add thermal emission" appearances do allow you to turn any object into a source of light so this would be the most common approach to creating additional light sources or adding a constant brightness to any appearance.

sebastian_glanzner

@Max_Kluge
I think you can rotate the enviroment to get more lighting inside. At the moment the shadow is on the left side, and main light source is on the right side. You can also rotate the part.

Or you change the color of the inside surface to white. This should bounce more light around.

@Paul_Arden
Is it possible to artificially increase the global illumination in Render Studio? Maybe by increasing the amount of ray bounces? I think the pixar movies use more global illumination to get a warmer look with softer shadows. Just an idea.

Max_Kluge

Thanks to both of you!

I totally agree, that it works really well for this purpose, and I'm pretty pleased with the results in terms of real life looking objects. In creating marketing material it hast at the moment no use for us because it makes the models so dark that you cannot use the renders for marketing material. The customers are not interested in how it may look in a realistic scenario more than what did we put inside. 

I will try the workarounds from Martin for the moment and see what we can do but an omnipresent lighting as  a setting is in our perspective a must have. 

Also it is not possible to select transmission on metal material looks. is that right? Or do I have to add it somehow?

Max_Kluge

Thanks for the workaround. I did try it, but is it possible, that transmision is not possible to be set on metal materials? I mean it would make sense but would also block the workaround. 

Omnipresent lighting is in our company a must have for all renderings as is makes marketing material 100% better. I hope this will be an option soon. 

martin_kopplow

You might want to play around with it, more than one effect applied:

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/642aa0787c794332404677c7/w/51a8aaf3abed07a63419612e/e/7c32270702fb6d79b7b2b434

Paul_Arden

sebastian_glanzner said:

Is it possible to artificially increase the global illumination in Render Studio? Maybe by increasing the amount of ray bounces? I think the pixar movies use more global illumination to get a warmer look with softer shadows. Just an idea.

By default the maximum length of the ray paths is already set at 23, beyond which you are very unlikely to see any difference in output. That setting is exposed in the scene settings panel on the right but I would recommend leaving it alone. As I say, increasing it is not likely to change anything, it's more provided for cases here you might want to decrease it.

Thanks for the workaround. I did try it, but is it possible, that transmision is not possible to be set on metal materials? I mean it would make sense but would also block the workaround. 

If you are referring to the library metals then generally they don't have transmission parameters since they are modelled after real-world metals. However you could add the "Add cutouts" modifier on top of that and set the opacity to something other than 1.0 to create transparency of any appearance. This would be non-refractive, though that's probably what you'd want in that case.

Omnipresent lighting is in our company a must have for all renderings as is makes marketing material 100% better. I hope this will be an option soon. 

Do you have an example of previous images you have generated with this look? If you literally had what is often called an 'omni' light source with no shadows then essentially all of the surfaces will look flat with no shading, so I'm assuming that is not quite what you are trying to get (if so you can do that with the "Stylized" rendering mode).

You can also use the "Add emission" modifier to add a constant brightness to any appearance regardless of what light it receives, however such an appearance will then also emit light onto other appearances so it would be a tricky balance. As I say though, would be good to see an example of the type of image you are looking for.

martin_kopplow

Here's one more approach to try: Save the desired view as a named view, so you can reproduce it at will. Then do the rendering twice: First pass use flat shading and in your case maybe a light grey background, second pass use the usual raytracing settings. Then load both into Photoshop, GIMP, Krita, whatever you have, as layers (flat layer below shaded layer) and use photoshop tools like diffuse eraser or transparency brushes to let the back layer gradually shine through where you need to brighten up the shadows. This workflow also works nice for section views without actually sectioning or partially applying rendered surfaces to CAD illustrations.

Max_Kluge

Unfortunatelly the old one are in bad quality, but this would be an example. 

There are hardly any shadows and you have a bright clear view. In the new pictures we want to dismiss the shadows completely if possible. But there is another Problem with the setting: As I understood, it is not possible to safe one master setting and just switch out the parts/assemblies, right? As well as it is not possible to save own material looks , right? 

martin_kopplow

The sample looks like the main light source is very close to the camera ...

You can assign a material from the built-in library to an object and it will appear in the appearances list. You can then modify and rename it.

You can also add hidden subassemblies or parts to your render master assembly and then just change visibility to create renderings of different configurations. I haven't yet tried named positions in this context, but it should also work, because exploded views do.

sebastian_glanzner

@martin_kopplow
I used your example and deactivated all additional light sources and only change the tone mapping:


@Max_Kluge

There are also options for stylized rendering, like flat shading:
 

martin_kopplow

sebastian_glanzner said:

@martin_kopplow
I used your example and deactivated all additional light sources and only change the tone mapping:

That looks like it is pretty close tho what Max could use. I'll try playing with this next time I render. Thanks!

Max_Kluge

sebastian_glanzner said:

@martin_kopplow
I used your example and deactivated all additional light sources and only change the tone mapping:


@Max_Kluge

There are also options for stylized rendering, like flat shading:
 

The tone mapping works really good. I think we will have th best results with this one. So thanks a lot for that! 

Stylized rendering unfortunatelly is no option, I found those options earlier and think its a nice feature for fun projects. 


Thanks to all helping out an putting time and effort into my problem!

martin_kopplow

I've been using stylized rendering for assembly instructions quite successfully. It reduces to the most important info and can be easily integrated in annotated illustrations such as in consumer goods manuals.