Dark wood

Started by Dune, May 08, 2019, 08:42:29 AM

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Dune

I made this Stone Age shelter (with grass pop), tested it and it grew out of hand.

PT render, took 2 hours. Very low light at 5ยบ, with a path cut out in the wood to light the scene. Unfortunately it's very dark, even with exposure set to 10 and contrast down to 0.125. Trying to adjust the 32-bit exr got it just very grainy.
Perhaps the leaves should have more translucency (0.2 now, and opacity at 0.7).
First one is straight from TG, second one adjusted from an 8-bit tif, third adjusted from the 32-bit exr.

bobbystahr

Brilliant idea...looks convincing to my eyes Ulco.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Antoine

Great and lively scene!
Why not increase the light power?

David.

N-drju

The .exr-derived picture is indeed quite grainy when you focus on it... However, this very grain is actually augmenting the feeling that the picture tells the story of the times long past. So in a way it might be considered as a purposeful item.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

archonforest

Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
Amiga 1200 8Mb ram, 8Gb ssd

Stormlord

Beautiful scenery
-> I would just increase the lightning (as recommended before).

STORMLORD

Lady of the Lake


Dune

I just took a lot of trees out. I found it strange that increasing exposure 10X didn't even change very much. I don't know how it compares to camera stops. Sun was slightly increased to 6, but maybe sun strength should be 10 or more. But I guess all the leaves just stop any light penetrating the dark, hence the culling.

Antoine

In this case of evening scene, as higher expoure doesn't work, I think you should try with a higher sun strength. Because of the trees, there are not enough rays going through (same thing as rendering interior scene in Blender for example, the less the light goes inside, the more it gets grainy in darker area as exposure goes higher)  so you should try higher sun strength and then if necessary lower the exposure. Perhaps also setting the sky whiter could help. This is why I hope in the future the PT engine will take into account higher setting than one for environment lighting, In that kind of scene it would help a lot.

David.

Dune

Thank you, Antoine. I did indeed just that; increased sun strength from 5 to 14, but faked a little extra light on leaves in the dark areas by an extra (higher and no shadow) sun of 0.06. Exposure default. I like this version better.

archonforest

Yes this is much better.  ;)
Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
Amiga 1200 8Mb ram, 8Gb ssd

Antoine

The lighting is indeed much better now. This is still a little grainy in darker area but I think when you do a final render it will be fine, perhaps this scene will need AA set a little higher than usual since the PT engine will need to cast sufficient rays to get these darker areas sharp and crisp enough.

David.

Dune

I used the robust sampler, and that may cause more grain too.

Oshyan

Quote from: Dune on May 09, 2019, 11:48:16 AM
I used the robust sampler, and that may cause more grain too.

Robust should only "causes more grain" by *reducing render time*. It should be compensated for by decreasing Pixel Noise Threshold or increasing overall AA/samples.

- Oshyan

Dune

Right, I remember you telling me that earlier too. I must have forgotten again, but it's getting more complicated with all the variables. Brain is almost full  ;)