Shed some light on this.

Ok here are a couple of renderings of my dining room. 1st I tried to make it look like night, with a few of the wall lights on, and a light coming from behind (another room).

2nd Is the room light during the day.

Comments and suggestions on how to make the lighting better is what I need. The night scence needs to have some outside light (moonlight), what else do both of these pics need.

Thanks,
Randy

Ok here are a couple of renderings of my dining room. 1st I tried to make it look like night, with a few of the wall lights on, and a light coming from behind (another room).

2nd Is the room light during the day.

Comments and suggestions on how to make the lighting better is what I need. The night scence needs to have some outside light (moonlight), what else do both of these pics need.

Thanks,
Randy

Here is the 2nd pic.

To me the lighting looks too distributed {cant think of a better word},its like the light source of the lamps are not brighter than their surrounding and I think they should be to suggest the origin of the light source it self,I find this in the fact that the lamp has not created a specular highlight in the cabinet door.For it too be night I thnk there would be more pockets of light by looking at the lamps as opposed to over all lighting,on a second look maybe I might be wrong there.Try making your lamp lights a light yellow color and see if that makes any diiference,and also see if using the ambient allumination setting helps as well.


I think maybe the brightness of the overall lighting just needs to be lifted 15 - 20 percent to contrast a bit more and show more illuminated pockets of light [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] ,sorry I cant be more descriptive then that Randy,I just cant find the right words at the moment [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]


Cheers.

Stu.

Sorry I forgot to say very nice work [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]


Definitely try yellow or yellow brown,I think it just needs a warm color introduced to lift the look of the room.With the dark image it is almost as if the lamps have a drak colored light emanating from them.


Cheers.
Stu..

Randy,

Now THAT's lighting! Forget whether the light source is implausible...photography is considered "painting with light", and that's exactly what you're doing, except as a designer in the math world of 3D, you are unencumbered by physical restraints.

Keep it up! You know more about lighting than you think!


My Best,

Gary David Bouton
Gary@GaryDavidBouton.com
Free education! The Writings Web site
and the updated GaryWorld Gallery is pretty okay, too.

Randy,

add lots of light. Ambient light for the outdoor background, ambient light in the room for the daylight version as well.

And for the night version add a light on top of the scene - ambient as well if you don't have another choice, but I think it should be a 'flat' light C4D offers with a soft shadow and parallel width of the size of your scene. Dim it down to i.e. 20% in the details section.

Check my 'new line of tables' post - I added lots of light. Just do this: try to percieve how your room looks at night when you turn on your lights - is it that dark? No. Because humand tend to perceive it brighter than it actually is. The only thing you need to do is to transform this 'perception' into the total amount of light.

Sorry for the weird explanation, but I lack some special expressions and words on this topic ...

jens

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://jens.highspeedweb.net

...hi guys! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Randy, that's a great image. I love the ombience.

Guys... take a look outside in the daytime render... you see anything out there that would create light? hmm... no... me either. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Randy, keep it real bud. Don't be afraid to make the scene as dark as real life can/would be. Don't let yourself be taken by the fact that you can't see much detail in the scene - that's how it would be in the real world; right?! And that fact in itself helps embellish the 'mood' of the scene. I continually express this ideal on folks using Photoshop as well. The same mistake is often made with that program.

There's been many a time that i've stood looking into my mom's dining room in pretty much that exact same view. And the lighting was just like that - DIM! So... go with it. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

I like the whole scene, for what it is.
And as a side note... does your cabinet window by the wall lamp have glass properties? If not, that might be a cause for it having no reflection highlight as Stu pointed out. But it's a 3D program, so... if the window DOES have glass properties, i think we're seeing it the way it should be.

Nice work bud.

Guys... just a metaphor befitting this situation if i may. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Life, is analogue...
as wood is to plastic,
as a vynil record is to a digital CD,
and as the texture of a flower is to the texture of your computer mouse.

Let's explore this when we're rendering. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Thanks everyone for ya'll's comments. They have given me many things to think on. But I think one thing can be said, everyone views on lighting are different. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I was real pleased with the daylight render. I know many of the things are not well lit, but I think it shows how things would look in real life.

The first scene I posted in the other thread, had everything well lit but looked flat, as Gary pointed out. Here I think the lit shows the 3 dimensional qualities of the scene.

Mark,
The front of the china cabient is just a pattern, with a little transperency and reflection added. I think the lack of specular highlights comes from the fact that the surface is flat, and you really needs some bumps and edges to catch the highlights on. Am I correct in thinking that?

--Randy

...you CAN have an actual reflection of the light source itself, without there being any kind of texture etched into the glass - i.e. a bumpy surface.

I think all Stu was talking about was just SOME kind of light reflecting off of that object.

But... as i said before... if the camera doesn't see that from the angle it's on, then it probably is a true representation of what's real; for most things that is. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Also... i think that if that glass surface is to be represented truely within that scene, it should be given a more reflective surface quality - no? It's hard to say whether it would make any noticeable change to the scene, but you could always just try it huh?
It iS YOUR world though Randy... and in YOUR world... you're God. hahaa [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

I still think the image's great though.