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My first posting - a room
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
My first posting - a room // Work in Progress
Post by dlpeach // Jul 14, 2007, 1:16am
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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Hi everyone,
Well, I've been learning and doing 3D properly for about 2 months now (tS 6.6), so thought I'd post some stuff to see what anyone thinks - see if I'm on the right track.
All critiques are welcome, but in particular I'm finding the lighting to be the most difficult aspect of this, so comments, suggestions, tips etc. on that would be great.
This is supposed to be a kind of central control room, combined with a bit of a rec room or lounge. There's a lot more stuff to go in yet, but the basics are in there.
http://www.archivelounge.com/truespace/control_room_039_1600_to_1024.jpg
The room is supposed to be lit by a single shadeless bulb on the ceiling. The scene has a local light near the ceiling which casts the main shadows, then another local light in the same spot without shadow casting, to make the shadows lighter. Then there is an infinite light pointing straight up to light the ceiling. The two lights in the kitchen units are local lights with shadow casting, and finally there is an area light pointing at the tiles to lighten that shadow there and brighten up the area.
And the reverse view:
http://www.archivelounge.com/truespace/control_room_039_001_1600_to_1024.jpg
This angle has an area light underneath the three monitor desk with a negative intensity setting to take out some light under there, and also for this angle, I've turned off shadow casting on the two kitchen lights (in the previous pic) as they were throwing up some silly shadows on the rest of the room.
So, there you go. How does the lighting look so far? I think it looks ok, but I'm not sure I can tell anymore whether it's realistic or not.
Thanks.
Dan. |
Post by jayr // Jul 14, 2007, 1:51am
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jayr
Total Posts: 1074
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i like your wall texture, it all looks pretty good so far, the lighting is always hard to pin down. I've had lots of pictures grind to a halt when it comes to the lighting. I recomend a book called 'digital lighting and rendering' by jeremy birn if you want somrthing specific on it.
as far as this picture goes i think you're headed in the right direction. Have tou experimented with using shadowmaped lights yet? or an IBL light to give you the ambient light while the light standing in for the bulb gives you the main light?
Keep experimenting, you'll soon pic up some good tricks and techniques. \this one really does look good so far. |
Post by Vizu // Jul 14, 2007, 2:14am
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Vizu
Total Posts: 628
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is this in a prison cell ? i can´t see a window :) |
Post by prodigy // Jul 14, 2007, 2:35am
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prodigy
Total Posts: 3029
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VIZU, in fact are 4 "windows" :D
BTW.. i found a bug on your scene... thats no how it look with dual screen or i must say third screen... The Start bar must be in just 1 screen (Left Screen), and in the others 2 only the wallpaper or background color and if you like with a quick start bar and few windows... ;) |
Post by dlpeach // Jul 14, 2007, 2:49am
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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It's underground actually. :)
And the Windows desktop screens are just placeholders - later those three monitors (and the computer) will display and control a vast, vast, VAST, underground CCTV system, so will be displaying multiple camera views.
Dan. |
Post by jayr // Jul 14, 2007, 2:58am
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jayr
Total Posts: 1074
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it reminds me of something from half life 2. |
Post by dlpeach // Jul 14, 2007, 3:15am
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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Thanks jayr - if it reminds you of Half Life 2, I guess that's good. :)
And thanks for your earlier comments too. |
Post by chrisj // Jul 14, 2007, 4:32am
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chrisj
Total Posts: 239
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good start, good texturing and modelling. lighting is the key to good rendering, however. may I recommend radiosity. I've given a few examples below. the first has a single point light source with a 1 metre quadratic falloff (room is to scale). second is the same setup after runing a 92% radisoity solution at a low quality. you can see how the light is starting to work around the room. third is a 92% solution using the monitors will light emitting panels, which help to brighten the room with thier own colour scheme. last one is a 98% solution. I managed a lot with radiosity before I got vray, and a good PC, and a bit of rendering patience can pay off. |
Post by dlpeach // Jul 14, 2007, 5:13am
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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Thanks chrisj - I agree, lighting is definitely the key.
Radiosity is nice but I've never had much success getting it to work without weirdness happening and textures getting all messed up - except until I unioned everything in the scene together - then it worked, but that wasn't very practical at the end of the day.
Plus it takes a long time to calculate the radiosity from what I can tell - a LONG time - and with several variations of each of my scenes necessary (they're for a game), that's not practical either, so really I'd like to get to grips with just using the regular lights.
So, anyone have an opinion on the current lighting setup and ways to make it better? Maybe it's ok as it is? Anyone have some tips on using things like a 3 point lighting setup for lighting a room? I understand the 3 point setup for example if modelling and rendering a single object, where that object is the focus, but with a room, the whole room is the focus, so how does it work then? Hmmmm? A mystery.... :confused: |
Post by trueSpaced // Jul 14, 2007, 5:15am
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trueSpaced
Total Posts: 544
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I never figured out radiosity; my computer always crashed when I tried to do something with that....
How does radiosity work?
-TrueSpaced:banana: |
Post by trueSpaced // Jul 14, 2007, 5:19am
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trueSpaced
Total Posts: 544
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I like the lighting in the kitchen area more than any other area.
As for the rest of the room; where the three monitors are is too dark in my opinion...
I wouldn't have put the negative area light over there... The keyboard and mouse just look like black blobs on the desk.
HTH
-TrueSpaced:banana: |
Post by dlpeach // Jul 14, 2007, 5:20am
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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trueSpace crashes on me when I use radiosity at a high level, and unless I boolean the walls together, I get black streaks in the corners, and to top it all off, unless I booleaned every object together, all the textures got totally messed up, PLUS, I got jagged edges to my shadows which I think was down to the texture size though actually, so that wasn't necessarily a problem.
Anyway - even if I could make it work right, it still takes a long long long time. :( But it does look nice, so shame. |
Post by TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb // Jul 14, 2007, 5:48am
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TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb
Total Posts: 858
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Looking good so far, especially if you've only been at this 3D lark for a couple of months. Try softening up the shadows and I'd say you're pretty much there bar a few tweaks. Light arrays or mapped shadows will do that but if it's for game content I don't know how that'd work.
The Start bar must be in just 1 screen (Left Screen)
Not so, the taskbar can be on one monitor or span across, treating all the monitors as one large desktop, and the main monitor can be on the left or the right (or up or down if you fancy!) - I have both setups running here! |
Post by dlpeach // Jul 14, 2007, 6:14am
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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Well, the game features pre-rendered backgrounds, not real-time, so it's all done in trueSpace.
I've played around with shadow maps just now and managed to soften the edges to a degree, which looks better. But, I'm not sure I really understand shadow maps too well. Is there a way to really soften the shadows using maps? The "sharpness" setting seems to be key, but it only goes down to 1. :confused:
Dan. |
Post by TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb // Jul 14, 2007, 6:29am
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TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb
Total Posts: 858
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The sharpness setting is the key but your probably thinking the settings are the other way round to what they really are. 1 is the sharpest, higher numbers get softer and softer. The scale, etc, depends on what will be right for the scene but as a general rule I always start with the three settings at High, Low, High (512, 4, 8) and adjust accordingly from there. It's also worth noting that you're not tied to the three default values for each setting, you can enter manual numbers. For example, you can set the Map Size to over 1000 if you want even though the default high is 512.
Hope that makes sense. |
Post by jayr // Jul 14, 2007, 8:32am
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jayr
Total Posts: 1074
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is this going to be a point-n-click type detective/ adventure game like myst or bladerunner? |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jul 14, 2007, 12:38pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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GI and soft shadows in VRay would likely solve all these problems for you. Nice wall texture btw. :)
-Jack. |
Post by spacekdet // Jul 14, 2007, 5:33pm
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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He's using 6.6.
Somehow I don't think VRay is going to solve anything for him.:rolleyes:
If you are already using area lights, you could try adjusting the physical size of the area light itself. They are slow, but you can get some beautiful shadowing using them, even using raytraced shadows. You'll also get a nice penumbra beneath the desks- no need for negative lights.
Actually, the negative area light beneath the desk might be overkill- if you're really set on using them, you could just as well use a local- it'll be faster. Set falloff to linear or squared and then right click the light- you'll get a green 'cage' that you can scale to limit how far the light -or 'shadow' if you're using a negative value- projects.
If you can stand to wait, using an area key light will for sure soften up your shadows. A slightly faster method would be to build your own array (http://www.caligari.com/News/news_june2004/tipsandtricks.html) of local lights for the key light (your 'bare bulb' in the ceiling).
Your monitors will also output light, which you've probably already planned for.
It actually looks pretty good so far. 'Save As' your scene/ light setup in the Library so you can return to this setup if your experimentations go awry! |
Post by dlpeach // Jul 14, 2007, 6:51pm
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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Well I tried using shadow maps on the main local light and the kitchen lights:
http://www.archivelounge.com/truespace/control_room_040_1600_to_1024.jpg
http://www.archivelounge.com/truespace/control_room_040_001_1600_to_1024.jpg
I think it looks better already, from both angles. What does anyone think?
That array tips page was great - I didn't use it here, but I did try it out and I think I'll use it later on for some bigger scenes I have.
Thanks for the comments so far. And yes, it's for a point and click adventure, but a modern one. :) Myst and Bladerunner are both really old now. |
Post by jayr // Jul 15, 2007, 9:28am
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jayr
Total Posts: 1074
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Myst and Bladerunner are both really old now.
i know, bladerunner was the first game i got on my first pc....in 1998. i little ibm 64mb 4gb machine.... how time moves on:rolleyes: |
Post by dlpeach // Jul 15, 2007, 9:46am
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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I played Bladerunner but never Myst. You still into the adventures? There's plenty more being made today. |
Post by digitaldali // Jul 18, 2007, 6:01am
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digitaldali
Total Posts: 143
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I LOVE the textures! I don't suppose there's anyway you could email me the scn so I could play with lighting...? I really like what you've done, and I think it would be a great scene to experiment with lighting. And of course I'll send you everything I do so you can take credit:P
digitaldali_m_76@yahoo.com |
Post by jayr // Jul 18, 2007, 8:42am
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jayr
Total Posts: 1074
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I played Bladerunner but never Myst. You still into the adventures? There's plenty more being made today.
I haven't played any in a while, i like the idea though. I'm intrested to know how you're putting this together, how will you be turning it into a game? are you using flash? |
Post by dlpeach // Sep 19, 2007, 6:25pm
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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Hi again,
Sorry I didn't reply before now. There is no excuse. :(
jayr - we're using an adventure game engine called Wintermute to put the game together.
Anyway - I've since virtually completed the room, so thought I'd share the latest pics for any critiques, encouraging words, or whatever ya like. :cool:
http://www.archivelounge.com/truespace/control_room_081_1600_to_1024.jpg
And going the other way, close to the wall:
http://www.archivelounge.com/truespace/control_room_80_001_1600_to_1024.jpg
Like I said, virtually finished - still have to play with the lighting a bit more I think as some things are really dark when I don't think they should be, but still, I'm happy enough. :banana: |
Post by Jack Edwards // Sep 19, 2007, 7:01pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Much improved over earlier versions. Good work! :banana:
BTW, it doesn't look dark to me at all. It's important to remember when lighting that depth of shadow is just as important as "lit" areas. If everything was well lit then it would be a very flat image with no interest. ;) |
Post by dlpeach // Sep 19, 2007, 7:10pm
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dlpeach
Total Posts: 22
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Thanks Jack.
I think overall the lighting is ok, but for example on the bottom half of the paper tray there are some envelopes standing upright, which are completely dark, as they are out of the light, so you can hardly make them out.
So, I've just got to find a way to add some more light from the left I think without affecting the overall light too much.
Easier said than done. :) |
Post by Jack Edwards // Sep 19, 2007, 9:14pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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The problem you are seeing with the unnatural shading is that Lightworks engine doesn't account for bounced light -- you need GI for that.
Short of upgrading to 7.x and buying VRay, the other option you could try is Virtualight via the VirtuaOut plugin. I'm not sure of the quality though, so probably worth hearing from others who have used virtualight before going that direction.
Some other tricks you could try would be to put local, area, or projector lights to simulate the bounced light. Keep in mind that if it's a colored surface the bounced light would pickup some of the color that's in the surface.
Anycase it's nice work and the texturing is very good. |
Post by Nez // Sep 19, 2007, 10:16pm
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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In the first instance, for simplicity, I'd just try a simple infinite light pointing in from that side to lighten the shadow on those envelopes, the left side of the mug etc - have it at a nice low intensity (I'd guess at 0.1-0.2?), just to infer some light bouncing off the wall. Probably the easiest to set up - and you could use it just for this shot and remove it when rendering in other directions if it is detrimental to them.
Love the scene - great texturing in particular, especially on the water cooler and the brushed metal surfaces, etc. Chairs look a little square/straight-edged to me, but I guess they're not supposed to look comfortable!
Fantastic job... |
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