Im trying to find efficient ways to create a night-time look for one of our scenes (it is a closed room with a window). Some of my ideas so far are
Any other ideas?
I’ve been lookin around at some stuff like this too
From what I’ve seen, if you create some materials with self-illumination (Like the tutorial on the lobby/art gallery), and use radiosity, it looks like it SHOULD work pretty well. Play around, see if maybe somebody left a night-light in an electrical outlet in the room 
Yeah, i’ve tried that - can’t really say it worked well - self-illumination radiosity takes insane amount of time to tweak.
Right now, the best results i have are from gradient map (see picture), but it still doesnt look right - not even close…
http://www.eccentrix.com/members/z80180/room.jpg
(this is just a light setup test render - all geometry is going to be different. Lit by a skylight with light tracer)
*Originally posted by Lev *
**Yeah, i’ve tried that - can’t really say it worked well - self-illumination radiosity takes insane amount of time to tweak.Right now, the best results i have are from gradient map (see picture), but it still doesnt look right - not even close…
http://www.eccentrix.com/members/z80180/room.jpg
(this is just a light setup test render - all geometry is going to be different. Lit by a skylight with light tracer) **
Hmm…It dosen’t look too bad, almost like the night vision kinda effect, or any night scene from pixar.
But I agree, its still not right…Is there gonna be a robot or anything else you’re willing to give up info about the room? Anything that we can rig up for lighting?
That’s pretty much it for the room objects - there is also going to be a person on the bed, but it doesnt make any difference. (What i meant by different geometry is that all objects in the test scene are just proxies made with primitives, the final scene is composed of much more detailed geometry).
It seems that the main problem with using real lighting (not fake photoshop adjustments) is the excessive color variation that cannot be removed by tweaking contrast/brigtness/light color, (in environment dialog) - see picture
http://www.eccentrix.com/members/z80180/room2.jpg
Any ideas on how to get rid of it?
I would have kept the gradient approach, but there is one little thing that cannot be done with it - secondary light sources (like a glow of a digital alarm clock). The gradient map strictly defines all coloring in the rendering, so anything outside blue-black range would be wiped out. Of course there is always rendering in passes, but thats a different story…
I guess i’ll just keep looking for solutions on internet…
try using an omni light with a low density volume light effect and some tweaked attenuation…that always looks good for me.
*jeremy
Someone mentioned an important point. Light works such that light produces color. Therefore, nighttime scenes must have an absence of color. The gradient looks pretty good. I’m going to play with it and see if I can come up with anything useful. I’ve never thought about anything like this. Great idea to try!
-Brandon
I talked with a guy who made movies once and he answered that very question. You light the scene with blue light, and use some white object, like a piece of paper, to tell the computer/camera what color white is. This will dull all the bright colors, making them look black or grey.
*Originally posted by Jeff_Rice *
**I talked with a guy who made movies once and he answered that very question. You light the scene with blue light, and use some white object, like a piece of paper, to tell the computer/camera what color white is. This will dull all the bright colors, making them look black or grey. **
I was going to suggest something like that. But yeah, that is absolutely the best way. Your blue however is toooo blue, you need some yellow in it.
Thanks for helping!
use some white object, like a piece of paper, to tell the computer/camera what color white is.
-can you explain in more detail? what do you mean by “telling computer what color white is”?
Basically, as I understood it, you light the scene with blue light and I guess you then fiddle with the properties, reducing blue until everythings a proper color ( that is what the piece of paper is for.
you light the scene with blue light and I guess you then fiddle with the properties, reducing blue until everythings a proper color
Yeah, thats how i understood it - my question was: where exactly do you change the settings to achieve proper color results.
I’m sorry, but I’m not even sure what program you’re using, whether this is for a promo video or picture or animation or what. I would look at your link, but its down.
But I would try searching the help utility for tinting or tints or color channels.
I’m using photoshop and 3ds max - that’s it (you can render animation in frames, and then filter it in photoshop with Automate feature)
The links are not really broken - it is just that my hosting does not allow direct links, so you have to copy and paste the link in the browser, instead of clicking it.
I did a quick search on google, here ya go
http://graphicssoft.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sketchpad.net%2Fchannels1.htm
I hope this shows you how to do it.
edit
BTW, you might have to reimport the image into photoshop to get remove the blue using color channels.
