Lighting Troubles

chamferman · SketchUp 8, V-Ray 1.49.01

Hello Folks

I am getting frustrated trying to get the details stand out in my dresser. I have switched off Vrays physical camera and gi to help me understand better and try to simplify . There is ies lighting in the dresser & a rectangle light on the ceiling with intensity set at 28.

Help greatly appreciated & thanks in advance

Simon

Dave R

It looks to me as if you need to make the light illuminating the room and the cabinet less soft. You need some shadows to get the details to stand out.

chamferman · SketchUp 8, V-Ray 1.49.01

Hello Dave

Thanks for the feedback. I have taken your advice regarding the shadows & the details do stick out better now. The shadows that I have highlighted within the dresser are a bit to much , what do you think?

Simon

Dave R

That does look better. The molding now has some shape. As to the shadow, you're referring to the dark, inverted L? That could be made a little softer although you have to be careful because if you soften too much, you'll lose the shadows that are creating the modeling on the molding. Another thing you could do is add a light to illuminate the back of the cabinet and lighten that shadow.

You've got a single light in the top of the cabinet. The cabinet is wide enough that I think two lights would be better. And give them wider beams so they illuminate the cabinet back (wall).

You could also cheat and put lights behind the face frame to shine on the wall and lighten the shadow. They could be fairly low power so it's a subtle thing.

andybot

if you are using a spot light or a point light, you can change the shadow radius from the default 0.0 to something like 2.0 or 3.0 to give a softer edge to the shadow line. Or you could use a small area light to control the softness of the shadow (the smaller the light area, the stronger the shadow line)

chamferman · SketchUp 8, V-Ray 1.49.01

Thanks for the tips chaps really appreciate you taken the time to share your knowledge

I have done what you both said, what do you think?. Also I have a couple of issues that I have high lighted in the red circles, not sure what the technical term for the problem is?

I thought that it could be my lights were too powerful, but I am not sure

Simon

andybot

That most likely can be fixed by changing your irradiance map settings. There's an option to "Check sample visibility" that you can enable. You can also increase your "Max rate" to -1 or 0. Lastly, you can increase your HSph. Subdivs to 70 or 90 - which helps with splotchy shadow areas. Worst comes to worst, you can enable Detail Enhancement, but that means longer render times.