Night Lighting

toddakeson

Does anyone know how to achieve the lighting in the attached picture? I have a facade modeled and i would like to wash the surfaces with soft light. Any tips would be appreciated!

toddakeson

Two more things:

The attached photo is not a rendering.
I have tried adding spot lights to the scene but is very difficult to get even light. I end up with HUGE hot spots on the facade.

valerostudio

Get some IES files and use those for uplighting. Phillips, Lithonia, and ERCO have full sets of IES files on the web. Watch this video, which is for VR Max, but the principles are the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_4GJtEkiUY

I typically use sphere lights or rectangular lights inside to toss a bunch a light around the interior, so you get that glow inside.

Make sure you have 3d plants (probably proxies) in order to get all of that light hitting the leaves to achieve that same feel.

andybot

spot lights are fine, the problem is that the default is very harsh. To get a more natural looking light, change the decay and falloff type and add a penumbra distance. Sphere lights are nice too, but then you have to shield them if you don't want the light source visible in your render.

The other thing is to use a dusk HDRI in a dome light to get the nice bluish lighting like you see in the picture.

Andy