Lighting channel settings and animations...
First off, can I say the modifications to the lighting channels are great! I can create *exactly* the look I want for still images. But it is a different story for animations...
The issue is that the "Average Illumination" and "lock" features that are present in the Rendering dialog (the dialog that shows from the light bulb icon while it renders), are not in the Lighting tab of the Setup form. In other words, the light channel intensities are brought back into the Sketchup model, but the Average Illumination and "Lock" values are not. So when I then go to create the animation PNGs, I have no way to control the Average Illumination/Lock. Consequently, the rendered images for the animation are over-lite (light saturation).
FWIW, I do my animations as PNG files and then let Corel VideoStudio put them all together. I haven't tried it, but possibly I could have the animation engine create nxtImage files rather then PNG files? Perhaps that would work in theory, but I can't see hand modifying over 900 frames.
So I am wondering if this is a feature that will be coming soon? Or if there are technical limitations prohibiting the Average Illumination/Lock settings to be controlled when doing animations?
Suggestions anyone?
Views: 506
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on
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I'll look into this and try to fix it, so that value can be used for the animation.
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Permalink Reply by Randy S on
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Hi Rich,
Any progress on this front? I am dead in the water until I can render an animation.
cheers,
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We posted a new version today with a fix for this.
We added a check box, "Use for Animation", on the Lighting Channel dialog (when opened in the Render Window) that will allow you to preview and set the Average Illumination before starting an animation. If that box is checked, we use that value the next time you start an animation.
Please try that and see if that works for you.
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Thanx for the update but sadly no, it is not working for me. Is it working for you?
I see the new "Use for Animation" checkbox when I'm tweaking my lighting in the Lighting Channel popup dlg of the Renderer, and I check it (as well as the "Lock" checkbox) but when I go to render the animation, I get more light then I should. Did I miss something???
I'm gonna guess that this checkbox preservers the value of the "Average Ilumination" but does NOT preserve the "Locked" state. (Just my hunch) as the behaviour I am seeing is consistent with the auto-illumination... a feature I am not so fond of.
If I can throw in my 2-cents on the matter of auto-illumination... I reckon RenderPLus has this wrong. Yes it makes sense to auto-illuminate a rendering if there are no lights at all (no sun, no sky, no anything). Otherwise you would get a rather unexciting black rendering. But if *any* light is in the rendering, then that is the only light that should be used. The whole concept of "wattage" goes out the window if the rendering engine is going to decide for me how much light should come out of that light bulb, relative to other lighting in the rendering. eg a 1w bulb will render the same as a 500w bulb, if it is the only light in your model.
Anyway, having said that, the lighting channel "lock" feature goes a long way in fixing this, but if it's state is not persisted across renderings/animations then I'm back to square one.
So, is my hunch correct?
cheers.
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All the "Use for Animation" checkbox added was the ability to set the Average Illumination for the animation visually, so you could preview it in the rendering and then make it lighter or darker before starting the animation.
It won't help the flickering you get as the light changes between scenes during the animation.
As you state, as you move through a model, the change in light coming into each seen affects the lighting level of the other lights in the room. We see this dramatically if there are windows in the room and the sky is illumination the room through a window, or if there is a seam between walls where light occasionally gets through at a cetain view.
Some fixes for this are to use daylight portals for windows, use thick walls so there is never a chance a light can leak through from somewhere else, and allowing more passes for individual frames to minimize the flickering.
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Actually, I was unaware that there is any flickering between scenes as I render 1 scene transition at a time (Scene 1 to Scene 2, Scene 2 to Scene 3, etc).
In my case, I am trying to create a rather dark animation. So the auto-lighting is doing just that - adding more light then what should be there. This wouldn't be possible at all if it weren't for the "Lock" on the lumination. But I can show you a rendering I've done as a preview and then the first frame of the animation if that helps.
So is it possible that the "Use for Animation" checkbox also takes the "Locked" state into account? Not fully understanding how it all works, does it make sense to do so? I say I don't fully understand how it works, because I can create a brighter rendering with an Average Lumination of 4 then a Scene with Average Lumination of 18. I would have thought that as average lumination goes up, the general "brightness" of the rendering also goes up. But that doesn't appear to be the case.
cheers.
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OK. I just assumed that you were referring to flickering.
It would be great if you could create a small model with a small number of scenes, and post it here along with a rendering and the animation that you get, so I could see the difference. Or just send them to me at rich.hart@rendeplus.com.
Then I could see what problems you're running into. It may be as simple as we're not respecting any brightness setting that you're using for the rendering. I'll look into that, but it would be easier if we both had the same model to test.
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Well, the model is big - 15mb. Well, that is big to me. I just did a 30 pass on my "preview" and will let the animation render over night and will send over the first frame (20 pass). So at least you can see what I'm talking about. We'll take it from there if I need to strip down my model so its a bit smaller.
cheers and good night...
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You can use the Uploads tab above to send us a large file.
The first thing I'll do is strip Most everything out of it so I can render it quickly and see what we need to do get you a dark animation.
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OK, here are those images as promised. This first one is the preview:
But like an idiot, I put the Light Chanel dlg over the only places where you can see what the Sky is illuminating, so here it is again as just the rendered image...
Note the top right corner where you can just make out some of the "dirt" (uses rubble map) that is lit by the sky. I am aiming for a twilight effect. In short the "sky" is on (and sun is off, both on the same channel) only so I don't get black where I am not rendering my bathroom. Obviously I want the focus to be on my bathroom and not what is happening outside.
And here is the first frame:
As you can see, the rubble outside is clearly visible and the whole scene much lighter. This can also be seen in the mirror on the top-left which is reflecting and showing a portion of the rubble which is outside the bathroom (no bathroom door)
I should mention... I didn't use a section plane to remove the ceiling of the bathroom. It occurred to me this morning that this might be an influencing factor in my renderings. As I recall from reading the help, you get all the reflective bouncing when using a section plane. In my case I have lights shining up onto the ceiling, which of course will bounce off the ceiling to light the room. But in the shots I have provided the ceiling is on a layer that has been removed. So now the lights are effectively shiny up onto nothing. eg: no light bouncing.
So this means that as I render from scene to scene, my lighting will differ but I'm not so worried about that as I want to highlight the lighting (turn lights on/off depending the scene). Just thought I would mention that, although it probably has no relevance to the issue at hand.
so using the "Upload Files" send just to you? I want to keep my work private (eg off the internet)
cheers
rs
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FWIW, I just revved up LB22. Now my animation renders with a super-saturation of light. Me thinks you need my skp. I am waiting for confirmation from you that if I upload it, only you can see it.
rs
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