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?

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Permalink Reply by Randy S on February 23, 2012 at 8:35am

Super. I am uploading now. Although I think I might now understand why it was not working... this might be a case of pressing the wrong buttons in the wrong places...

When I said I was "rendering it" to preview, I was hitting the green render button, as you would for any rendering. Then go into light channels and muck about. Tick the "Use for Animation" and off I went. Then clicked the animation button and started it.

BUT I just realised you added the Average Lumination to the Settings tab of the Animation dlg. So now at least I can dbl-check that it is set as I expect. And it is.This would render wrong (png files)

The big change I've made, which seems to work OK, is that once it starts to render, I open settings from the animation render window. It gives me a popup msg saying "this could make your system unstable, r u sure?" I say yes, from there I can go into the Lighting Tab, and from there into the Lighting channel, where I can fine tune things if needed. And I can save any lighting channel tweaks at this point, and it then seems to continue to use them.

So as far as I can tell, the problem still remains. But I can now more or less fix it on the fly by re-applying my light channel settings (if needed) when it is actually rendering the animation.

So was I mistaken when you talked about "previewing"? I was under the impression this meant to do a static image render. But perhaps you meant the preview as it renders the first frame?

Anyway, file is uploaded, tinker as you like and let me know if I was just following the steps wrong.

cheers

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on February 23, 2012 at 10:25am

No, I meant to do a static rendering to make the settings that you want. We want to use those exact same settings for the animation.

What exactly are you setting when you tweak the animation it on the fly?

Those must be the settings that aren't being carried over to the animation.

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Permalink Reply by Randy S on February 23, 2012 at 10:52am

When I tweak them on the fly I do as I explained above.

First, start the animation

Once the Render window comes up (recall I am rendering to PNGs) I then click on the Setup Dlg icon

I am prompted with a warning and say "yes" to continue. Now I am looking at the usual Setup dlg with the 10 or so tabs on the left

I go to the Lighting tab

From here, I click on the Lighting channels button.

Interestingly, this shows the Lightings channel dlg, as if you are rendering. Which is different then when you are in Sketchup and go to the same place. The difference are the "Lock" and "Use in Animation" checkboxes and the Ave Lumination.

Anyway, while I am in here, I can set stuff however I want. It will use it for the PNG it is currently rendering as well as all the rest in the scene transition. Oh, in case you want to exactly reproduce the screen shots I showed above, that was between Scene6 and Scene7, but it doesn't really matter.

To set my lighting I do this:

1) Press Reset

2) check Lock

3) check "Use in Animation"

4) set channel 0 (sun/sky) to .02

5) set channel 3(floor) to .4 or .5

then close this dlg

It is important to click Reset first and then Lock. Otherwise the Ave Lum will not be around 30 (32ish). If you start turning off channels without first locking then it could be as low as 3 or 4.

So can you reproduce the behaviour with the skp I sent up?

cheers

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on February 23, 2012 at 12:45pm

I got distracted by making a small model to test with. I'm trying your model now, but it'll take a while due to all the geometry.

Meanwhile, I noticed in your steps you don't mention clicking on "Import Selected Changes" before starting the animation.

If there any chance you have your Batch Rendering Settings set to "Never load changes"?

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on February 23, 2012 at 1:17pm

OK. I can duplicate this with your model.

I haven't figured it out yet though.

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Permalink Reply by Randy S on February 23, 2012 at 11:27pm

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I have it set to "Ask" and I say "yes". I was going through the steps by memory and not physically doing them as I wrote them. But it sounds like you can replicate nonetheless. Glad to hear.

cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Randy S on February 24, 2012 at 12:24am

Rich, this might be a clue, or just some other issue... but when I go into the Setup dlg (while rendering Animation) and then to Lighting tab, then Lighting channel dlg, if I press the Reset button multiple times, each time, the Average Lumination changes, going up slightly. By no means is it constant.

Is this what you would expect? Just thought I'd mention it to help you help me :)

Oh and one small correction above... When I go into the Setup dlg when rendering I have the above backwards... It doesn't ask "Are you sure"? It asks "Do you want to stop rendering"? To which I reply NO. But I have tried both, and I don't get any instabilities, at least when I am only tweaking light channels. I haven't ventured anywhere else in the Setup dlg.

cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on February 24, 2012 at 11:05am

What I've found is that we were not picking up the setting for Studio Brightness for the animation.

It was checked in the preview rendering, but rendered the animation as if it was not, so the lighting was duffenert in the two.

I'll post a new version today that makes sure the same settings are used for both.

BTW, you would see the Average Lumination continue to change while the model is rendering, since the renderer is still bouncing light around etc.

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on February 24, 2012 at 1:03pm

We posted a new version which should work for you for this.

I tested it with your model on 2 machines and it works for me here.

Please try it.

Thanks,

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Permalink Reply by Randy S on February 24, 2012 at 6:45pm

I'll give it a go and report back to ya. thanx

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Permalink Reply by Randy S on February 25, 2012 at 4:02am

I am pleased to inform you that it is working perfectly. Thanx for the fix Rich.

Now if I could twist your arm to add a "Low Priority" checkbox somewhere in the setup so I can have IRenderBatch running at 100% but also not slow me down when I'm using the PC for other things, such as working on the model more in Sketchup. I always set the priority to low after I start a job.

That should be fairly simple stuff to do, if you are using the CreateProcess API call in order to launch IRenderBatch.exe

Please consider it.

cheers,