Need Lighting Help!!

[fletchere]

Just did up this bathroom render and it’s currently being lit with a sky HDRI and sun lamp coming through a large window on the wall opposite the bath. Everything seems to look quite dull (light you need to turn the lights on) and I can’t seem to get enough light in. If I crank up the sun or the skybox, things just start getting overexposed.

I want the room to look naturally lit (not using internal lights) but I can’t seem to nail that “fresh morning light” look. Is it to do with the colour of the textures/shaders? Or do I need other internal lamps to fake the window light? Or do I simply need colourful objects in the room to make it interesting.

Any other advice?

[AdamTM]

Its just accurately lit for a bathroom with one (smallish) window and everything having desaturated colors.
There is no technical fault here, its just the architecture of the room that lets this little amount of light in.

[lsscpp]

Try increasing overall exposure. In this case might be handy experimenting with filmic_blender OCIO configuration

[Lane]

What you can try is modifying a bit the geometry of the room, add some open on the wall. One example could be to let the door open, create a room there with full window.

[sourvinos]

IMHO you need that the sunlight enters through the window at the right angle; put the lamp very far from the window and raise accordingly its intensity, then try and move/rotate it until it correctly casts light on the scene.
In this case you can also use a simple area light to substitute the hdr for the sky, what matter are just the color and intensity that you can tweak realtime in viewport rendering.

paolo

[lsscpp]

@sourvinos

IMHO you need that the sunlight enters through the window at the right angle; put the lamp very far from the window and raise accordingly its intensity, then try and move/rotate it until it correctly casts light on the scene.
paolo

Sun lamp doesn’t take into account position, and afaik has constant falloff

[sourvinos]

@lsscpp,
you are right, actually I never use other than mesh lights, so I was thinking to a very distant plane, but if you use a sun lamp only rotation matters and I also think that it has no fall-off.

Sorry for the misleading suggestion.

Though, the main concept is still valid to me, to make the sun cast direct light through the window.

paolo

[fletchere]

@sourvinos

IMHO you need that the sunlight enters through the window at the right angle; put the lamp very far from the window and raise accordingly its intensity, then try and move/rotate it until it correctly casts light on the scene.
In this case you can also use a simple area light to substitute the hdr for the sky, what matter are just the color and intensity that you can tweak realtime in viewport rendering.

paolo

Thanks Paolo, I’ll try replacing the window with an area light, that will probably help with render times too actually. And you also just reminded me of that “portal” feature for lighting rooms with windows.

[fletchere]

@AdamTM

Its just accurately lit for a bathroom with one (smallish) window and everything having desaturated colors.
There is no technical fault here, its just the architecture of the room that lets this little amount of light in.

Yeah good point. I’ll try adding another window behind/through those black pillars which should help. Thanks for the advice!

[fletchere]

Added another window and it definitely helped with the lighting.

[Cebbi]

This is much better now. You could try using frosted/rough glass. This might pull less attention to the window and is also realistic, if there are neighbours.