Hi, I’m fairly new to Blender and could use some thoughts and advices from more experienced people.
The scene is exported from Archicad, so I’m aware there are issues such as 90° faces or messy meshes. In this particular case I’m more interested in how to improve my texturing and lighting skills.
The renders have been made at 256 Samples with 3 max light bounces. I’ve attached a few pictures with Denoiser and one from the inside where the HDRI map is more visible (I’ve hidden the windows).
My immediate thoughts for this scene are that "the present lighting really isn’t dramatic." The entire scene is right-now lit by *“light that comes from everywhere.” Both the potentially very-interesting arrangement of lighting-tubes above the bar, and the four (dark?) lighting fixtures above the four tables … so far contribute nothing to the potential drama of this scene.
“The lighting that you now have” is a very nice, and very even, "base lighting" for this scene, but I suggest that it should be very greatly reduced: “until it produces minimal illumination.” Enough to let each of the remaining, “practical,” light sources to fill in the gaps. Those tubes should provide a very-interesting focus-point to the scene while the (now, visibly lit …) spotlights gently illuminate each table.
The spotlights were “On” in the renders, but I made a mistake and used an IES file that was spreading the light too much instead of one that is targeted. I’ve also lowered the blackbody to 3000, changed the size of the light point to 0.05m and added emission to the inside of the lamp, to look like it’s lit.
Now most of the lighting in the environment comes from the tubes, but it’s still too bright to be able to cause some dramatism. I’ve figured they would produce a light like the one below, but maybe it should be a more focused one? :-?
