Lighting a room

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi, probably a simple thing but I want to model a living room but just can’t get the lighting to look good.

Just to keep it simple : I add a mesh cube, place a camera in it, assign it the color white and place an omni light and a spot light.

I then delete some faces from one wall so I have a windows and put a spotlight behind it so I have the shadows falling on my floor

Result : the walls don’t look white but greyish and I get the reflection of the omni light on the walls and ceiling.

How can I make this simple scene look good.

BTW : I ordered the new manual to get more familiar with these things but have not received it yet. Therefor this maybe stupid question…

2

well, the question is not stupid at all. in fact, lighting a room can be a difficult task.

i’d try radiosity - either the internal blender mode (the “radioactive button”) or yafray. if you use the standard scanline renderer you’d need quite a lot of lights to simulate the natural behavior of light. you’ll need a light that falls through the window, maybe a omni to give a general light, and a couple of spots (with low energy) to light each wall individually and thus create subtle changes/shades. maybe use sqare spots fir that, and turn buffer-shadows on - if you have stuff like tables or chairs.

don’t forget to turn down specularity and hardness for the room material - walls are usually not shiny at all ( no sharp highlights).

using radiosity one single light-source may be enough - placed outside the window and with enough energy to lighten the room. check out the documentaion on how to use the radio-stuff in blender.

good luck

3

a nice indoor light affect is to put a light that is attached to a wall (those half bowl lights) with a spot light in it casting the ligh agaist the wall in a cone. the spot light- i had the same problem make sure the spec is down and the ref up. for a real nice effect turn halo on for the spot light. add colour to it (ie: orange-red=morning or evening/ yellowish=midday/ night=plain white.