I am currently making a Blender movie. It’s supposed to be at night in a city. I want to make it look like the scene is only lighted up by the street lights. As you can see on the screenshot below the scene is lit up by two normal lamps and one Hemi.
Does anyone have ny tips for how to make it look more realistic? It can’t be very slow since after all it’s a movie.
Screenshot:
Light setup:
(Finaly back at Blending, almost a year since my last forum post!:D)
Make the hemi darker, and add broad-range, buffer shadow lamps. It’ll be faster than ray-tracing (especially if you turn ray off. :3) and it’ll look better in the ‘softness’ department.
Wow thanks! That really speedet things up 
It went from a coupple of minutes to under 10 sec for a full render! And it even made my image look bether!
Funktacular. :] I love buffer shadows.
EDIT: If they’re streetlights though, they might have to be a little brighter.
maybe it looks better with a negative bump on the wall?
What do you mean by negative bump?
Well, when you click on ‘nor’ you get bump, when you click on it again it turns yellow, and you get negative bump, cause right now the mortar in your wall looks almost like it’s sticking out a little.
halo for the spots would be awesome!
Here is an update with negative bumps and a shining light. Anything you think i should change?
btw is it possible to change the name of the thread?
yeah
>edit your first post
>select the button that says go advanced
then the title option is available for change!
pm if u need more help
jup, just edit the title of your first post in this thread, then click ‘advanced’ to go to full edit mode, then change the title.
I still think the brightness suggested by the streetlights’ halos and the brightness they actually cast look off. Streetlights cast more light than that.
(Changed the name of the thread 
)
I know that streetlights cast more light than that, but if I make them cast more light it looks like its day, rather than night.
How can i make it look like it’s night, and still make the streetlights realisticly bright?
Here’s an idea. Make the streetlight cones narrower, so they’re mostly just pointing down, and give them a very faint halo beam. Make them bright enough so they cast nice, tight pools of light. Then, at the bottom of the shaft where the beam meets the road, add–for each light–a low-impact, low distance pointlight with raytracing turned off, to simulate radiosity and lend a little light to the bottom of the scene, while leaving the top in darkness.
I cant really say that i understand what you mean by that. Can you please explain it a bit more detailed?