Natural History

[Nibbler]

I didn't finished lighthouse render but in a free time started to play with this scene(cgSociety forum render challenge). I think it's really cool scene. My interest here is try to light and render as much good as I can at this moment.

System is 8Gb ram Intel Quad 2.4Ghz on rather old Ubuntu 32bit kernel 2.6.22 gutsy.

PBR uses 3 diffuse bounces, one main area light above the build as a disk, no attenuation and light intensity=10; min_ray_samples=30, max_ray_samples=60 and 90, 180 in better quality.

Here are first few renders.

[mightcouldb1]

My friend Gideon lit this scene a couple of months ago.

I think that he used a directional light along with a sky dome for the indirect contribution, and a few diffuse bounces. You should add some color to your lights and get some more contrast. Seems kind of even illumination right now.

I think that you have to convert an HDR to a .rat file in order to use it. At least that's what I've had to do. Increase your pixel samples because its kind of grainy. Someone mentioned that the rays have to be the product of the pixel samples, which I never really understood. Can someone explain their relationship? Does mantra work the same as RenderMan?

[Macha]

I think I'd be nice to have more lighting design going on there. At the moment it looks too much like a "let's get a smooth render result with a bit of volumetric fog" kind of thing.

Perhaps make it an arctic night, or go for full blown Year-of-Darwin-Exposition lighting, or jungle foliage patterned, St Peters Basilica at Christmas, French wine cellar, barn, victorian horror cabinet, Pixar cheerfulness.

So many possibilities!