How would you go to light/render outdoor scenes ?

[titor]

Hey guys !

I'm writing here to ask you what would be your way to set up the lighting for an outdoor scene.

Let me explain what I'm planning to do.

For a project at the University we want to make some outdoor shots in a city.

There would be two kind of shot :

-close ones

-wide ones.

I guess the techniques could vary from one shot to another

On the close shots, we would see just see a small street or part of buildings, but we plan to make wider shots where we would see parts of the city.

Since we're new to Houdini we're not really aware of the tips and tricks that could save us time, or whatever.

If you have any lead thanks

Edited November 14, 2010 by titor

[LaidlawFX]

Hey guys !

I'm writing here to ask you what would be your way to set up the lighting for an outdoor scene.

Let me explain what I'm planning to do.

For a project at the University we want to make some outdoor shots in a city.

There would be two kind of shot :

-close ones

-wide ones.

I guess the techniques could vary from one shot to another

On the close shots, we would see just see a small street or part of buildings, but we plan to make wider shots where we would see parts of the city.

Since we're new to Houdini we're not really aware of the tips and tricks that could save us time, or whatever.

If you have any lead thanks

The simplest way especially in houdini 11 is to use the environmnet light. You can turn on the enable sky environment map and set your day time and location and use the PBR render settings. Use a portal if you can. You may or may not want to set a a second light for your sun for some better directional control, by LMB on the Sky light on the shelf it will set up this settup for you. You can do Image based lighting/HDRi to light specify a location that your are using. Find info on Paul Debevec and you can learn about IBL. Houdini has it's own format for environment maps, so look up the isixpack and how to create environment maps in houdini.

An out door scene in an of itself can lend it's hand to several different lighting environments(so you may want to narrow down when this event is happening) so you should specify time of day and the weather out side. An over cast day looks very different from a day with direct sun, and similar with golden hour, and sunrise/sunset, etc...

Here is a video by SESI that will help you along.Mantra in Houdini 11

Also for lighting in 3-D look up stuff on Jeremy Birns he knowledgeable about lighting, not necessarily but lighting as a whole is quite similar across platforms. The tools are a little bit different.

What type of look are you doing? VFX related work? Cartoon animation? Architectural? Gaming? and have you used any other 3-D packages before? For a better way to help compare your answers from another package coming from maya for instance. You may want to create a WIP as you work on your project to get better feedback.

Good luck.

Edited November 14, 2010 by LaidlawFX

[titor]

Hi LaidlawFX, thanks for your answer.

So right here I can't try your settings, because i don't have Houdini on the computer i'm on.

I'm gonna visit the website you gave me and I think they'll be helpful. Especially the website of Jeremy Birns.

We want to achieve the most photorealistic render we can. We're aware that it won't be that easy but we want to try it.

Here is the trailer of the game prototype and the begining, when the city is still in daylight is kind of the quality render we would like to achieve : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x98503_prototype-trailer-introduction_videogames.

I think i'll create a WIP as you say, this way all my questions won't be all around the forum.

THanks i'll be back soon