need help lighting scene using portal lights + Phy-Sky

[SteveN_25]

Hi I have been trying to get a good lighting solution for days now and I really need some help.

I've been using maya for about a year but dont have very much experience rendering and have spent days reading through the documentation and various forums on the physical sky and portal lights.

I want to render my uni animation which is around 4000 frames. I dont want the render to take any longer than 1minute per frame as anything over that time will take far too long to render and I just dont have the time.

I have pics to show my settings and the problems Im running into. If anyone could look through the pics and make suggestions that will let me have a nice clean looking render but one that wont take to long to render out as the animation is 4000frames long.

NOTE: USED mia_material ON ALL OBJECTS. ALL OBJECTS ARE MODELLED TO REALWORLD SIZES - not sure if scene size effects the render


http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk150/steveWIP_pics/p1-1.jpg

in this setup I used 3 area lights one at each window (if you zoom in you'll see em better) positioned just outside of the windowframe. Theres lots of shadow grain all over the render.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk150/steveWIP_pics/p2-1.jpg

I tried using one arealight, still grainey and you can see my light portal settings to the right of the viewport.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk150/steveWIP_pics/p3.jpg

it states in the output window that the arealight should have the visible clicked on, which gives me a black box where the light was. This pic also shows my arealight and render settings.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk150/steveWIP_pics/p4.jpg

In this pic I tried using one light to encompass all 3 windows. Does my window frame effect the outcome of the render.


so if anyone can help me light my scene I would be soooooo thankful as im a total noob when it comes to mental ray and its shaders and am running out of time and still have another project to texture and light.

I have many more questions to ask about the shaders but will leave it just now as I dont want to confuse anyone more than I probably just have.

Many thanks
steve

[peengoh]

the grain doesnt goes away just by increasing the shadow samples, you should increase your sampling level under the antialiasing settings, also your contrast threshold.

you must increase the refraction limit to avoid your area lights showing black through transparent objects.

Now,the best aproach is taking advantage of the light portals, make em shoot photons (so connect the mia_light_portal to the photon emmiter slot as well). ir i were you i would render on separated layers, at least the characters, that way you can bake your GI map and FG each 10 or 20 frames. that saves a lot of time.

[SteveN_25]

Hello,
peengoh I tried upping the refractions etc in everyhting I could find and it still renders the arealight black when I click on visible. Which refraction were you referring to.

When you said "connect the mia_light_portal to the photon emmiter slot" did you mean connect it in the emitter slot below the lightshader, like in my 4th picture.

I've never done render passes before. Will they let me render off the environment using FG, GI etc maps then a seperate pass of just the characters and their shadows. How hard is that to setup.

cheers
steve

[peengoh]

Which refraction were you referring to.
increase the refractions on the glass material and on the render globals.

When you said "connect the mia_light_portal to the photon emmiter slot" did you mean connect it in the emitter slot below the lightshader, like in my 4th picture.

yes, that one.

I've never done render passes before. Will they let me render off the environment using FG, GI etc maps then a seperate pass of just the characters and their shadows. How hard is that to setup.
yes you will be able to do so, it isn't hard, but i don't know how much time do you have to learn it.

try this tutorial (http://tutorialscentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58) and this (http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials/passes_layers.html)

hope it helps, cheers.

[TANKQ]

Hi I have been trying to get a good lighting solution for days now and I really need some help.

I've been using maya for about a year but dont have very much experience rendering and have spent days reading through the documentation and various forums on the physical sky and portal lights.

I want to render my uni animation which is around 4000 frames. I dont want the render to take any longer than 1minute per frame as anything over that time will take far too long to render and I just dont have the time.

I have pics to show my settings and the problems Im running into. If anyone could look through the pics and make suggestions that will let me have a nice clean looking render but one that wont take to long to render out as the animation is 4000frames long.

NOTE: USED mia_material ON ALL OBJECTS. ALL OBJECTS ARE MODELLED TO REALWORLD SIZES - not sure if scene size effects the render


http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk150/steveWIP_pics/p1-1.jpg

in this setup I used 3 area lights one at each window (if you zoom in you'll see em better) positioned just outside of the windowframe. Theres lots of shadow grain all over the render.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk150/steveWIP_pics/p2-1.jpg

I tried using one arealight, still grainey and you can see my light portal settings to the right of the viewport.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk150/steveWIP_pics/p3.jpg

it states in the output window that the arealight should have the visible clicked on, which gives me a black box where the light was. This pic also shows my arealight and render settings.

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk150/steveWIP_pics/p4.jpg

In this pic I tried using one light to encompass all 3 windows. Does my window frame effect the outcome of the render.


so if anyone can help me light my scene I would be soooooo thankful as im a total noob when it comes to mental ray and its shaders and am running out of time and still have another project to texture and light.

I have many more questions to ask about the shaders but will leave it just now as I dont want to confuse anyone more than I probably just have.

Many thanks
steve

the shadow can be so grainy can be effect of the GLOSSY SAMPLE is too low....this feature will be on MIA_MATERIAL. increase the glossy sample from existing 8 to 128 or higher. but this will effect to the rendering time, it'll increase lots. but your pic's shadow will soft.
you can visit to my blog, all of my portfolio are created with maya and mental ray as the rendering engine. now, i'm using maya 2009, the same as yours.

here's my blog portfolios..... http://tankq77.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://tankq.carbonmade.com/