xeunox

i know this is a complete and utter noob question, but i am totally loosing it with lighting for interior scenes using mentalray. ARTIFACTS EVERYWHERE, i have done all the usual stuff like deleted/recalculated the fg numerous times on numerous files. i have gone into a total flatspin because i cannot get it to work and i have since tried to add and remove speckle reduction with no effect, removed and added various lighting systems, tried it with and without global illumination and and and and...... i'm loosing it, help would be appreciated. using mr photo exp fyi, SKYPORTAL A HOAX!

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Tommy L

ooooo, that looks nasty. What version of MR?

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xeunox

max 2008, mr 3.5 i think

Tommy L

MR in Max 2008 is fantastic and (for the first time) quite logical. Take all of your lights out, assign a material override default middle gray. Start from scratch with the defaults.
Start with your GI. Dont add any lights, just get the sun and sky illuminating the scene correctly and your render nice and smooth, then go from there.


Are you doing an animation or still?

What machine are you working on (RAM and Processor)?

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MasterZap

It doesn't seem like you are using the sky portals at all - the image sure doesn't look like it. Did you place them exactly in the windows, pointing in the right direction?

/Z

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Brian Bradley

Hi Pieter,

Gotta admit that doesn't look like a MR interior set up??

Can you give us a rundown on how you have set up lighting
and materials? maybe a few pointers can be given!

Regards
Bri

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AJLynn

There's some stuff in there that's inexplicable - are there geometry issues in the ceiling? It doesn't look much like anything I've seen mr do. BTW when properly used the light portals do considerably increase FG performance.

xeunox

i try to stick to arch design materials and basic materials for simple colours, anything that has a bump or specular or transparency is usually a arch design material, simply cause it's very easy to use. i tend to stay away from lots of reflections just to optimise renders.

As for lights, in this specific render i used a couple of photometric area lights, and the mr sky/sun setup, those are the only lights i've used. i did have sky portals exactly in my windows yes as masterzap suggested, and all the correct flux directions where set, but i took them out of the scene because they created a massive light streak on my floor where there should be shadow (???) (i just vented, my bad)


Tommy these are still renders only, no animation, i was hoping to do a vr later but qtime full of issues on my 32 bit machine. I have 2 machines, main: mac pro 2.66 dual quad, 8 gig ram, standard 7300 nvidia, running vista 64, no problems, other is a AMD4000+ xp machine, with 2 gigs ram, 7600gt nvidia(don't render on this one), i will do that material overide and try again, (render the fg/gi out with that rather than textured? and apply once rendering with textures?)

thank you for your responses so far.

xeunox

hey andrew, yea there are supposed to be lights there, lights which i have tripple checked, models that i built myself, simple light box, no funny settings on geometry settings, no transparency no nothing, simple 12 poly boxed lights, with standard materials, not arch design, using a grey exterior, and a white self luminated interior. thats it. this is what it does to my poor ceiling...

i swear this is the weirdest experience i've had in max since i started 7 years ago...

Tommy L

No, I meant you need to go back to basics with the lighting until the lighting problems are resolved. When you have a messy result like this its best to know whether it is caused by bad lighting or modeling or render settings. If you have jut one generic material, it rules out any material errors causing weird problems.

I agree with who ever said you have geometry problems in the ceiling.

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