Lets make Lightmass EPIC (and understandable)

[heartlessphil]

Your portal appears to be in the middle of the room. It's supposed to cover each window area instead. Shape it like it would be an actual glass in the window's frame! But without a skylight it's not really useful I think.

[TONOLITO]

Hi hearthlessphil !

I've thought the "lightportalmass" needs to be set like a "boxreflectionhemisphere"! I'll put them in the windows frames ! Thanks for the tip.
FYI, I've setup the hdrimap in my scene (static) and add the famous "skylight" with SLS cubed option inside the room.
The scene seems to be brighter than before !
Question : do i need to completely remove the older skyphere from the scene ? Still there, i've only unchecked it in the "world outliner" (with 2 others postlights).

Thanks again for your support !
P.S : For fun, i've added white emissivecardboards in front of the windows (with photoshop) the results are far more realistics (for me)! I'll upload a Jpeg if i've time.
For now, i'm in the hurry, i've to go work !

[heartlessphil]

Only use 1 reflection capture for now, the box or the sphere!
Have only 1 skylight. Play with it's intensity. If I don't have a dir light I'll put the intensity between 3 and 8. (static)
Use a directional light only if you really want your scene to be sunny! (if you use a dir light you can lower the skylight intensity to 1)
Portals can raise build time but also increase the quality of the G.I (just don't use too many) You could use 3 total maybe.

Try to bake it to see how it looks. Start with preview setting and low lightmass quality setting just to see how bright it is. All the nice shadows are going to appear after your final production build.

[Mentholblue]

Just some tests with only `skylight`

I have used 0.15 in `static lighting level scale` and `NumHemisphereSamples=128`

How are you able to light the areas which aren't facing the light source with only a sky light?
For example, on the bedroom image - how are you able to light the walls,floor, ceiling parts that are close to the window?
When i use only a skylight in my scene all walls to the side of my window are completely dark even with high indirect lighting and an otherwise well lit room.

[heartlessphil]

How are you able to light the areas which aren't facing the light source with only a sky light?
For example, on the bedroom image - how are you able to light the walls,floor, ceiling parts that are close to the window?
When i use only a skylight in my scene all walls to the side of my window are completely dark even with high indirect lighting and an otherwise well lit room.

I think it's mainly because of the new portals! Have you tried em?

[Mentholblue]

I think it's mainly because of the new portals! Have you tried em?

This is with light-portals.

[Mentholblue]

I figured a solution, there was a peculiar issue with a reflection capture. I added more lights, later deleted them - then updated and moved a reflection sphere and then correct indirect lighting seemed to come to life. Now all walls are receiving satisfactory light with only a skylight in the scene. I wonder if it was a bug or due to my scene (now in 4.11) being imported from an older version.

[feingeist88]

Done in 4.11 Preview. Skylight Only. How would you guys continue and tweak with lighting? I changed the intensity of sky light. Dunno if that is smart :-/

[Mentholblue]

Try skylight above 20 I'm using skylight brightness of 60 in my current scene (it goes above 20 if you type in the number)
also play around with your reflection capture, start with only 1 to try and get some light to bounce towards walls next to the windows for example, i needed an influence radius of over 2000 for this to happen in my scene.

[feingeist88]

Try skylight above 20 I'm using skylight brightness of 60 in my current scene (it goes above 20 if you type in the number)
also play around with your reflection capture, start with only 1 to try and get some light to bounce towards walls next to the windows for example, i needed an influence radius of over 2000 for this to happen in my scene.

Do you mean a sphere reflection capture with a high influence radius?

[Mentholblue]

Yes. I was getting same results as you in my scene, until i messed around with a single sphere RC, and boosted the skylight. I'm also using specified cube map.
Use lightmass portals in windows too if you're not already.

[ad2mesh]

Done in 4.11 Preview. Skylight Only. How would you guys continue and tweak with lighting? I changed the intensity of sky light. Dunno if that is smart :-/

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4.11 preview indeed had bug with the atmospheric fog so without it the skylight basically won't cast any GI. current situation I think u need to hooked up a HDRI into the skylight then will be working just fine.
Just noticed that your lightmass is black and intensity is 0 well it work with previous version.
in this 4.11 you need to have intensity into for GI and dont use black.

[TONOLITO]

Question about the new "lightmassportal" :
Where do you set it : inside/outside/in/ the frame of yours windows ? Is there an impact over the scene ?

However, in my scene, with the lightmassportal + good hdrimap( on sls cubed), i can rid of "directionnal light" and spotlight (thx to @heartlessphil for the tip).
I've to push Forward the study on another scene (an interior with less windows) to see how it works.

[Mentholblue]

With lightportal, treat it like a box that acts as a window frame. It doesn't have to be completely accurate - just needs to be 1mm bigger than the glass in your window for example.

[heartlessphil]

The portal just needs to be a bit bigger than the hole like Mentholblue said. That's what I learned on stream the other day.



It's weird that there is no orientation to the portal tho, in vray there was an orientation indicator. You had to have the portal aim inside the house!

This is in vray :