I’m trying to make this office scene as realistic as possible, here is the latest render I’ve made using a high lighting bake. I currently use spotlights for the hanging lights in the scene, and a skylight with a directional light for the outside. Below is the latest screenshot and the settings for my scene:
Oh yes, it’s always the most simple thing I forget haha! What would you recommend? I’ve upped it to 512 currently and it’s increased my baking time a tonne, which is fine, but was wondering if that’s to high/low?
In World Lightmass Settings, try increasing Occlusion Exponent to 2 or 3, and increasing Max Occlusion Distance to 300 or 400. It appears that the sunlight is entering at a low angle (as though it’s morning or evening), based on the shadows, at least. Softening the shadows would help it display more realism. So, increasing Source Angle or Light Source Angle (Lightmass) could get the effect of shadows being softer as they’re further from the caster object. Try enabling “Affect Translucent Lighting” in the skylight, and directional light if it’s off, since there’s a number of windows and what appears to be a glass wall/door for an office room.
Preview will never give you nice results, I’d recommend to bake it on at least Medium.
512 lightmap resolution for a floor in an archviz scene is pretty low… If the whole floor is just 1 mesh then you won’t be able to assign a high enough lightmap resolution! You should break it up into smaller parts… The calculation will be faster too!
You have 4 for lighting smoothness which will produce an over blurred result: you’ll lose ALL detailed lighting information! Try it with 0.6!
Also you have compression on which generates artifacts! Turn it off!
It’s looking somewhat better, more of an ambient atmosphere how an office looks. But it is kinda dark. The shadows of objects look way better. One thing I notice is a few of the shadows on the ceiling are extending rather far. It doesn’t look unrealistic, but not sure if it’s what is preferred for that particular office scene. I don’t know the final result / goal, so I’m not sure whether it’s accurate for the intended result. The AO setting, Min Occlusion (Skylight), can lighten things a bit by increasing it (but not much of an increase, as it seems it is sensitive). Try 0.1 to 0.5 to start. If it’s too much, reduce it, and if it’s not enough brightening, then increase it by 0.05 per try.
Another one, which is called Ray Start Offset Depth Scale, is found in the directional light and in point / spot lights. Increase it a little bit (like from 0.003 the default to at the most 0.01 I think), and it’ll move the shadowing further into the geometry so it’s not so heavy / profuse inside cracks / crevices / corners (like the shelf by the wall, left side of photo…or the ventilation shaft at top right). It depends on how the final result is intended to display.
thank you for the reply. Yeah I was looking to make it more bright, but was just going to increase the intensity of each light gradually till I found what I like, but I’ll try what you said and display the results tomorrow
Easiest/best way to brighten up a scene is through postprocess! If you just make lights stronger you might end up burning the lit/bright parts…
Also maybe your materials are too dark: try to make them brighter in the editor!
-Increase the amount of ambient light coming in. Currently it looks weird.
you’ll want clear defined contrast between the areas lit from outside and then lit by the indoor lights.
-Kill the white chairs. Anything is better than white chairs.
White chairs scream ‘Look at meeee’. Never ever look at white chairs. It causes permanent brain damage.
-You have a empty ceiling the size of an olympic swimming pool. Empty space like that is ****. Put some stuff on it to make it more interesting.
-Work with more defined roughness on your surfaces. Reflections are key. The real world has a multitude of reflective shades. Even stuff that doesn’t look like it’s reflective, often reflects at least something.
Just think of Karate-Kid…Reflect ON, Reflect OFF and make this your mantra as you Zen through your office and scrutinize everything like a little ducky looking for water
UPDATE: So instead of using the AO for the skylight as I didn’t like the blue tint, I used a AO cubemap for the post process effects. It’s definitely made the scene a lot more brighter. It still doesn’t look as realistic as I would like, so if anyone else has more tips that would be amazing!
I agree with an earlier post regarding some surfaces needing more definition using roughness. Using roughness somehow to get a more identifiable material type for different surfaces. Even the floor is still somewhat undefined as to the thickness / roughness of the carpet or floor type. Cabinets, desk surfaces, and overhead light border materials need an increase in specular to get some highlights from the lighting. So add or subtract from roughness and increase specular, and perhaps an increase in metallic for the shinier surfaces like the cabinets and outer structure of the overhead lights. Unless those aren’t metal or shiny types of materials, as intended, then ignore what I suggest for metallic.
