I’m looking for a tutorial on best practices for realistic lighting of realistic architectural interiors, particularly ones with “core” spaces that in real life will receive more lighting from overhead fixtures than from windows. Think something like a standard US outpatient clinic or a 200 person open office.
I’ve watched several lighting tutorials, but they tend to focus on lighting small spaces that are immediately window-adjacent. Wondering if there’s a good tutorial I haven’t found yet on smart, easy ways to realistically light a realistic large office interior.
I did watch a very good William Faucher on basic lighting. He used a small space with broad daylight openings, though, and I’m dealing with very different architecture. I’ll come up with something, even if it means creating a tedious grid of rect lights to simulate a bunch of 24x48 overheads. Just seems inefficient, though, like I’m missing some other easier way to simulate the even, undramatic lighting of a low-to-no-window large interior. I’m a long time V-Ray user, where I had several fast ways to “cheat” the look.
P.S. Will keep watching this thread. I noticed there’s been a lot of views, which means I’m not the only one interested in answers. Everyone feel free to add links or tips and tricks. Dramatic lighting is fun, but not all of us get to play there.
If i’m not wrong, you have a large space to light up, but you want it to be quickly like in Vray, I use corona mostly, left Vray a long time ago but what is this cheat method you’re talking about
I don’t necessarily need a “cheater” method in Unreal, just an understanding of what’s considered efficient, effective ways to realistically light a large interior that doesn’t have a lot of window exposure.
For Unreal, I suppose I could place dozens of 24" x 48" rect lights to simulate to simulate the locations of standard overhead panels set in an acoustical ceiling, but I don’t know if that’s really efficient, or if there’s a better way to accomplish a similar look. I’ll experiment, but figured it was worth the ask to see if someone has already covered this type of space.
And not to go too far off topic, but to respond -
I didn’t do stuff like that in V-Ray. I do architectural viz, but the focus is on the product in the space, not the space, so it was efficient and effective to cheat. Like draw a few shapes to fit the large spaces and convert to plane lights so I had minimal lights to adjust. When I had requests that were ■■■■ near immediate - “can you do something by 2pm today?!” - I’d just throw up a single plane light across the whole facility, set it to infinite, and not sweat the tiny line of blotchiness where the walls meet the ceiling.