Evening exterior

[zsouthboy]

Maybe put reflectors out-of-frame to reflect some light back ? Big ones, quite far (15 to 40 meters from the scene bounding box; well, that depends on their size).

Wouldn't emitters be more efficient?

That way you're not bouncing the light an extra time.

Just put some big, low gain emitters in the same place?

[cpfresh]

hey pibuz! the scene is coming along nicely. i think the light power may be a little low. you'll have to balance it with the exposure duration to get that nice full glow from the lights. i think its going to be awesome! keep it up

[Pibuz]

Hey guys thanks!
I didn't manage to upload the latest image cos i literally escaped from work ..
Hopefully tomorrow (...uhm......THIS!) morning i'll upload the night-cooked version.

Cpfresh is right about the lights' power: seemed too low for me too, so i raised it up a little in the ongoing cooking version.

CTZn: i would drop your interesting idea of using reflectors..cos i don't even know what they are! I can suppose they're kind of geometry painted of a reflecting material (..plastic) which i shall put in unseen points in the scene to let the light bounce back.. In theory i get it, but in CG i've never done it before..If you could give some examples i'd be very happy !

Zsouthboy suggests adding big low-powered emitters to avoid the problem: i think this is easier to handle for me: i'm not a pro at all, so all your fines techniques are a bit out of reach BTW, i'll try to keep this scene clean from "photographic" means, just to see which point i can reach simply stitching as close as possible to the real world.

Kosmokrator: thank you for your support, mate! Indeed, i expected it to be much more slow to be rendered than it finally results. I used no glass at all, until now (only TG), and (my God!) NO SSS (too difficult to set, too much time wasted to find the correct values for objects - the candles - that aren't even the main subject of the scene..). For the wax i played a little with a blending of a phong and a diffuse transmitter (Bbb docet ): simple and plain.
For now, the render size is relatively little (it's just the one of the posted images, excepted the last one which has been resized a little), and aperture diffraction is off.
MNCR is left at 500, but i plan to raise it for the definitive version: what do you think about it? it's a good idea, or it's better to leave it at 500?

Now a question: if i set aperture diffraction ON, this causes a very subtle glow around emitting objects, isn't it? But i wanted a sort of..star also, on them. Is that a thing i can achieve only with Violet or i should just put an obstacle map in the relative slot?

thank you all guys! This thing is really turning out very funny, indeed...

[CTZn]

Zsouthboy suggests adding big low-powered emitters to avoid the problem: i think this is easier to handle for me: i'm not a pro at all, so all your fines techniques are a bit out of reach

My fine technique is the very same than zsouthboy, unless that the emitters become diffuse white/gray planes. It's a trade-off between efficiency and accuracy between both tho.

I think the star-like diffraction comes from an obstacle map... don't ask me for an example BbB is giving some hints here.

[Pibuz]

So, here is a little update!
I'm definitely NOT satisfied with the wood planks texture: shows lot of repetition

I tweaked the lights to be more efficient and powerful, they were too dim..
I started to explore the untouchable world of pools, by texturing and setting the mat of the walls, then added the water, as youcan see. Water is a big volume, intersecting the pool border about 2cm to avoid interferences between the faces. The mat is a CoolColJ preset with changed base color (de saturated and changed the hue a little).
I added some simple plastics and activated the first Thin Glass surfaces. Next step would be to put some lights inside the pool. Now another updated version is rendering..
I'll upload it in the evening!

[BbB]

Mmmm. Looking very good already!

[OnoSendai]

Coming along nicely, keep it up

[Pibuz]

Voilà: another little wip image. Now, i focused a little on the lighting, most of all of the indoor spaces. I played a little in PS too, i post the raw image and the retouched one. More WIP coming!

[BbB]

Sorry you may have mentioned this elsewhere, but what environment are you using? Sky? HDRI - You got a really nice dusk feel there.

EDIT: Why not add an SSS atmospheric medium to your water so we can see the light rays?

[Pibuz]

Hi Bbb! No particular environment, you know: only sun/sky, about 18:00, Venice geographic coordinates.
You mention an SSS medium to see some rays in the water: it should be interesting, but i don't know how to do that in SkIndigo..
If any can give any hint...

[BbB]

Dunno about Skindigo.

Can't you create a specular SSS material there? I think there are quite a few settings for air and liquid scattering in the forum. Actually, maybe we should get those in the mat library.

[Pibuz]

Oh, now i get you.
So, like i wrote before, for water i used the CoolColJ preset, which actually has a subtle scattering coefficient. Perhaps it's not sufficient to fit the needs of a night view water pool..

[BbB]

Maybe it's just fine. I've tried many times to obtain this glowing, fluorescent effect that light in a pool creates. Without any success...

[Woodie]

Looks very nice, but the water waves are way to big for this pool. It should be almost clear, slight breeze wave eventually.

[CTZn]

The last image is really good, promising !

I think you can push the lights a bit more, not twice as much but just like 1.7, say

Can you share your tonemapping settings please Pibuz ? Out of curiosity