Image Based Lightning

I've been struggling with lightning up my 3d models into live action scenes. I watched this demo by MasterZap on http://www.zaptronic.com where he generates a diffuse,specular and reflection map from a simple light probe photo. My problem is that i can't generate a good diffuse map. I grab a new slot, scroll down to diffuse color and choose the chrome map plugin. Then i choose my bitmap and crop the image so i have just the light probe selected, and this is where i stop. I mean, i can't just slap my diffuse map on to the 3d object beacuse that looks awful.

Any suggestions?

 

Use it as a reflection map and adjust the value. You could also just apply it as a diffuse map and then render out a pass like that and then render out a regular diffuse pass for the color and composite them to get a value you like.

 

Maybe i ought to try this method http://nickbertke.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60 instead. I generally don't like rendering stuff in multi-passes, cause it's very time consuming and then do all the tweaking inside AE when you screen them all together. I just wanna nail it and get it right inside 3ds Max without having to save tons of passes, and this tutorial seems to be what im looking for.

 

I used to be that way; still sort of am. But you'll learn (Especially if PixelMagic nabs at you enough), that it's just the way to go in the long run. Especially when you get to shots that you literally cannot render it in one pass.

 

I having a hard time keeping track of all the different passes, I mean you will render highlights and shadows, ambient vs diffuse vs specular vs normal passes, all these seperate things instead of just push a button and here is your element. But as you pointed out, some shots will probably have to be done using multi-pass, especially sub-surface scattering. But if you same time take a look at some VFX houses like Weta, the will, almost as a house kind philosophy, deliver maybe one or two passes. So you get get really good results without it, just take a look at King Kong. And Pixar as well, delivers everything nailed in the render. I think that the biggest difference between the houses today, whether or not you approach your 3d by trying to nail it and hand it off, or set it up as a very "flexible" thing to be tweaked. Obviously, you can nail the look either way, if you just have the right people working on it. I think it's just a matter of where you wanna put the weight.

If i would hand just a single pass to PixelMagic, he would probably throw it back in the water

 

That's not true...

those houses did do all these things in passes also...

Why put money in a bigass render with chances it goed wrong and not be able to adjust different elements???

That's what it's all about... to be able to make adjustments later on if needed.....without having to render everything again...

 

Word.

 

Ok, so prove me wrong.

 

Weta

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/index.cfm?FeatureID=1162

"A single shot can range from a few seconds to several minutes. Each second of film includes 24 frames, each containing up to 4,996-x-3,112 pixels in 32- or 64-bit colour. Separate passes must be made for each object that requires rendering in the frame and for attributes such as texture, lighting, and reflections."

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/server/story/0,10801,96284,00.html

The caption from the image: "Complex visual effects like this battle scene from The Return of the King can require more than 30 rendering passes per frame."

Pixar

I took the liberty of scanning this page from the September 2006 Issue of 3d World.

[image=http://www.elysium3d.com/images/cars.jpg]

Step 04 - 06 should suffice.

 

If you have Itunes, download this http://pixelcorps.tv/vfxs07 and jump to about 31:60, where they bring up a whole discussion about multi-pass rendering. And I don't think what these guys are saying is bogus.

 

I hate so say it Cryptite, but you should really try to do your homework better next time.

http://www.fxguide.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=438 download it and find out the truth about Weta.

 

I'm sorry to have gotten you all riled up, but my point was not to tell you you're doing it all wrong, or that multi-pass is the only way to go. There is no one way to do anything in 3d; and that is one of the basic principles of 3d as a whole. Sure there are plenty of instances where you can do things in one pass; however, over time my point was that rather than waiting another 2 days for a render to change the look you were going for, you could get the changed look in about 15 seconds in comp because you rendered in passes. If you so choose, like i once did, to try to nail everything the first go, that's your way of doing it and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. My point is that you'll find there's a lot of time and money that can be spent on multi-pass rendering.

Also, do not claim that I did'nt do my research, because if you are, then you're trying to invalidate very obviously clear information in the articles I linked to. The obvious point we've both discovered is that these houses do things in a variety of ways. Weta apparently does things in multipass and singlepass, as i'm sure lots of houses do. But do not make such blind rejections to what's obvious information. I'm sure you can read, can't you?

 

If I was making blind rejections, why would I then take into account that the first thing you quoted for example was a statement by George Johnsen (Chief Technology/Animation Officer of TDRL). This guy work with industry giants such as Sony. Now Sony rely heavily on multi-pass rendering. So im sure with his background, he would be making those kind of statements. But i go be wrong, I mean, he could very involved within the Weta pipelines.

I guess your right, i've made too much of a big deal out of this, so im just going to let it go. We have different point of views and I respect that.

 

Agree to disagree.

Scholars maintain the translation was lost many hundreds of years ago.

 

Doesn't it mean Saint Diego?

 

No, that's not right.