Maya 2020 fundamentals - modelling the real world
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# 16 02-12-2015 , 08:19 AM
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I've got a question regarding noise. There's too much noise in my last renders and I am wondering how I can reduce it.
I'm guessing it has something to do with my area lights settings. There are 18 windows in my scene and I put an area light in front of each of them....so I've got 18 area lights. In the area light settings I've set the High samples to 32, high sample limit to 2 and low samples to 8.
Would increasing these settings reduce the noise? I'm a bit concerned that it will increase my render time by a lot.

Maybe there are other settings that I can change to reduce noise as well. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated

# 17 09-12-2015 , 11:43 PM
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Looking good! The wicker basket is quite nice, gimme wireframes please. :3 Increasing the high samples will help on objects directly being hit by the light, high sample limit is the number of reflective/refractive bounces the light will do before it stops using the high sample value and use the low sample value instead for the sake of performance. It's the reason why smoothly shaded objects might look noisy in a mirror with a high sample of 64, high sample limit of 1 and a low sample of 1. Looks like the high samples need a boost and I'd suggest balancing it out with the anti aliasing. Also try reducing the number of area lights, if one light can cover a few windows then might want to give that a shot.

P.S xGen is a PITA >.>


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# 18 09-05-2016 , 12:58 PM
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Took some time but I finaly finished this image.

user added image

Started a new project but got some problems with the lighting.
This time it's a small bathroom (yes another bathroom user added image) with just one small window and a half opened door. I'm actualy trying to replicate a photo I found online. I'm not going for an exact replica but I would like to get the lighting as close as possible. Right now I'm rendering the scene with one hdr image, 2 portal lights and a directional light for the sunlight. For Global Illumination I use the new GI mode. This however does not yield satisfactionary results.

Here is the image that I use as reference:
user added image

And here is my image:
user added image

As you can see the reference image is a nice and brightly lit bathroom with no dark and contrasting corners. My render is almost the complete opposite. With global illumination I had hoped the room would be nicely lit with al the light bouncing around en lighting up every corner of the little room. I have also done a test with Final gather without tweaking the settings much and the result is far better. I was under the impression that my test render with the new GI should look a lot like the one with Final gather. Am I doing something wrong or is this to be expected?

The render with final gather:
user added image

# 19 11-05-2016 , 07:25 AM
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After fiddling around with the scéne I finaly got some improvement by adding a mia exposure photographic lens shader to the camera. Below you can see the result. It is far from perfect but it is getting better.
I also added a small window in de shower area to brighten up this part of the image.

user added image

Before the above render I also renderd an indirect diffuse pass. The result is an almost black image. I can only see some indirect light around the windowframe. Shouldn't there be a lot more light? Is there something I am missing?

The indirect diffuse pass:
user added image

# 20 03-06-2016 , 01:43 PM
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Apparently there was a bug in Maya that was causing GI Next to not work properly on my computer. Now it is working correctly again and I am getting good results. Even XGen is working now in combination with GI Next. Below two new renders that look pretty good in my opinion.

user added image

user added image

# 21 06-06-2016 , 08:16 AM
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Wow! Amazingly done! Wish i could do such realistic indoor shots user added image

# 22 06-06-2016 , 10:14 AM
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Thank you SwatSnipe.

I guess it's a matter of practice and sticking with it till you're happy. Took my a lot of time to get to something like this. Also a lot of googling for tuts and tips. And the tutorials on this site have helped me alot as well

# 23 06-06-2016 , 01:08 PM
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Ah, that's true! I got a bathroom scene here on simply maya which is kind of ok. Nothing like yours tho. I have been to busy making characters and skin shaders for em trying to get a beliveable result

# 24 08-06-2016 , 01:03 AM
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This is very nice. Rendering takes a lot of time to learn and it is very technical. I love this renders a lot mate.
user added image

# 25 15-11-2016 , 07:07 PM
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Looks really nice.
Could you tell a bit more about the light setup ?

# 26 16-11-2016 , 09:18 AM
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Hey Ivo great to see you here. (je kent me misschien beter onder de naam Marti van het nvidia forum),

The lighting in these images is done really simple. I only use an HDR image as environment lighting. No use of portal lights. They give me strange results but I am thinking of starting to use them again as I a want to shorten my render times. Some renders take 20 hours to render wich is insane.
In some occassions I also use a couple of area lights to light up dark spots in the render.

This weekend I hope I have some time to use my render setup for the scene you have provided at the nvidia forum. Then I can share that scene with you so you can see my exact settings.



This is my last render. I really like this one. The composition is not mine...I coppied it from an image I found online. Hope you guys and girls like it. Feedback is always welcome.

user added image

# 27 18-11-2016 , 07:58 PM
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I'm getting anxious just reading "20 hours" lol. The image is quite lovely and I have no critique really. I'm guessing the render times shot up because of the samples needed to clear out all the indirect noise.


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# 28 21-11-2016 , 08:35 AM
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Ah it's you user added image

Nice new render.
20 hrs is a lot. But also depends on the resolution. What resolution did you render ?

# 29 21-11-2016 , 09:31 AM
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Thanks Ivo and Gen.

Resolution is 5000 x 3562.
20hrs is indeed long and I think both resolution and the indirect lighting contribute to the very long render times. Especialy the shower area with the glass door takes up a lot of render time I believe.
I'am hoping to reduce some of the render times with the use of portal lights

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