:)
Awesome! I can't wait to try the two together.
Practice huh Mirko? :) I can't wait to see what's after the practice! by the way, I've posted some of your renderings to the KeyShot Facebook page! http://www.facebook.com/LuxionKeyShot
Very cool.
Sharp! Did you use the new HDR Light Studio "Create" plug-in for KeyShot to create the lighting in real time on the actual active .bip?
Bill G
Quote from: Speedster on September 23, 2011, 02:40:35 PM
Sharp! Did you use the new HDR Light Studio "Create" plug-in for KeyShot to create the lighting in real time on the actual active .bip?
Bill G
no....no plug-in yet
Hey guys I just got the HDR Light Studio plug-in for keyshot working and its very cool, but one thing that is giving me trouble is simply changing the background color. I can change the colors of the light with the plug-in and set a backplate but this looks pretty bad. I am still experimenting looking for alternate solutions, but I am not finding one easily and this really worries me because changing the background is really important to me. Anyone else using the plug-in?
What looks bad? The backplate doesn't influence the scene.
Quote from: Zander85 on September 28, 2011, 12:55:09 PM
Hey guys I just got the HDR Light Studio plug-in for keyshot working and its very cool, but one thing that is giving me trouble is simply changing the background color. I can change the colors of the light with the plug-in and set a backplate but this looks pretty bad. I am still experimenting looking for alternate solutions, but I am not finding one easily and this really worries me because changing the background is really important to me. Anyone else using the plug-in?
I'm a little confused on what is happening here. I use this all the time have had no issues with anything. When you say background are you talking Keyshot or HDRLightStudio ? Ethier way no background issues. PM me if you want to talk about this more.
Tim
Ill post here because I can attach examples of what I mean when I say background. I am working with jewelry that is why most of the examples are jewelry as well. What I have noticed in these examples is that the objects being rendered have part of the background color reflected back in them. And I am having trouble getting the same effect. I have tried using colored lights to match a backplate similar to the jewelry exmaples (simple gradiants) but they seem to look cheesy and they block out nice reflections from light. Is the reflected color coming from modeled geometry in Keyshot? Or is it coming from colored lights or some other technique in HDR Light Studio. ???
I am struggling but I will post some of my failed attempts as well. :-[
In this one I tried making a brown light box style HDRI but as you can see it looks horrible. :P
Here's another one. I think you get the idea though. I haven't figured this one out. :'(
In most of the examples you posted it seems to me that the color is coming from the surface the objects are sitting on while the lights are still pretty much white. Try setting the background in hdrls to have a bit of color in the lower portion while keeping your lights white or slightly warm or cool. Could also try placing a big light layer covering the ground area of the environment in hdrls and giving that a bit of color, but not much intensity so it doesn't emit too much colored light onto the object.
Don't forget that, in HDR Light Studio, you can add "anti-light" or what might be called "dark light" or best- "no light". Sounds strange, but there's a special checkbox for this. Play with adding in some "black" anti-light slashes, parallels, or the like. Hard to describe, but easy to acheive.
Bill G
I agree with Jeff - The jewelry examples you posted are picking up the color from other geometry in the scene, specifically a ground plane, and perhaps along with a tilted plane in the red example.
Import a large square plane and place it under your ring. Scale it up in KeyShot as needed. Experiment with materials, colors and lighting to get the effect you are after.
You can also get creative and import two parallel planes, with a very small vertical offset. Color the bottom plane and use dark glass on the top plane. A soft brushed metal floor works well too. Standard jewelry photography techniques.
Below is one of my ring models. Usually I'm trying to do the opposite and remove color reflections from the ring. I do that by making two render passes (one with my ground plane turned off) and mask in Photoshop to reveal the uncolored ring. That is what I did on the left image.
But to answer your question, the render on the right is reflecting the ground plane color in two places shown by the red arrows. The color is subtle because the ring has a satin finish and the ground plane color is muted. If you want more color reflected in the ring, try importing a large curved surface, place it near the ring (but outside your final crop area), and experiment with colors & materials.
As you discovered, using colored lights is not going to give the effect you're after. The colored lights are equivalent to adding color gels to photography lighting - good for certain effects, but not the particular one you are trying to reproduce.
Remember when photographing (rendering) shiny objects, you're not taking a photo of the object, but rather taking a photo of what the object reflects. So import some objects (out of camera range) and a floor into the scene, assign materials, and the ring will respond.
Also, buy the book "Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting". Many photographers (especially jewelry & product photographers) will tell you it's one of their favorite books. The concepts apply to renders as well.
Ed Ferguson
Hi Zander
Mark here from HDR Light Studio... please email me your bip file (mark@hdrlightstudio.com) and I'll set something up for you showing you how to do this, and post it back on this forum.
I think we can do everything you need without anything in the scene but the rings themselves.
I got your email... but I just saw this posting too... maybe other people will be interested in how I'd tackle it in HDRLS.
Regards Mark
I decided not to wait for the jewelry model from Zander and kicked right into putting a little lesson together. It takes you step by step through a simple jewely lighting set up with a colored background, the effect you are looking for Zander.
Please do check it out here: http://www.hdrlightstudio.com/lesson/keyshot_jewelry_step_by_step (http://www.hdrlightstudio.com/lesson/keyshot_jewelry_step_by_step)
Thanks for the rings model.... I'll also knock up some lighting for that model also and share my results here.
Regards
mark
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you Mark!!!!!!! ;D
many, many many thanks!
it makes me want to buy this app.
Antoine
I'd love to see what you can do with the rings I sent ya.
(http://downloads.hdrlightstudio.com/zander_rings.jpg)
Now with your rings.
This took about 10 mins fiddling around.
A good idea is to import a floor square and make it a glass material... you'll get far more realistic reflections than using ground reflections from KeyShot.
But it will cause complications with lighting because this glass will see all the lights too. If I get chance I may pop a floor in and see what it looks like.
Happy to help.
The floor worked out pretty well as dielectric material with a bit of roughness, using IOR to change reflectivity.
(http://downloads.hdrlightstudio.com/zander_rings_2.jpg)
Wow thank you so much for all the help. Really makes my life easier. I really appreciate it Mark thank you.
Cheers
-Zander
I am following along with your tutorial right now and when I came to step 5 it says "make the light solid and lower the brightness to zero", but there is no brightness dial so I am assuming you meant the "dark" button which makes the light black. Am I correct?
Oh never mind I see that you meant the wattage.