Painting with Light (update-final fruit vase)

Started by Speedster, December 27, 2016, 10:17:16 AM

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Speedster

Hi all;

KeyShot 6 has given us an amazing toy box!  I know many of us feel like a five-year-old playing with our first Tonka Truck!  And we are starting to see new areas of exploration that even the Luxion Masters never envisioned for their product, like Stereographic Projection, Advanced Caustics and Volumetrics.

Most of us have been playing with the Material Graphing capability.  But, as a theatrical lighting designer and photographer in a previous lifetime, I've been enamored with the use of physical lighting and the new Interior Lighting Mode.  I've mentioned my early experiments in other posts, like my "Christmas Card", but now that I have some down time, its eight degrees outside and snowing, and my clients are all waiting for the new fiscal year, I decided to really get serious about exploring what can be done with physical lighting.  And I must say, I'm excited!

Backstory:  In the early 1990's I worked with the famous product photographer Aaron Jones, who had a huge studio here in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  He invented the "Hosemaster Lighting System", which did to pro color film what KeyShot has done for digital CG.  I designed many of the components, and also prototyped the system to market.  It fell out of favor with the demise of color film, (not to mention the $6000 + price tag!) but there are still many who use it.  I also made many of the props he used in print and animation. Anyway, I invite those of you who are lighting freaks to visit his website, as well as some others who use the Hosemaster System.  All sources of great inspiration! 

http://aaronjonesphoto.com/  Inventor of the Hosemaster, and one of the world's leading pros!  His work is jaw-dropping!
https://richardwalkerimages.com/  Richard specializes in floral images, and also has the best explanation of the Hosemaster System.
http://clayellisphoto.com/  Clay Ellis was Aaron's studio assistant, and is a major photographer here in Santa Fe, with an international reputation.
http://www.davo.com/_248-588-9600_/still.html  Simply an amazing photographer, and a great inspiration!

So I'm experimenting now with emulating Light Painting.  Obviously we can't "paint" or move our light sources during an exposure, but I'm sort of faking it by rendering out each lamp (they're not called lights!) as individual passes, then doing a Photoshop comp with masks and layer blends to reach the goal.  To be honest, it's likely not worth the effort for normal product shots, as we can nail it in one pass as you know.  But this trick does give a lot of options to manipulate lamps to suit for that "special shot".  And the potential for development is astounding! Remember that all lighting is "additive".

This is all exploratory, as the goal is to learn and to investigate possibilities.  I'm not after the perfect material or rendering.  My goal is that ALL lighting be physical geometry, and that the HDR (startup) is set at zero.  There is no enclosed volume, and I use only the Interior Lighting Mode. Rendered using Maximum Time of 15 minutes (on 30 cores) in Interior Mode.

This first test uses only three Area Light Diffuse, applied to the lamp "bulb" in a somewhat correct physical lamp body.  That is, you can control the light by adjusting the Top Hat, Snoot etc., just as with real lighting.  I did a rough set-up in SolidWorks, but shoved things around in KeyShot.  Based on this first test I'm going to model physically correct lamps, so that they relate better to the real world, sort of like playing with your sister's doll house!  For example, Barn Doors actually do work as they should, and can be adjusted to control fall-off.  For the initial setup I apply a nasty color to the lamps and work with the HDR at a low brightness so I can easily see them.  When all is set up I apply an Emissive to the lamp body, set to black and zero power, and hide from all.  This leaves the effect of the body (barn doors, etc.) but you can't see them.

I apologize to the artist who modeled this beautiful Eames Chair.  I've had it for years, and have lost the original source.  I feel bad, as I always credit models by other artists.

I hope the renderings show this all clearly.  I do invite any of you who want to post your experiments here, with the only requirement that you illustrate your techniques for all of us to benefit.  Or start a new thread, but above all- play with lighting!  It's a blast!  I'll be posting further experiments soon!

Bill G

Eron


Speedster

QuoteCAD files for the Eames Chair can be downloaded  here:
Thanks, Eron.  It's not the SolidWorks model I used, but I'm sure many will appreciate the link.  I will say, they are REALLY comfortable!
Bill G

Despot

I like the lighting Bill, super, super cool :)

But....

I know you say you're not focusing on materials etc and it's probably an oversight, but take a look at the chair arms... the cell noise leather is scaled up massively compared to the rest of the chair.

All the best to you for 2017

Speedster

Quotethe cell noise leather is scaled up massively compared to the rest of the chair.
Good catch, and thanks!  I thought all was linked.  That's what happens when you rummage around in the dark!  I'll try to fix it!
Bill G

Speedster

#5
Well, I fixed the leather scaling on the arm rests.  I also discovered that, when using my technique of individual lamp passes, fixing a material screwup sucks!  You basically have to render each again and start from scratch!  But hey, that's how we learn to be REALLY CAREFUL from the get-go!  But we already knew that, right?
Bill G

Will Gibbons

Maybe this is a different application, but what if you were to apply a light material to an object, animate the object, then apply motion blur to it and render it out. Would that achieve the 'light painting' effect?

Speedster

Hey, Will- like minds!  Not sure I have the skill set yet, but it sounds reasonable.  That's basically what you do in light painting...  Have you checked out the Motion Portfolio on Aaron's website?  It's mind-blowing, in that it's all on film, with light painting, yet they are movies!  Most of it was done stop-action, over many days!
Bill G

Speedster

The saga continues...

Learned a lot from this exercise.  I used physical Area Light Diffuse in modeled "Tapered Snoots", that act to control the light just as in real life.  Two have round orifices, and two as narrow slits.  The second image shows the rig.  They range from 0.75 watts to 4 watts.  I was working towards a "Carnival Glass" for the vase.  True carnival glass is a beautiful iridescent color (which eludes me!) , but there was also an amber blown glass with bubble inclusions (and scratches over time, as with my wife's pieces) that was given out as prizes at carnivals and fairs in the 1930's.  Very collectable today. 

I rendered out each lamp separately, then worked up a comp, as I did for the Eames chair.  But, most interestingly, I ended up with what a full-on KeyShot render with all lamps on looked like!

So it reminded me of the first law of photography- "Fix it on the Film, NOT in the darkroom"!  So this is a raw KeyShot 6 render, with very minor post.

The important takeaway is that physical lamps with controlling features like snoots and top hats provides very precise control, in my opinion far superior to tweaking an HDR with pins and stuff.  Note that the HDR is at zero.  Also, the lamp-pass comp concept works for some renderings, but only if it's worth the effort.  I agree with Master Tim- get it right in KeyShot and just render the damn thing!

Bill G

Will Gibbons

Quote from: Speedster on December 28, 2016, 01:56:09 PM
Hey, Will- like minds!  Not sure I have the skill set yet, but it sounds reasonable.  That's basically what you do in light painting...  Have you checked out the Motion Portfolio on Aaron's website?  It's mind-blowing, in that it's all on film, with light painting, yet they are movies!  Most of it was done stop-action, over many days!
Bill G

That's wild! The stills look like paintings with the glow created by the longer exposures/moving lights.

Will Gibbons

The oranges rendering looks good! A couple things stand out to me. The texture on the oranges appears a bit big and is distracting in my opinion. The bowl looks really good I think. I could be wrong, but using a gem material and tweaking the abbe value may give that iridescent effect, otherwise, rending one with thinfilm and then comping them would be an easy way to add some color variation. There seems to be missing a shadow under the bowl where it meets the ground. Maybe it's there, but it seems a bit subtle. What do you think? Cool to see you experimenting! Keep them coming!

Speedster

All great comments, Will, and my thanks!

Those oranges are driving me nuts!  I have like five different "Orange Peel" materials, some dating back to KS2.  I'm going to keep working on it, especially as to size.  May even try to add some mold to them, which looks like many of ours do after several weeks!

Yes, the shadow is there under the bowl, a direct result of the lighting, but I agree something is missing.  I'm going to test a solid bowl pass with alpha to get a strong shadow, and strip/adjust the shadow pass in post.

I used "Beer" for the glass, with some scratches and noise.  Been using liquids a lot lately as they are so easily tweaked.  I like the idea of a thinfilm pass- I'll try it.  I wish we could add curvature to glass and liquids!  Way back in the early days of KeyShot (maybe even back to "otherShot"), there was an insane material that gave an iridescent material, but I can't find it in my archives.

Overall, I'm really pleased with these tests so far, as they extend our toolbox so to speak, like a lot of the work you guys are doing with Matgraph.   But I also realize that true "light painting", as with the Hosemaster, is not really practical.  But when using physical lights we actually are.  Some subjects lend themselves to multiple lamp passes and post, some don't. 

Bill G

NM-92

You can attach an occlusion texture to your ground plane diffuse channel in order to get stronger shadows. I think this was explained in the youtube KS channel. Can't remember wich video though. I think they had a scene with a Bose speaker model.

Speedster

Well, this became a "project"!  And a real blast!  A lot more fun than designing medical devices!

I ate all the loose-skinned tangerines and replaced them with oranges.  The vase is now topaz, with abbe at 19.0.  I also carefully tweaked the lamp colors, positioning and wattage.  The only post in CS5 are the leaves and watermark.  I then took the comp into Filter Forge for some gentle selective blur.

I did an Epson 4880 test print on Moab Exhibition Luster 300 (my favorite media), and it prints so beautifully I have decided to add it to my gallery print collection.  I don't use a watermark on production prints.

The first image is the KeyShot raw, with leaves in post.  The second image is how I intend to print it.

The takeaway is that physical lamps with modifier snoots, etc. is a very valid technique for high-end lighting.  I would only use this for special projects that warrant the extra work, however.

Really happy with how it all turned out, and I have a lot of new ideas going forward.  Maybe some of this will inspire you all to play with physical lighting!

Bill G 

Finema

really nice Bill ! I love it !
and great work on this porject  ;)