Per object/group lighting

[PerFotoVDB]

Hi Keyshot guys,

I like the easy of lighting and the hdri editor more and more.
However, I do miss an essential option in the lighting tool-bag.
It is per object or per group level lighting.
Example: Car body has an hdri (with extra pins for accents) but the wheels need to be separately lit (same base hdr but different pins for accents).

I know this feature exists in Deltagen where lighting is hierarchically determined. Ex: an IBL light above all groups affects the wole scene but ibl inside groups override the top level ibl.

This would be super useful to fine tune a whole lighting scene. Now we split and blend in renders with different lighting in photoshop.

Thanks,
Per

[Esben Oxholm]

+1 on that.

Have had quite a few projects where this would have been super useful

[mattjgerard]

Now that they have the exclude node system worked out for cutaway materials (and will hopefully add an exclude/include switch to that) they could roll that across to other parts of the system as well, and this would be a great next use for it.

[PerFotoVDB]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. For sure this would be super useful in productions! We miss it a lot in this software and I am sure many users would appreciate this functionality.

Hopefully dev will pick this up as a workflow enhancement.

Cheers

[DMerz III]

Someone else mentioned something like this a few weeks ago, and I think it is a great idea. It would simplify certain aspects of our workflow to a great degree, especially with labels. When the clients want "extra lights" on certain parts of the label which magically don't appear on other parts of the model. 

[Eugen Fetsch]

+1 on that.

But, I believe it is a really hard one to code, wouldn't work for HDRi pins and wouldn't be "physically correct".

[Esben Oxholm]

+1 on that.

But, I believe it is a really hard one to code, wouldn't work for HDRi pins and wouldn't be "physically correct".

It wouldn't be physical correct, true, but clients often have requests that are not physically correct and being able to do this would save a bunch of time rendering several passes and comping in photoshop

[DriesV]

Fishing a bit deeper...
Is this something that should work as part of Studios as well?

Dries

[DMerz III]

How would it work in the UI is a great question.

My first thought would be having an option under the material tab for 'environment override' where you can choose from one of your existing environments. How would this work in studios... I'm not sure it should?

If you wanted to say have a label that needed two environments, then you would use multi-material?

Just throwing it out there.

Having geometry linked to specific environments would be too limiting in my opinion, mostly because Materials already have multi-material capabilities. Otherwise, maybe it is tied to model set?

[mattjgerard]

I would think that there would be a field in the Properties panel when you select a group or object. If its blank, then it uses the project environment. If you drag an environment from the library into that field, it will override the project environment settings and use that one. Or add another "tab" next to Properties - Position - Materials - Environment under the scene tree.

I personally most likely wouldn't use it much in my day to day, but I can see the value of it. Much like excluding a part from being affected by a spotlight or physical light that is in the scene. That's something that I would use.

[Eugen Fetsch]

IMO the easiest was would be light linking for physical lights only, not for HDRi. The light material would have an include / exclude object list then, similar to the Cutaway feature.

Fishing a bit deeper...
Is this something that should work as part of Studios as well?

If you go for Mesh Lights only (at least for the first version) it would be easy to implement in studios too, as the mesh light can be handled with model sets.

[Esben Oxholm]

I would love this to work with HDRI's.
I think having an 'environment override' in the material properties as David suggests, makes sense.

I believe that doing it this way also makes it quite easy to implement into studios through multi-materials.

[PerFotoVDB]

I would think that there would be a field in the Properties panel when you select a group or object. If its blank, then it uses the project environment. If you drag an environment from the library into that field, it will override the project environment settings and use that one. Or add another "tab" next to Properties - Position - Materials - Environment under the scene tree.

I personally most likely wouldn't use it much in my day to day, but I can see the value of it. Much like excluding a part from being affected by a spotlight or physical light that is in the scene. That's something that I would use.

This solution I find very useful

[DMerz III]

I would think that there would be a field in the Properties panel when you select a group or object. If its blank, then it uses the project environment. If you drag an environment from the library into that field, it will override the project environment settings and use that one. Or add another "tab" next to Properties - Position - Materials - Environment under the scene tree.

I think I would find this a little limiting because it means I would need an HDRI in my library in the exact state I need it. Having the option to use a complete environment (and all the extra controls) from my list of environments would be more ideal. I can then choose to update/edit my pins as needed as well in that environment and not need it saved to my library.

Also, as I mentioned, having the override tied to the geometry or part kind of limits my ability to have several variations if needed on the same part (ie. maybe I need a separate lighting environment for JUST the metallic foil in my label, but not the rest of the label) All of that label would be one part. Multi-Material with Environment override gives me that flexibility.

[PerFotoVDB]

Good point,

Maybe both systems, geometry and/or material, can exist as an option to us.

Cheers
P