HDR light studio + Keyshot....practice

Started by mirko, September 23, 2011, 09:03:15 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

mirko


Zander85

Awesome! I can't wait to try the two together.

Josh3D

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


Speedster

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

mirko

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

Zander85

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?

guest84672

What looks bad? The backplate doesn't influence the scene.

feher

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

Zander85

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.  :-[

Zander85

In this one I tried making a brown light box style HDRI but as you can see it looks horrible.  :P

Zander85

Here's another one. I think you get the idea though. I haven't figured this one out.   :'(

JeffM

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.

Speedster

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

Ed

#14
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