Lighting Shaded Areas

[multitech]

Hi Guys,

I am trying to get darker or obstructed shaded objects to be more visible without washing out the brighter materials.  The attached wheel render is an example.  The inside of the wheel is a little too dark with an Environment Brightness of 1 (pictured) or 2.  When this image is put into a document and printed, it doesn't look that great.  If I increase the Environment Brightness to 3 or 4, the wheel color and metal parts get washed out.  If I use a part with a point light in front of the wheel, it brightens up everything, but I still have a dark shadow inside the wheel.

Mike 

[multitech]

Here is an actual photo from a digital camera.

[thomasteger]

Here are a few things you can do:

- Increase the gamma of your image under "settings"
or
- Put a light plane in front of the object and make it invisible to camera and have it not cast shadows
or
- Set a highlight using the HDRI editor (if you are using the Pro version)


I hope this helps.

Thomas

[multitech]

Hi Thomas,

I tried a 60 watt point light.  It helped in some areas and made it too dark in others.  While it's not important to see the inside of the wheel, I often have parts like bearings or bushings inside hubs that are very dark and I can't see the bright metal material well due to shading. 

I ended up turning off Self Shadows, it has the effect that I want but at the loss of realism.  My biggest problem is most of my renderings will be put into grayscale PDF documents and the shadows tend to make the images too dark.  I've tried a few Photoshop post edits with curves and brightness/contrast.  Sometimes I can correct the shadows, other times in doing so washes out my brighter parts.

Mike

[thomasteger]

Use and area light. That will give you more control. when creating a light plane, rather than lighting it with a light bulb.