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Ray Traced Lighting Settings


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#1 Isaiah Baker

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Posted 05 May 2021 - 09:47 AM

In the past I have always used textured mode to render images for clients, but I'd like to start use Ray Traced more now that the rendering doesn't take so long.  I am really struggling to come up with a good combination of lighting settings that gets some shadows and shows off the reflections but doesn't give me light washed areas and dark corners.  I seem to particularly have dark corners where the top of the wall meets the ceiling.  Does anyone have any tips they would be willing to share?

If if matters, I typically light with can lights. 

TIA


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#2 Fred Russell

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Posted 05 May 2021 - 11:09 AM

These are the settings I'm liking right now with X 12.  I don't spend much time on trying to do a good tight 3rd. I'm spending a lot of time tho experimenting with 3rd, since i have some time at the moment. The path tracing I haven't gotten as good of results for my purposes from it , so have it off, and that lets me use the "ambient light", and along with the tone mapping, adjusts the lighting nice for me.

Probably can add some direct lighting.  I'm trying to use some atmospheric lighting, but haven't had luck understanding it yet, but the name sounds like it would help

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#3 Brittany Parks

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Posted 13 April 2023 - 12:31 PM

Wondering if anyone can help me with the same question but for exterior renderings. I have played with the time zone/time of day, added direct light...tried Fred's settings...cannot figure out how to get more light onto the exterior   :(

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#4 Matthew Dunson

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Posted 13 April 2023 - 01:42 PM

I am also trying to experiment more with Ray Tracing, but I have also experienced significant lighting differences between Textured and Ray Traced. Whenever I have a scene with perfect lighting in Textured Mode, I switch to Ray Tracing and it appears very dark and underexposed. I know that this is due to the differences in how light is calculated but the technique I use is to setup my camera shots and lighting in Textured Mode, and then switch to Ray Tracing and adjust the Lighting to 'Custom' and increase Ambient Light and Headlight. There are a bunch of other technical settings that can improve or diminish the quality of the render, but I found this approach a matter of trial and error. Most of the time, I can get achievable results in Textured Mode if time is of the essence and when I need quick but quality/accurately lit renders.



#5 Keith Almond

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Posted 13 April 2023 - 03:10 PM

Are you using Direct X11 or Direct X12?


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#6 Matthew Dunson

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Posted 13 April 2023 - 03:27 PM

When I switch from Textured to Ray Traced, the Mode Options automatically switch it to Software Ray Traced. When I am still in Ray Traced Mode and switch the Mode Options to DirectX12, I don't really see any visual difference if I were to be in Textured Mode and had DirectX12 enabled. The darkness is present when Software Ray Traced is enabled.

 

This is when I enabled Path Tracing in the lighting settings to get the Number of Passes settings. This mode has the ability to toggle shadows on and off but some of the areas seem to be extremely dark compared to the rest of the image. Of course, this could be because of my lighting but I will have to make a sample project to show some examples of the render settings I experiment with that give me varying results.

 

For general navigation, I use Textured Mode DirectX12 without Path Tracing enabled to get the smoothest navigation speeds possible and it gives me decent material accuracy as well.



#7 David Zawadzki

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Posted 13 April 2023 - 07:03 PM

Allow me to suggest that you take a look at John Pepper’s suggested settings:

https://softplan.com...-been-released/
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#8 Richard Rubinski

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Posted 14 April 2023 - 11:56 AM

Has anyone had trouble going to the link in David's post?

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#9 Matthew Dunson

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Posted 14 April 2023 - 02:05 PM

Allow me to suggest that you take a look at John Pepper’s suggested settings:

https://softplan.com...-been-released/

I realized that this thread is for the SoftPlan 2022 version, but I am using SoftPlan 2024:

 

After adapting to the recommended settings in the post above for SoftPlan 2024, it was as simple as adjusting the Indirect Bounces and Tone Mapping to brighten or darken the space as needed. This also shows the importance of setting lighting to reflect real-world fixtures. I have been using the Lumens and Kelvin properties that closely relate to the fixture I am representing, and I get fantastic results after switching from Textured to Ray Traced (using Textured Mode for scene changes such as lighting, materials, etc.). Another factor is adjusting the Distance, Decay, and Angle of the light to best suit the space but also be realistic to the fixture. The new DirectX12 Ultimate settings and Path Tracing has opened so many opportunities for Interior and Exterior rendering. I have been using Textured Mode to render most of my client photos for quick iterations, but the output of the improved ray traced render engine has opened a lot of doors!



#10 John Pepper

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Posted 14 April 2023 - 02:10 PM

These settings are the new stock settings for SoftPlan 2024.  SoftPlan 2022 does not have all the same capabilities.

 

  • If your graphics card supports DX12 Ultimate
  1. Raytraced Mode,  Options->Mode Options:  Renderer: DirectX 12 engine|    Lighting: Lighting On, Auto Light Source Off, Path Tracing On, Number Of Passes 2000, Denoise Off |  Face Options: Reflections On
  2. Textured Mode, Options->Mode Options: Renderer DirectX 12 engine |  Lighting: Lighting On, Auto Light Sources On, Path Tracing Off. | Face Options Reflections Off
  3. As always you can change the options to meet your work flow however those are the default settings.   Number of Passes can go as high as 20000 now which takes time but creates soft clean images.

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#11 John Pepper

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Posted 14 April 2023 - 02:37 PM

Regarding getting More light on the exterior:  

Under mode options -> Lighting,  Make sure Custom lighting is on.    

 

You should be able to play with the sun time of day to get light on the front of the house.  

If you can't seem to get the sun in a position to suit you you can add a direct light.   In plan, switch to 3d drawing mode.  Draw.  Direct light.  Draw it toward the wall you wish to add more light to.  Edit the light and increase its brightness to to around 90000.  You can also edit the Z values of the position and target to change the angle the light is shining down on the house from.

 

Note: I don't recommend increasing the ambient light because although that will brighten the image it will also appear flat because it brightens all the surfaces.  To get a nice image it needs depth so you should try to introduce shadow.


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#12 Matthew Dunson

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Posted 14 April 2023 - 02:49 PM

I use the Direct Light feature a lot since some areas of the model are darker than others with only one source of direct light (the sun).  It is also useful for "Studio" biomes to where my environment and background are set to pure white and I need additional lighting around the model.



#13 Stephan Page

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Posted 24 August 2023 - 08:57 AM

Was anyone able to see the link referred to above?  I would really like to see the settings if possible.



#14 Gary McKeon

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Posted 24 August 2023 - 09:50 AM

Was anyone able to see the link referred to above?  I would really like to see the settings if possible.

 

Yes, the link worked just fine for me


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#15 Verlin Klassen

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Posted 08 March 2024 - 10:33 AM

I have spent quite a bit of time lately with exterior rendering. My client is not looking for a lot of fancy site work or backgrounds, but wants the house to be the focus. This is what I came up with for this project after a lot of trial and error and some help from tech support. I don't claim that this is the best it could be, but know how I would have appreciated someone sharing some settings with me.

Here is how I set it up:

Siding is done with profiles, not textures

Rendering is with Ray Traced Mode 20 000 passes

Denoise off

Display lines off

Tone Mapping 90

Anti Alias 6

I haven't done a lot of experimenting with the number of indirect bounces, but that is set at 4

Sun options- Location is Winnipeg, Manitoba, so quite far north, Time December 21, 12:00 PM, when the sun is directly south and quite low in the horizon

I used 1 direct light approximately 30' in front of the house- illuminance 120 000, Position Z 4' 6", Target Z 4'-6"

Here are the lighting settings for a lot of the textures: Roughness 88

                                                                                     Metalness 91

                                                                                     Opacity 100

                                                                                     Relief Depth 95

                                                                                    Uniform 41

                                                                                     Emissive 0

I also turned up the emissive slightly for a couple items, such as the shingles and fascia. It doesn't take much.

 

Like someone else stated above you can turn off path tracing for making adjustment, or, I change the path tracing to anywhere from 100 to 300 and it refreshes quite quickly and gives a fairly good preview. You could also turn Denoise on if you are only doing a couple hundred passes.

 

I am sure some of you have perfected this much more, but this could be a starting point for someone trying to learn how to do the Ray Tracing

 

 

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#16 David Zawadzki

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Posted 08 March 2024 - 11:34 AM

Attached File  Front Roof 10.jpg   67.82KB   0 downloads

 

Here is a current path tracing drawing... I don't think I spent more than 5 minutes on adjusting anything... it looks good enough to me for what I need, eh?

 

Below is a ray trace of the same house...

 

 

Attached File  Front Roof RT 10.jpg   69.42KB   0 downloads


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#17 David Zawadzki

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Posted 08 March 2024 - 05:35 PM

I went back and found an old drawing to see if I could get a good rendering from it...

 

Attached File  Front View 24.jpg   111.91KB   0 downloads


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#18 Fred Dickson

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Posted 09 March 2024 - 06:14 PM

I do not get the results I want with SP.  It takes no more then 30 mins to export as an fbx file to Lumion and do a simple rendering view.  I feel a lot better presenting clients (especially builders) with nice renderings.  I do hope SP can move in this direction.   

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#19 Allen McDonnell

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Posted 10 March 2024 - 11:59 AM

I do not get the results I want with SP.  It takes no more then 30 mins to export as an fbx file to Lumion and do a simple rendering view.  I feel a lot better presenting clients (especially builders) with nice renderings.  I do hope SP can move in this direction.   

Agree!!  L24 is right around the corner.  Going to be some more great improvements.  These images have been resized to fit the forum....some detail has been lost.

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#20 Fred Russell

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Posted 12 March 2024 - 09:47 PM

https://www.screenca...om/t/spch97k4u5

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