Hello, I’m learning Vray for skerchup and I’m trying to render this kitchen, but there is a very bright highlight on the floor and image looks a bit darker than I would like. If I reduce the brightness in the
render settings I still get a dark image and bright highlight burn in contrast… How can I fix this?
Also the cabinets are lacking some depth and realism, anyone has an idea how to improve the render overall to make it look realistic?
I like how the kitchen cabinets looks here (I know mine is not the same geometry, but mine is lacking some depth and maybe highlights/shadows, I’m not sure exactly what):
By the way, I have already set highlight burn in the frame buffer to almost 0 and this is the result that I get, original render is even worse
Think about it in the way a photographer would. The highlight on the floor burns out because the light is so much more intense than the interior lights. The fix for that would be to either reduce the intensity of the sun or increase the intensity of the interior lights so they are closer to the same brightness. As for the lack of depth and realism in your casework, the main problem there seems to be that the light is too even and flat. In the second image the light is much more directional allowing shadows to show the details. Since the model is composed mostly of white and very light values, you’ll need to control the lights carefully.
Thank you very much for your answer! Do you think adding some rectangle lights would work? I only used IES and spot/mesh lights in the ceiling lights and under the range hood
I guess I’d try reducing the intensity of the sun first to deal with that hot spot on the floor. The hot spot is reflecting and filling in shadows you already have so bringing down sun’s intensity might be all you need to do. A rectangle light could help but you’ll want to experiment a little with its placement. Probably above and to the right of the camera would be good. I wouldn’t make it too large, though, or the lighting will still be flat.
As @DaveR wrote, think like a photographer: where is the light coming from, and what are the relative intensities of the light sources. Play around with those and also the exposure. Right now the sun through the window is way too strong. It looks like you tried to fix that by adding ambient lighting, but a) that doesn’t avoid the burn out of the sunlight or the impact of reflection from the floor, and b) strong ambient lighting produces a flat, washed-out look because it kills the contrast needed for shadows and shading.
As to realism, go take a photo of a sunlit room and you’ll see that you are striving to achieve a very unrealistic lighting effect. In a photo the contrast between the sunlit window and the wall surrounding it would be way bigger. Overall the render is “overexposed” and that, too affects the look of the materials.
Hi eglujte,
Everything that the guys already suggested is correct.
Adding a fill light (Rectangle for example) is what a photographer would do to achieve a more balanced image. You can position it somewhere outside of the camera view and then tweak its intensity as well as the camera exposure to achieve the desired illumination.
Option 2:
Option 3:
Option 4:
As for the reference image you attached:
I feel like this particular look can easily be achieved in the VFB.
You can use a Curve correction to increase the contrast for example.
You can also check out the Filmic tonemap and it’s built in presets.
Hope that helps,
Konstantin
