Tinting shadow color

[cmyk]

I'm a brand new vray user, and I've been learning a ton just by lurking here. LOVE it so far. I do have some frustrations, but mostly due to my lack of experience, i think.

Here's one for now. Is there anyway to cheat or tint the color of a shadow casted from a vray light? I like to push some blue into them, especially when I'm rendering an outdoor scene.

Also, How does one mimic C4D's scene wide Ambient light or even Ambient Occlusion.

I'll probably have more later!

thanks all...

-kev

[cmyk]

Perhaps I'm answering my own question, But I tried creating an area light, set to dome (area type), then click spherical dome, and added a blue color channel in there with the color jacked up to 300%. Seemed to do something along the lines of ambient illumination.

Any other tips/suggestions?

[stefan]

first of all the c4d ambient light should not be used, also not in c4d, it makes images bad.
you can however use a similar effect if you use the enviroment tab in vray rendersettings and set a color for the GI enviroment(always use GI in vray)

a blue shadow you can add also by adding a bluish enviroment.

ambient occlusion is actually a way to fake GI. in vray gi is so fast you dont need to fake it. use good gi instead, this is much faster and better.
however you can use AO if you want, just use the c4d AO shader in the diffuse channel of the materials and set it to multiply.

overall, it is important over time to understand that the workflow in vray doesnt need all that faking we are used in c4d. so over long time it is better to adapt to vray workflow. so use more realworld setups.

cheers
stefan

[RenatoT]

Hi All,

the shadow color will be added in the next little update.

:)
Renato

[cmyk]

Thanks Stefan, and good news, Renato!

I agree that the methods and workflows of vray allow for a much simpler set up (and much faster render speeds) then us AR users were used to doing to achieve photorealism. But there are also times where we might try and achieve a stylized or surrealistic visual. In this case, these sorts of "fakes" are very important. In the past (using C4d alone) I used ambience to my advantage and got good results, so there is the matter of rethinking how I have to approach lighting a scene! But tinted shadows alone will be an fantastic boon!

Keep up the excellent work guys, truly amazing.

[Rich_Art]

I'm used to use the AO in AR for a bit of darkness on the cutting lines of objects. When I use this with Vray it makes it a little bit more realistic.
If you have a room for example and your render this with vray, it can be hard to see where the wall ends and the floor starts. With a litlle AO it will define that a bit more.
Or is this just a matter of knowing Vray better than I do now..
With other words, is there an option to define it more?

Peace,
Rich_Art. :wink:

[cmyk]

I'm used to use the AO in AR for a bit of darkness on the cutting lines of objects. When I use this with Vray it makes it a little bit more realistic.
If you have a room for example and your render this with vray, it can be hard to see where the wall ends and the floor starts. With a litlle AO it will define that a bit more.
Or is this just a matter of knowing Vray better than I do now..
With other words, is there an option to define it more?

Peace,
Rich_Art. :wink:

I agree with this. I turned AO on in a couple vray materials and the rendering really seemed to bog down. Haven't played with it much since. But ever since C4D included AO, i've used it in conjunction with GI to greatly enhance the definitions between objects, then just GI can do alone.

I'm thinking, I can run the AO alone in a separate pass using AR, then composite the two together (with greater control) in after effects (or photoshop for stills).

[stefan]

cmyk,
why you want to use AO in vray?

rather use higher gi settings. AO was only invented to fake GI or to improve bad GI. in vray you have one of the best gi engines around. no need for old fashioned AO actaully. it is there of course, but slower than vrays gi engine.

AO is from c4d and not very fast of course. vray cant change that.
but you get much nicer images using good GI.

i think it is very important to get rid of some of the "fake" AR methods. vray doesnt need this.

cheers
stefan

[Fluffy]

The Enhanced details option of the irradiance map generates sort of an AO pass, but smarter because it also takes light into consideration (especially illuminated materials).

Stefan, an AO pass yields a very specific look that can be appealing to most (and myself, for instance). This is fake, but fake is good sometimes if we want to give a bit more fizz to our scenes.

[rhodesy]

Yeah AO is important for me - even more so when using Vray!! Vray GI is just so clean there is a danger that objects (buildings in my case) look less real because they are unrealistically clean, AO gives us some dirt at junctions that normal GI doesn't produce. it would be great if we could have a quick version of AO that we can adjust globally and that could eventually be saved as a pass so we can tweak it in PS - erasing bits where is isn't needed. For me this is the feature i would like to see the most.

I will give the enhance details option a try though.

[Rich_Art]

Thanks guys..
Stefan, could you provide me a simple scene where you show how to improve this. I know that AO is not that fast and it is fake. But I can't get it right without the use of the C4D AO..

Peace,
Rich_Art. :wink:

[Tong]

VrayDirt in wish list ;-)

[cmyk]

cmyk,
why you want to use AO in vray?

rather use higher gi settings. AO was only invented to fake GI or to improve bad GI. in vray you have one of the best gi engines around. no need for old fashioned AO actaully. it is there of course, but slower than vrays gi engine.

AO is from c4d and not very fast of course. vray cant change that.
but you get much nicer images using good GI.

i think it is very important to get rid of some of the "fake" AR methods. vray doesnt need this.

cheers
stefan

I'm glad you're probing into the question of whether to AO or not to AO! :D

From a reality perspective, AO isn't seen much in nautre, if at all. I assume, as you suggest that it was developed for rendering as a way to "fake" global illumination. But there's more here than meets the eye...

From an artistic perspective, more often than not, true reality is not desired. While it's GREAT as a starting point, and this is where vray shines, there are certain stylistic tools the artist needs to achieve certain moods and tones. AO has become a fantastic tool of this sort. While we might not find it in nature, it adds a certain visceral definition to rendered images, that is hard to describe in words. I'll see if I can post some comparison examples later. That's one of the things that makes working in 3D so great, is the ability to "fake" reality, add enhancements, or even omit things nature adds which isn't desirable. The more of these sorts of things we can do "in render", the less we have to fiddle in After Effects or Photoshop.

In the end, AO is an excellent enhancement when used in combination with very high GI settings using vray. I think most of the C4D community would love a pure AO solution in vrayforc4d.

There are other things I'd like to see as well, (such as tinted shadows... and is there a way to illuminate particular objects, as opposed to others using vray lights?) but AO would be in my #1 spot for the next version! :D