I have this render of a hallway and it has a few problems with radiosity. The areas around the edges of the walls have very bright splauches of radiosity blips. This is only a partial render... because it never finished, because my computer's virtual memory was overloaded, but it still shows the problem areas. Is there any way to fix this?

I realy hope i can render the shot all the way, i spent a lot of time on the model.

1) Those splotches are normally indicative of photon sampling area being too small or not having anough photons.

2) They can also be blured away by increasing the number of photon samples.

3) Of course, adjusting 1) and/or 2) means that the other radiosity parameters must be adjusted as well.

4) Those splotches would normally be masked away from averaging the additional passes just like the noise would be masked away.

Thanks poissant. any idea as to how big the photon samples should be? I also figured out why my rendering halted, or at least i believe i know why. The page file usage was, at the time of the abort, somewhere around 2.12 gb, which was my system maximum. I have since then upped my page file ussage of virtual memory to allocate 15 gb for page file usage. I hope this works. *fingers crossed*

Poissant do you know how to make the render time smaller? It was only 65% complete at the time of the render abort, and the accumulated time was something like an hour and a half... for one... no half a frame. Is there any way to rout some of the render load to my 2 SLI graphics cards?

Hey, Bradbury. The man has a first name, just so you know--it's Yves. (Pronounced "Eve.")

If you've got a hallway with multiple sources of light, does it really need to be lit with radiosity? I would have thought that radiosity is best used where there's only one obvious light source and lots of indirect lighting, like sunlight shining through a window.

With basic lighting i could never achieve a good look with the renders i did with this model. Radiosity just gives it so much more. I'm kinda striving for a semi-pr shot... but aside from the radiosity it will most definatly need a lot more work before it anywhere close to pr. I'll give an example of it when i'm done... maybe a side to side comparison.

By the way I refer to everyone by their family name. It's much more formal, and less disparaging than if i were to refer to one by their first name and accedentally insult them. Plus being a twin, and people unable to decern from my brother and I, people refer to me as Bradbury all the time. lol I dont find it insulting or demeaning, feel free to call me bradbury; however, if you do find it offensive just let me know, and i'll try to remeber to call you by your first, or a nickname, or what have you.

To find the optimal sample area, you turn Final Gattering OFF and make test renders with different sample area values until you get a rather uniform distribution if irradiance in the scene. There is an explanation of this technique in the Cornell Box tutorial.

There are 3 radiosity properties that will affect the render time. The number of photons and the number of Photon Samples will affect render time when photons are shot in the scene and number of Final Gattering Samples will affect render time when the scene is being effectively rendered. By far. the most important property that will affect render time is Final Gattering Samples. You have to find a suitable tradeoff between speed and quality.

Ok. Here's the finished product. Not sure why it took so long, and it took 3 different render roundabouts to finaly get it. I also included what the shot looked like before radiosity, i even upped the light fall-offs and intensities for it.

Well, hope you enjoy. The industrial project was a semi success... even though it aborted rendering every time it reached a page file usage of 2gb, not sure why. Is there a set maximum built into the program for system usage? Also, before i updated A:M to version 12.0j it never aborted a render. Is there intermitant problems with this version? Should i unistall the program and reinstall only what they gave me in the CD?

Render
# Frames: 2
Resolution: 512x384
Render Time: 6:42:11
Multi-passes: 4x4

Radiosity
Photons Cast: 10000
Sample Area: 1800
Photon Samples: 500
Intensity: 100%
Max Bounces: 15
Caustics: Off
Final Gathering Samples: 200
Jittering: 0%

Bravo.

Thanks Mr. Hash, any suggestions for makin it better? I plan on doing another from the other side of the hallway, but i'll most likely post that in WIP.

He's doing the renders right now. We don't have two computers, and these renders take many, many hours. That's why you don't see any work coming from me. He's hoggin all the A:M.

Add some jittering. You can see a whole bunch of gathered light spot things. It's pretty good, but it's lacking somthin, can't put my finger on it.

Ben

Awe... could you please. it would help me out if you could point out what the problem areas are. I'll most definatly put some jittering in.

Here's another shot i rendered last night. render time was 4:53:12. Let me know if there's any problems with this one too plz.

Final Rendering (well... you tell me. lol)

Changes:
I replaced the wall textures and gave them have a much larger resolution. I also added textures to the ceiling and floor as well. I changed the surface properties of the pipes to match better to a reference photo i had, and i gave the pipe supports a realer color, and foundation mount to the wall. The Ceiling lights are now centered on the roof, from perviously being off center. I added an electrical pipe to run into the fuse box, and a brace to mount the pipe securly onto the wall.

Well, DOES IT LOOK BETTER NOW!! lol I hope so.

Radiosity:
Photons Cast: 10000
Sample Area: 1800
Photon Samples: 500
Intensity: 100%
Max Bonces: 15
Caustics: OFF
Final Gatheing: ON
Samples: 200
Jittering: 0%

Render:
Multi-Passes: 16 (4x4)
Resolution: 1024x768
Reflections: 2
Reflection Softness: 40%
Render Time: 11:48:52 (I set this to render and went to bed. lol)
Average Time PerPass: 44:21

Yes. It is looking much better. Attention to details do pay off. I don't have much to criticize concerning illumination and texturing. The soft reflection looks convincing too but will add a lot of render time. Here are some sugestions for the hall decoration :

- Add some pipes from light fixtures to light fixtures with the brackets to hold them on the maconry.
- Add a sprinkler system with all the pipes and sprinklers.
- Add a ventilation system with the large ventilation ducts running through the corridors and the gridded openings.
- Add some of those railed wire ducts where larges bundles of conductors sits into and where some wires or even bundles juts out and over for some length.
- Add a security check station or combination keyboard to unlock the door.
- Add alarm handles on the walls.
- Add a surveilance camera or two.
- Add smoke, gas, carbone monoxide, water, motion detectors.
- Add direction indications with arrows painted on the walls.
- Add more nurnies on the walls: Electrical / electronic related, fluid, gas, steam related.

WOW!! THATS A LOT OF STUFF TO FIX!! lol Do you think this hallway has enough room for all that? Thanks for the advice mr. poissant. Not sure how steem will change the way the radiosity and lighting works. Will it? Normaly steem in such a place would be indicative of... poor maintanance. lol

Here's the shot that started it all.

Good lookin' image you've got going there.

A couple of things I would look at.


Technically
The concrete texture on the walls seems a little large to me. I think it makes the hall seem smaller than it actually is.

The corner of the wall facing us...waaay to sharp of a corner, especially for a concrete wall. I'd actually like to see a rounded corner with a chunk or two taken out of it...

Exit signs usually arent that low to the ground...I'd put it up higher.

That cone looks a little short and fat to me.

Usually the wall to the floor has an edging around it, and is usually rubber or plastic.

Compositionally
Use what yves was saying, (stuff in general) to help lead the eye somewhere. Think about where you want people to look first and then flow off the page, or trap the eye some where.

Maybe make the floor out of another type of material (linoleum??) to put some warmth in the scene, or something...

Little things like that will take a good image like this to the next level.

Still, VERY nice image.

Keep us posted with more if you decide to play some more with this!

- pjc

lol, soon you'll be asked for that door to be open and the room to look like this one inside.

By the way, the office pic is CG. I didn't notice it at first until I saw certain things that gave it away.

Ah, the famous POV-Ray office shot. As lovely as it is, the lack of beveling and any kind of dirt/smudging is a dead giveaway.

Those are sugestions. Pick the ones that suit you, leave the rest and add some of yours. My main point is that it all looks unnaturally too clean and too devoid of life support systems (even if it is not a space station).

Well, i've done a few thing. I added a rubber boarder around the whole hallway and gave it a few material bend type things where the glue might have given away. I also added a small ventalation duct, no mounts yet though, and raised the exit sign because everyone i talked to about it always brought that up. lol

Here's a render of the radiosity. Is the problem a sampling one, or could it be fixed with jittering? I only had samples up to 200 in the shot and had no jittering.

I will chime in...

You're doing a great job in conquering the technical handling of this image.

What I have to add to Patrick & Yves' suggestions with respect to the art of it, is that I would like to see added elements that tell a story, your story.

Aside from compositionally working it out, I would like to be shown in the image why you are doing a hallway. What is about to happen or has happened? What is the intrigue of the place? Communicate visually your feeling of the place. Right now it communicates an empty, bleak place that I can hear the sharp echos of non-existent footsteps. Maybe this is your goal. My guess is that there is a story in your head about this place.

Maybe open the door a crack, in an ominous way, either hinting that something loathsome is about to enter or is just leaving. Maybe have someone/something/some creature leaning on the wall facing us. Have something out-of-place, incongruent to intrique us with. Make it your personal statement. Those were just my feeble examples.

AND I might have misunderstand your goal. Right now, you are working on the technical aspects (good job), and it already says what you want.

Jittering. Definitively.

How dramatically longer would a render take if you changed the photons cast to 1,000,000 from 10,000? What is the biggest contributor to the render time?

I'm rendering right now a colored version of my hallway, and it's 1/3 times smaller than the off-white render, but i've projected the render time to over 17 hours, where as the off-white hallway only took about 7, and both renders had 1,000,000 photons cast 200 samples and 0% jittering. What is causing this massive render time difference? Could it be the reflective materials? or perhaps normal map radiosity calculation time?

Here's an update on my Industrial Hallway project. I've done a number of changes and begun to create a story for the hallway. Let me know what you all think.

Looking really good. Bravo!