Hello dear radiosity-fans,

I've been experiencing a problem with a small experiment I've been doing. I've made a small scene, the one below, and as you can see I'm having a problem with the lightbulb.

I have one small bulb-light inside the modeled bulb and when I turn on radiosity, it seems to be creating small reflections of the bulb on the walls, floor, etc.

I can't quite seem to figure out what's causing this, I've tried turning off reflections and shadows and there hasn't been any change to the final render.

'ny ideas?

Cheers,
Joakim

PS!
I know the radiosity settings aren't perfect atm, but I'd like to fix this problem before I start making more photon-heavy renders.

Set the radiance on your lightbulb to zero.

thnx for the tip Yves, but it didn't seem to work... I tried setting radiance to 0 % on just about... well, everything and no noticeable effect.

Any other ideas?

jitter will fix that >_> set it to max

BTW: Radiance sets the percentage of light that a surface will reflect. A surface set to have a 0% radiance will absorb all photons that hit its surface. Only the light bulb should have 0 for the radiance.

jitter... jitter... I've been looking for jitter for 20 min, sometimes I feel like a complete retard, especially since I've probably passed the tab ten times without noticing

Darn it!

This topic sounded like the start of a really funny joke...

like:

"A lightbulb, a room and a problem with radiosity, go into a bar..."

-vern

Jaqe, to get jitter to show up, you'll first need to enable "show advanced properties" in your Options -> Global panel. Then, you should be able to set your jitter value in Choreography -> Radiosity -> Final Gathering .

Thank you Luckbat,

Now let's see how this turns out...

And Vern, how on earth...? How can you even... I can't possibly see how that joke would continue?

Cheers,
Joakim

uh... hehe... um... good one there vern ._.U

Hum... Well, jitter solved one problem and created another:

The first picture has jitter set to 1%
The second has jitter set to 1000%
The third has jitter set to 10000% (which is max)

...And the light bulb says, maybe if I have a drink it will get rid of the jitters!

Sorry!

Scott

Normally when i get radiosity reflection images all over the place jitter fixes it right up. What are your radiosity and render settings?

Here ya go:

ok, radiosity works better when the photons are spread out over multiple passes. You should do at least a 16(4x4) multipass. Turn precomputing irradiance off, and 100 should be fine for the photon samples. Make sure that if you turn off final gathering that it doesnt look like pokadots; if it does, then raise the sample area untill you can not see pokadots.

Thank you, trying it out as I write this.

Sorry that I forgot to mention that I'm a complete noblet when it comes to radiosity, but somehow I think you already figured that out

I'll edit in the image when it's done

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EDIT:

Well, that fixed the oddities, but the light "disappeared"... There must be a "you're an idiot, why aren't you clicking this button? CLICK ME DAMMIT, I'll fix everything you're doing wrong"-button somewhere...

Or was that supposed to happend?

uh... now it looks like there's no radiosity in the room left. Is your light object inside the bulb model, or is it slightly lower than the model? Make sure that your light width is not inside of anything. That might be the problem; although, it looks like you turned radiosity off now

I know, that's what it looks like and that's what I ment by "he light has disappeared", but no, radiosity is still very much turned on and the light is wider than the bulb I've modeled.

Didn't you wrote, previously, that you turned "radiance" to 0% on almost everything? That might be why you don't get radiosity. The radiance should be set to 0% on the light bulb model only.

Let me correct myself:

I TRIED setting radiosity to 0% on everything, I reset it when I re-rendered the project.

Look at this one, the only difference from my settings that I posted previously is that I did what Matt said...

Here's another render with red walls, just so it's easier to see my that the bulblight in the lightbulb is still giving light, it just isn't glowing anymore.

EDIT:

Also, I turned up the intensity of the light to make it even easier to see my problem (or worse, for those with really really bright screens)

Set the light bulb ambiance to 100% and its diffuse falloff to something like 10000. Then increase slightly the radiance on the lightbulb until you get the look you want.

Here's what I'd do because the shot is really simplistic.

Take out the light and the cord. Just put a light up in the middle of the room where the light would be. Set the falloff on every surface to 100%, set the radiance to 100% on every surface, and make sure to have at least a value of 15 points for each RGB channel, and at most 240 points.

Render that out, and when you're done, just photoshop in a bulb and wire. You could render the two seperatly with an alpha channel for the light to make it easier.


Some other suggestions I have for you:
That room could really use a base board. Just wrap it around the room and it should add a good feel to it.

Make the light not so incredibly bright. I would expect that kind of light from a 400 watt bulb.

Render the scene with Multi-Pass; it will make your edges look much cleaner.

Use a richer color for the Red wall. You can search through the Bear paint squares on this site. Once you've found a color you like, you can take the RGB of that and use it on your walls.

I personally like Poinsettia:
[attachmentid=19600]

That's RGB(163, 43, 48)

Thank you Yves, Thank you Matt, I'm experimenting a bit at the moment, using both of your tips and it's looking a lot better.

Thanks again for all the help

Cheers,
Joakim

PS, I'll edit in some progress (if there is any ) later tonight'

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EDIT:

Ok, so I did what you said, Yves and increased the Sample Area as a result of increasing the Photon Samples and tadaaa: muuuch better! I'm just going to play with it a bit more with the Samples settings and I think it's done for now, I'll be returning to this project to add some stuff and customize the room-design, but for now I'm stuck with other chores.

Thanks again for all the help, especially Yves, Matt and Dan, I've really learned a lot from this little experience!

Cheers,
Joakim