creating a light glow

[chelsea1307]

Im trying to create a light that is soft, but they keep coming out really harsh, what kind of light is best to use for soft light/glow and whats the best settings for that. Right now im using point and its vary harsh

[Lazarus]

maybe you could post a screen shot of what you are trying to achive and what are you getting at the moment.One way to do it is to use photometric lights wich have a specific light spread and have more options and tweaks than point lights.

[chelsea1307]

I atteched two images, the first shows where i want the light to come from, the corner of the room, thats a bathtub next to it, im still working on the water texture, the second it how it renders now

[shift1313]

is there only a single light in the scene? Is it inside a housing of some sort?

 

can you select the light and show a screen shot of its properties

[chelsea1307]

there are two lights im nnot sure if the spotlight is even facing the right direction, its a pain to move its direction..

[shift1313]

turn the spotlight off and re-render the image and show us what you get.

[shift1313]

also is it possible for you to attach the file here? that may be easier to help

[Lazarus]

Ok,the spotlight on the left(properties tab) is ok,and judging by the incorrect GI photons i think that it is facing upward.The light on the right is a web light without any IES file attached to it so it's worthless.Your walls are black cause i'm guessing that they are in the shadow of the spotlight and the white dots are the few photons casted in the scene by the light source(spotlight.)

I would try this: Place the camera further down and put a ceiling on the bathroom.Then type in LIGHTINGUNITS and set the value to 1 or 2(enables photometric lights,@ the prompt turn off the default lighting).At the advanced render settings tab/Global Illumination submenu set a value of say 1000 photons per sample,radius off,at the light properties use 100000 photons per light(because you have only one spotlight that means you'll have a total of 100000 photons casted in the scene).Set the Energy multiplier to 3.Render the scene.

If you get a good result turn on Final Gather to smooth things out(no more than 150 rays).If the scene is too dark play with the RENDEREXPOSURE value and place a low intensity point light with shadows turned off somewhere at the midheight of the room.If you have any questions feel free to ask.

[chelsea1307]

I will try everything you just said, one question though, would you change any of your suggestions if you knew the walls were purposley black? Im still working on finding some tiles or black marble i like, so right now the walls are actually painted black

[Lazarus]

would you change any of your suggestions if you knew the walls were purposley black?

No,but i'm guessing that you're going to need alot more energy/intensity from your light source to illuminate the scene.Global illumination photons bounce of surfaces and as they travel they gather information from those surfaces and take it with them.For example if your walls were red the overall atmosphere in the room is going to be redish.A completly black wall isn't going to help illuminate the scene,but it's not something to be worried about.