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Session Type: Seminar Session Day/Time: Session Number: L12L07 Monday, May 7th, 2012, 9:00 AM -5:00 PM
Class Audience
Autodesk 3ds Max users and Revit users who want to bring Revit models into 3ds Max for rendering or animation
Class Description
This session will provide an overview of the tools available to you in the Autodesk products family for exploring, defining and validating lighting projects. Focused on the interoperability of Revit and 3ds Max design, you will learn what is possible to achieve with Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for electrical lighting design as well as daylighting design. An overview of the rendering capabilities or mental ray and iray will be provided as well as production oriented strategies to integrate lighting photometry and solar information for lighting studies. Tips and tricks will be provided to support project workflows where the design elements are changing and evolving on a regular basis.
Learning Objectives
1. Get a general overview of BIM technologies applicable to lighting design projects. 2. Learn about interoperability strategies to adopt when translating data from one software to another. 3. Learn about capabilities and limitations of lighting simulation technologies: what are the pitfalls of lighting simulation? 4. See production examples used in the context of real projects.
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Contents
Revit and Lighting ................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Revit Architecture or MEP? ................................................................................................................................................. 5 Daylighting and Revit ........................................................................................................................................................... 5 Electrical Lighting in Revit (Light Fixtures) ........................................................................................................................ 11 Lighting Calculation Options .............................................................................................................................................. 23 Interoperability strategies between Revit and 3ds Max ........................................................................................................ 24 DWG vs FBX ..................................................................................................................................................................... 25 Strategies to adopt with Revit Views ................................................................................................................................. 32 Modeling with 3ds Max in mind ......................................................................................................................................... 36 More Tips and Tricks ......................................................................................................................................................... 42 Helpful scripts to help working with Revit Data ................................................................................................................. 45 3ds Max Rendering at a Glance............................................................................................................................................ 49 Rendering in 3ds Max Basics ............................................................................................................................................ 50 Simplified mental ray render panel .................................................................................................................................... 56 Exterior Day-time Rendering ............................................................................................................................................. 56 Interior Day-time Rendering .............................................................................................................................................. 61 Fine Tuning Indirect lighting .............................................................................................................................................. 69 Non-Photo Real Renderings (NPR) .................................................................................................................................. 73 Lighting Analysis in 3ds Max Design .................................................................................................................................... 75 What daylighting metrics do I want to calculate? .............................................................................................................. 76 Is the simulation tool capable of reliably calculating these metrics? ................................................................................. 76 The lighting analysis workflow ........................................................................................................................................... 77 Report Light Levels ............................................................................................................................................................ 86 Daylighting Metrics ............................................................................................................................................................ 94 Materials and Finishes for Lighting Analysis ................................................................................................................... 101
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Glass and Glazing for Lighting Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 106 Color Management Techniques .......................................................................................................................................... 110 Basics of color management ........................................................................................................................................... 111 The Linear Workflow - Color management applied to rendering .................................................................................. 116 HDR Imaging ....................................................................................................................................................................... 121 Using High Dynamic Range (HDR) images as backgrounds images ............................................................................. 122 Compositing with HDR images. ....................................................................................................................................... 130
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
However, keep in mind that Revit also has the following limitations: Revit do not handle quantification of light (unless using an add-on pack, which is also limited to exterior lighting). Revit do not perform calculation from the skydome (unless using the rendering functionality) Revit do not handle daylight savings time switching automatically: you must remember to change this setting each time you change the date.
However, keep in mind that Revit also has the following limitations: Revit do not handle quantification of light (unless using an add-on pack, which is also limited to exterior lighting). Revit do not perform calculation from the sky dome (unless using the rendering functionality)
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
The Sun settings are available in the lower part of the Revit interface. Each view can have its own Sun Settings.
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Project Location
Revit uses Google Map services to let you find the exact project location. This also feeds in the algorithms used to calculate the Sun angle.
The Project Location will translate to 3ds Max via FBX. Note that the Use Daylight Savings time is in my opinion misplaced. You need to keep that in mind when doing shadow studies.
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A blue circle with a cross should be visible. This is the origin of the Revit model.
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Two types of roofs compared in Ecotect for a private house, allowing understanding the ideal placement of landscaping elements such as pool, deck etc.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
When making new families, start with a template: the basics are usually already in place to get you started.
Revit family templates usually define origin with dedicated intersecting reference planes. Use them as your starting point.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Always start by drawing reference planes corresponding to key boundaries of the light fixture you are modeling. You will use those reference planes to align geometry later on.
Reference planes should be set on the side as well. They will become helpful to constrain extrusions drawn in a next step.
The finished geometry and light source aligned just below the luminous aperture.
The luminaire is drawn in 3D with a combination of extruded solid (blue) and extruded void (orange)
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Note: by default, most Revit views do not display light source icons. Turn them on in the visibility graphics override of your View. However, they generally do not display very well in shaded views (they are rendered as if they were solid entities)
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A void object in the family solves the issue. The Cut tool will let you cut the ceiling.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Left: A decorative light fixture imported as a single object in Revit does not allow benefiting from parametric feature such as cable length or level of detail. Right: The same fixture has been made parametric: parts can be hidden or displayed based on the level of detail of the view and suspension cables can be stretched independently.
Parametric Cable stretching based on the distance between tow reference planes.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A recessed light fixture made parametric offering a range of 1 to nth luminous heads.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Recessed fixture with a tilt angle parameter implies nesting families inside each other.
Part of the BIM process implies that families are not set to default materials and finishes. A bonus is that if this is done properly, the rendering in 3ds Max is only made easier. Pierre-Flix Breton 2012 17
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Detailed profile for an aluminum window: too much detail to use in 3D. In no way I would want to use this as-is to create 3D extrusions: the Revit display would quickly get on its knees. Instead, the idea is to model a rough version of the original shape, where for example, rounded corners become sharp and dents and details become straight.
Simplified sweep profile matching closely the original shape, still making an acceptable 3D window.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A family displaying less/more detail based on the Detail Level of a View Along the same lines, it is a good idea to create families that will be repeated many times in a model (like a curtain wall mullion) taking advantage of this:
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Small details on chairs and cabinets created as extruded circles could be placed on their own subcategory Unfortunately, those objects where all classified as 3D Elements as subcategories. As a result, its an all or nothing situation for display and export to 3ds Max. If those elements where assigned a different subcategory such as 3D Elements Details, we would be able to turn them off in our View or accelerate the File IO process with exporting to 3ds Max for example.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A light fixture schedule can contain numerous amounts of fields that you may have defined as parameters associated with the family. They can be filtered by level, zone etc.
A view has been defined to draw light fixtures in red and halftone everything else.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Eulum Tools
The calculations can be done within seconds once lighting fixture families and materials are validated for accurate lighting calculations. Multiple Rooms or Spaces can be computed at once and lighting results are evaluated using ElumTools interactive visualization UI. This all adds up to a tremendous amount of time saved integrating lighting with Revit. 23
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
DWG vs FBX
The general concept
Whether you use FBX or DWG, the same principles applies. In essence, Revit exports the content of a view into a file format which then get imported into 3ds Max.
Revit 3D View
DWG
Derive By Filter
Revit 3D View
FBX
Combine By Filter
Whether you bring data in 3ds Max via FBX or DWG, both offer methods to organize your data inside 3ds Max to avoid getting what we typically call a polygon soup.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Quick comparison between FBX and DWG file formats related to 3ds Max
Although FBX and DWG have a fair amount of distinct characteristics, lets have a look at what is relev ant for bringing Revit data into 3ds Max
FBX
DWG
Comments
Curved Geometry
Fixed Tessellation
Layers
Combine by Material Combine by Family Type Combine by Category Combine as One Object Do not Combine
No
Yes
Materials
Yes
Lights
Yes
No
Yes
No
Unless specified otherwise, the rest of the document will assume that data is brought to 3ds Max via the FBX file format.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Pros
Cons
Comments
Creates many Max objects, to support complex block structures (one per family)
By Layer
Materials are Lost Creates many Max objects, to support complex block structures (one per family) due to a bug in this filter.
Leverage the Layer Mapping capabilities with Subcategories (see below) Families exported as blocks not exploded due to a bug in Max DwG importer
By Color
Materials are Lost Creates many Max objects, to support complex block structures (one per family) due to a bug in this filter.
Leverage the Layer Mapping capabilities with Subcategories (see below) Families exported as blocks not exploded due to a bug in Max DwG importer
As One Object
---
Everything is in a polygon soup. Can be slow to import/link Creates a unique VIZBlock object which combines meshes and lines into a single object
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
By Entity
Pros
Cons
Comments
By Material
Reduce object count. Prevent Multi Sub Object Materials from being created.
You depend on the granularity of the material assignments in Revit. For example, if all curtain walls use the same glass material as interior doors, they will be combined in the same object in 3ds max.
Great method if you do not plan to move objects around and dont want to deal with Multi Sub Object Materials
By Family Type
Reduce object count. Prevent Multi Sub Object Materials from being created.
Good balance between scene complexity and flexibility Parts has problems
By Category
---
Multi Sub Object Materials are created. All Walls are clustered together, all Roofs and so on
Hmm, what where we thinking when we have implemented this one.? Parts has problems
As One Object
Great for quick lighting studies where you only care about massing
Do not Combine
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Viewport
Small curved objects (a light fixture in this case) remain smooth in the Revit viewport.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
FBX file
Exported in FBX and brought in 3ds Max, objects are tessellated with a fixed level of detail / resolution. At this stage, you cannot increase the resolution of the objects anymore as everything is baked into polygons at the export from Revit stage.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
The ACIS solids option from the DWG exporter will prevent entities from being tessellated as polygons by Revit. Solid information will be maintained.
Doing so gives us the option to use the 3ds Max tesselator available in the 3ds Max DWG import dialog, which offers control over mesh resolution for incoming solid entities:
We then rely on the 3ds Max DWG importer to do the tessellation, which is not View Dependent and not locked to a fixed value.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Revit
View
Exported Views
FBX FBX FBX DWG
3ds Max
Combine By Material Combine By Material Combine By Family Type By Layer
This strategy will let you, for example, combine all walls and ceilings By Material and leave Furniture or Cabinetry uncombined. To achieve this, you can leverage the Visibility Graphics Override and Filters.
Two views where only furniture and interior walls are visible.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Two views where only the exterior shell and internal structure are visible. With this strategy, you gain control over how the data is organized into 3ds Max. Furthermore, you can envision using this approach to allow multiple 3ds Max users to collaborate on the same project:
3ds Max
Combine By Material Combine By Material Combine By Family Type By Layer
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A parameter named View Type applied to the View, with a custom property *Export
Views with the same parameter *Export grouped together the Revit project browser
Parts Visibility set to Show Both will create overlapping geometry in the DWG/FBX file and you will get rendering artifacts in 3ds Max.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Parts in 3ds Max Scene Explorer: note how Category, Family and Types are all the same. One major consequence with this problem is the fact that the Combine by Category or Combine by Family Type from the FBX File Link dialog will treat all Parts as belonging to the same Type/Category. As a result, they will all get combined together, regardless of their original Type/Category. This is not a problem with Combine By Material or Do Not Combine options.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A window frame split into a Wood Frame Subcategory and a Cladding Subcategory In the Revit DWG exporter, give those subcategories their own layer name:
The DWG exporter has been set to export those two Subcategories on dedicated AutoCAD layers. In 3ds Max, the entities will land on the same layers:
Families end up being split across several layers, as specified in the DWG export dialog of Revit. 36
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Join geometry is a great preparation tool for making render friendly models
In Revit, the ceiling on the left is not joined with the walls. On the right they are joined together. As a result, some rendering algorithms misses the edges that you are looking for in 3ds Max If you intend to render in 3ds Max with contour shading you may want to consider getting clean, joined, geometry. The same goes for mental ray global illumination as it tend to leak light from outside. On the other hand, render engines like NVIDIA iray remains unaffected by geometry that is not joined.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Coplanar objects often show flickering effects like this in the display. One quick method to fix the problem is to apply a Push modifier on the object, to push the polygons out slightly, just enough to resolve the problem about coplanar geometry. Perfect for carpets and other thin elements:
A Push modifier on the offending object will push the polygons out a bit, resolving the coplanar issuess
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Edges/Borders around windows are assigned to a default material. I recommend using the Paint Material tool to apply a finish that matches what you want upfront, rather than waiting to fit it in 3ds Max:
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Materials in Families
As we previously seen, a lot can be done in 3ds Max when family elements have been assigned to subcategories or materials. This is made possible by the different Combine By options that FBX and DWG importers of 3ds Max offer. As a general strategy, I recommend to assign family components a dedicated material that will be retrieved later in 3ds Max. I suggest avoiding leaving them as By Category unless you adopted a workflow where each subcategory is properly defined.
Door Panel
Solid Wood
Legs
Chrome
Handle
Chrome
Assign a dedicated material to all the components of a family, whether it is explicitly assigned to the object, or defined By Category/Subcategory This is where adopting a naming convention becomes useful: it avoids confusion. It does not matter what convention you adopt, as long as you get something.
Revit 2012 material names will carry over 3ds Max via FBX
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A glowing material applied in the family with the paint tool to a single surface.
The rendered image in 3ds Max, using NVIDIA iray renderer. Pierre-Flix Breton 2012
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Reverting to the Direct X display driver is done from the Customize | Preferences | Viewports dialog
Note: I provide a script to automate this process in the section entitled Helpful scripts to help working with Revit Data below.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Delete polygons
The main idea is to delete 5 polygons out of 6 and leave only a thin surface. This is a achieved with an Edit Poly modifier.
The flattened glazing panel: use an Edit Poly modifier and delete the unwanted polygons.
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
An A&D Material set to Thin-Walled and an Autodesk Glazing Material set to use a single Sheet of Glass
Nothing prevents you from exporting a FBX file with no geometry in it This is a quick way to get only a Camera in 3ds Max!
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Fixing Nitrous display driver issues with DWG data imported in 3ds Max
Description
As previously discussed, the Nitrous display driver will not display VIZBlocks unless you apply a Mesh Select modifier on them.
Download
I wrote a script automating this process, download it here: http://bit.ly/slp7yh Simply run the script on freshly imported data from AutoCAD. It will spot any VIZBlocks and apply a Mesh_Select modifier.
After running the script over a Revit model imported/linked with FBX data It will leave untouched newly added objects and native 3ds Max objects (or anything missing this Meta data). It will fix parts by assigning them to their Original Category Name, Family Name and Type Name so theiy also land on the appropriate layer.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Limitations:
This script will not work when using Combine By Options that destroy meta data, such as Combine By Materials, As One Object or else. If you run this script on an existing model from which you had cleaned up layers already, you may lose your original scene organization.
Download location
Download it from here: http://bit.ly/vp8miH
Also, note that it does not save anything in the scene so it will not break file compatibility with other 3ds Max users who have not installed those scripts.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Download location
Download it from here: http://bit.ly/vp8miH
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Subtle reflections on Wall Paint automatically created by the Autodesk Wall Paint Material
WallPaint, Wood, Concrete and Ceramic Materials at works. (Models: Maximilian Tarpini)
The Asset Tracking dialog of 3ds Max allows you to identify and repath externally referenced files from your scene.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Exposure Control
What is Exposure Control?
Physically based rendering requires exposure control, also called tone mapping. Tone mapping is the procedure of mapping a numeric lighting intensity in High Dynamic Range (HDR) from the scene into an RGB value of the pixels in the rendered frame. Physical light intensities range from zero to numbers approaching infinity in bright sunlight. The range of contrast available on display monitors is limited compared to this dynamic range, and common image formats are even more limited: JPEG images are eight-bit images, ranging from a value of zero for black to 255 for white. In these files, white can only be 255 times brighter than black, a fraction of the range in the real world. Tone mapping helps compensate for the difference in range. Here are a few examples of real-life scenes measured with a luminance meter:
Sky luminance at horizon and zenith: 2600 cd / 360 cd / m2. Luminance on the leaves: 500 cd / m2.
Moonlit backyard, luminance on the roof of the garage: 0.22 cd / m2. Kids play set luminance (brightest): 0.1 cd /m2.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Assuming that the rendering engine can use real-world units for light sources (lumens, candela, or lux at distance) and realworld units for materials (reflectance), the resulting images will be beyond the range of what a monitor can display. Therefore, its necessary to compress the calculated image (ranging from zero to infinity) into a displayable image (ranging from zero to 255). This process is called tone mapping or exposure. To enable exposure control in 3ds Max Design, use the Environment and Effects dialog box:
Exposure Control Rollout in 3ds max Design When you change the brightness and contrast controls, the light levels of your scene dont change; only the sensitivity of yo ur camera does. This is far better than adjusting each light source in a scene one by one. If you want to shoot a photo, you would be more likely to adjust your cameras aperture or shutter speed than wait for the sun to set. The exposure controls control the appearance of the image in the same way than a SLR camera.
The top image is exposed toward the inside of the room, and the bottom image is exposed toward the outer courtyard. Both are correct the light levels in the scene did not changed; the direction of the exposure is up to you. (c) 2007 Electric Gobo / Karcher, www.electricgobo.com
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Glossy Reflection
Edge Antialiasing
Glossy Refraction
Soft Shadow
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
4. 5.
Turn ON final gather: this will create the indirect illumination effect and become the Skylight. Render: you should get something like this already:
(All Models in this section are based on an original file from: (c) 2007 Electric Gobo / Karcher, www.electricgobo.com)
Sky dome contribution comes from the mrSky light object + Final Gather
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
A cloud image (a simple photo) modulates the value of the Haze parameter of the procedural mr Physical Sky
A Haze map must provide values from a range to 0 to ~8 to be effective, hence the boost done with the Output Amount.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
2. 3. 4.
Increase the contrast in the Exposure control to let the Glare shader finding the hotspots. The Spread parameter is the one that affects the most the image. Render: you should see something like this:
Glare shader effect. The streak comes from the Streak image.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
5.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
mr SkyPortal Light object positioned in front of a window, pointing inside the room 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Once you are satisfied with an Exterior rendering, add a Sky portal in front of the windows of the building. Make sure their arrow point inside the space as illustrated: this indicates the direction of the light flux. Move your camera inside. Change the Exposure control to an Interior Rendering preset: this will adjust the aperture of the camera to interior lighting conditions, which are darker than exterior spaces. Increase the Final Gather diffuse bounces to ~3-4: this will bounce the light around inside the space.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
6.
Exterior is washed out because our exposure control is adjusted for interiors.
Soft and subtle direct shadows from the sky dome come from the mr SkyPortal light
FG bounces determines the number of time light will bounce inside your space. A value from 3 to 5 is typically recommended for interior spaces.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
An interior rendering with the materials overridden by a neutral diffuse white material 2. 3. Cache the Final Gather computation to disk: once it is baked to disk, you can re-render without recalculating indirect lighting (which can be time consuming) during material tweaks. Use very low quality settings to tune your materials: the rendered image will be completed faster.
Global tuning knobs allows for faster control on all the scene materials and lights for faster tuning. 4. The Shadow Samples affects the quality (graininess) of the shadows from the Sky Portals. It is also controlled by the Global Soft Shadows Precisions slider in the Rendering panel:
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Ambient Occlusion
Ambient occlusion has the benefit of enhancing the small details and create s what we commonly call contact shadows. Ambient occlusion is enabled directly in the A&D Material. Typically you will want to enable it for floors, door frames and other areas with fine geometric details.
Typically, light leakage arises due to low density of FG calculation .Objects appear to be floating. Ambient Occlusion will help solving this issue.
The larger the distance is, the more pronounced the effect will be. Usually, you want to use a distance of ~10 cm.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Photometric lights
We recommend using Photometric lights for interior renderings because their energy computation is physically based, which makes them ideal sources for indirect illumination calculations. The main reason for this is that the energy used in the indirect illumination process will always be in balance with the energy used for the direct illumination. 1. Start with an Exposure Control preset set as follow. You will re-adjust later but its a good starting point:
2.
Create Photometric Lights in the space. As a reference here are typical intensities corresponding to realworld lighting values:
Class Wattage Type Intensity Beam Angle Field Angle
Narrow
20 W
Spotlight
3300cd
12
Narrow
20 W
Spotlight
9150cd
12
25
Medium
50 W
Spotlight
3000cd
25
50
Wide
20 W
Spotlight
460cd
38
75
Wide
50 W
Spotlight
1500cd
38
75
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
3.
Turn OFF Final Gather and Render: you should get something like this where only the direct illumination is calculated:
The intensity rules how bright it is. Keep in mind that with Exposure Control enabled, you may find yourself having to go to relatively high values.
2.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
3.
Self illuminated material with contribution to Final Gather rays. No lights used in the scene.
Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
4.
Indirect lighting was bounced from the contribution of the direct lights. The splotches are caused by low quality final gather settings. See the Fine Tuning Indirect lighting section for more tips on how to solve this.
With a better FG solution splotches disappear. See the Fine Tuning Indirect lighting section for more tips on how to achieve this.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
3.
4.
Fine tune the interpolation settings: they can be changed even if your Final Gather solution has been locked.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Examples
Test A: Low Density, Low Interpolation
Cloudy indirect lighting
Observations:
We can see that the density of the Final Gather points is relatively low. The noticeable cloudiness is visible mainly where the Final Gather points are separated each other by a large distance (where the density is low). Since the Interpolation is also low, the result is the cloudiness effect.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Observations:
Here, we simply increased the Interpolation. We end up blending more Final Gather points together, a little bit like a Blur in an image. The Final Gather points density is still relatively low which did not increase the computation time.
Tip:
When a Final Gather solution is locked and read from disk, you can change the interpolation between each rendering without having to re-calculate the Final Gather solution.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
With a very large density of FG points, an Interpolation value of 150 is not enough here. A larger Interpolation value is required to smooth out the results.
An Interpolation value of ~450 is better: the more FG points you have, the larger the interpolation needs to be.
Observations:
If we were to increase the density of Final Gather points to capture more subtle light effects and details, the Interpolation required is now larger: as we have more points, we need to blend more points together to reach a smooth effect. Notice the cloudiness effect appearing again when we used an Interpolation value of 150. To fix it, we need to increase it up to 450!
Note:
The reason for the noise is usually caused by the stochastic nature (randomness) of Final Gather. To solve it you either have to cast more rays per FG points or increase the Interpolation. Note that the Interpolation parameter is essentially a blur which can remove or reduce the effect of subtle shadows.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Tips:
5. 6. 7. 8. The Paint Levels parameter of the Ink & Paint Material determines the numbers of gradients you will get on the material with lighting and shadows. For typical cartoon looks, disable Exposure Control, Final Gather and use Standard Lights. Physically Based features generally dont play nicely with this type of material The quality of the Ink will improve with higher anti-aliasing. You can use a Falloff Map to drive the color of the Ink based on distance, direction etc.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Single A&D Material with an Ambient Occlusion Shader in the Diffuse Color
Single Ink & Paint Material with an Ambient Occlusion Shader in the Paint Color
Tips:
1. An Ambient Occlusion shader does not always have to return black or white. The look above was achieved by returning a dark blue and pale blue color. The distance amount determines how much Ambient Occlusion will occur at the edges. Try to keep a value relatively low (i.e. ~10 centimetres) and increase as needed. Combine Falloff Maps and Ambient Occlusion to develop interesting looks:
2. 3.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Microsoft Excel opens exported *.CSV files as a single blob of text, what to do?
Usually, Microsoft Excel imports *.CSV files correctly (i.e. with columns and rows well separated. However, in some cases, it may load the *.CSV file exported from Light Meter objects as a single blob of text. If this happens to you will have to manually open the *.CSV file with the File | Open command and make sure you specify the Text File (*.pm, *.txt, *.CSV) option. This should launch a wizard that allows you to load the incoming data to specific rows and columns into a new spreadsheet.
Can I do lighting analysis with Photometric Lights? Do I need Daylighting for it to work?
Many people need lighting analysis tools for artificial lighting conditions (museums, theaters, schools etc.). This is a supported workflow with 3ds Max Design, i.e. you can do a lighting analysis without specifying a Daylight System. The workflow is identical except for that you have to specify Photometric Lights.
Why are my Light Meters all white in the viewport after the calculation has been completed?
Typically, this is caused by an incorrect range of illuminance values in the Pseudo Color display. Adjust them in the Lighting Analysis Assistant, in the General Tab.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
What are the object types that are valid for lighting analysis in 3ds Max Design?
Lighting analysis results can only be guaranteed to be within physical correctness when you use a special subset of light sources and materials in 3ds Max Design. Those are: mental ray renderer, A&D Material, ProMaterials, Photometric Lights and mrSun+Sky using the Perez or CIE sky model. Using any other type of material or light source may not prevent the lighting analysis data from being reported, but we cannot predict how accurate those numbers will be. As for geometry, the type of geometry does not matter. It can be Editable Meshes, Polys, Patches, NURBS; as long as they are renderable by mental ray.
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Reducing the mr Sky Saturation to 0.0 will remove the green tint you may see in the rendered image. Note that this green tint does not affect the ligh levels reported by the Light Meters.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
I used an overcast sky model and I still see the sun disk in the background and in reflections.
This is normal in a sense that in 3ds Max Design, illumination is separated from reflections and backgrounds. The reason why you see the Sun disk is that the Environment Map (mr Physical Sky map) always display it. To eliminate this, you can set its size to 0. Note that although the Sun may be visible in reflections and background, the lighting values reported by the Light Meters are not affected by this as the illumination comes from the mr Sun and mr Sky lights (wrapped inside the Daylight System).
A yellow image pops up after using the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay. Do I need it?
If you see a yellow image pop up after rendering, this is caused by the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay. This image is a temporary data buffer where luminances and illuminances are recorded for every pixel. You can close this dialog if you wish.
The yellow image is temporary data buffer that is used by the Lighting Analysis Overlay render effect. You can dismiss this dialog or prevent it from showing up by disabling the Display Elements from the Render Elements Tab.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
3ds Max Design is further capable of loading in an EnergyPlus weather file (*.EPW) allowing it to automatically generate time series of HDR images and/or illuminances under multiple sky conditions. EnergyPlus weather files contain annual data for typical climatic conditions at a site including ambient temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction as well as direct and diffuse irradiances. EnergyPlus weather files for over 2000 locations world-wide can be downloaded from http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/energyplus/cfm/weather_data.cfm. The ability of 3ds Max Design to generate time series of indoor illuminances is useful for users interested in optimizing a design with respect to local climatic conditions using one of the emerging climate-based daylighting metrics such as daylight autonomy and useful daylight illuminance. An introduction to these metrics is provided under http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/fulltext/nrcc48669/.
Import Geometry
Create a daylight system using the mr Sun and mr Sky or place Photometric light sources
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A large surface with a diffuse material has been modeled around the building to represent the ground and alllow the daylight bounce back to the ceiling.
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Click Yes if you are prompted to assign an Exposure Control to your scene. Click Yes if you are prompted to assign a mr Physical Sky as an Environment map. Make sure your Daylight System uses the mr Sun and mr Sky.
To reach the Daylight Systems location and time control, select the Daylight System and switch to the Motion Panel. The Orbital Scale parameter controls the height of the Daylight System in the viewports. Note that this does not affect the way the Sun and Sky render: they will always illuminate the scene from outside, even if the object is located inside of a room in your viewport.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
The Orbital Scale parameter controls the height of the Daylight System in the viewports. Note that this does not affect the way the Sun and Sky render: they will always illuminate the scene from outside, even if the object is located inside a room in your viewport.
Aerial Perspective
Turn off the Aerial Perspective option in the mr Sky Advanced Parameters. Aerial Perspective is used to achieve aesthetic affects suitable for exterior renderings. It creates fog effects where distant building vanishes in the horizon and can interfere with the rendered images, especially for interior shots. It is ON by default in 3ds Max Design and should be OFF for any quantitative lighting analysis.
Make sure you turn off the Aerial Perspective, as it is a nice picture effect only.
The Ground Color must be set to black (RGB: 0,0,0) for prevent the internals of mental ray to bias the results incorrectly.
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Then, by modeling a ground plane, simply make sure the light that is bounced from it takes into account the Sun and Sky model you selected.
Perform a quick test render and adjust the Exposure Control in order to get a reasonably good looking image first. You can do this from the Exposure Control Preview tool. Use the Physically Based Lighting Indoor Daylight preset as a starting point. Adjusting the Exposure Value (EV) will affect the image shown in the preview in real time. Once you are happy with the results, you can go further and make a large render preview..
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
Render window (Frame Buffer) with quality control parameters. A Final Gather Bouces of 4 to 7 is generally preferrable for interior spaces.
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Please launch the Lighting Analysis Assistant via the top menu Lighting Analysis | Lighting Analysis Assistant.
The Lighting Analysis Assistant is a scene analyser that searches for incorrect rendering settings that may incorectly alter the results for the lighting simulation. You can launch it from the Lighting Analysis pull down menu. Click the Update Status button to refresh its content. After launching the Lighting Analysis Assistant from the Lighting Analysis pull down menu, start with the General Tab.
General Tab
In the General tab you can adjust your basic render settings. For a physically based lighting calculation you will have to use the mental ray renderer within 3ds Max Design. Final Gather has to be enabled and the Renderer |
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Frame Buffer Type set to 32 bit precision. The General Tab also lets you specify maximum and minimum levels for the pseudo color display for the Light Meter objects (see below).
Lighting Tab
The Lighting Tab allows you to find invalid light types (such as Standard Lights and Standard Sunlight objects) within your scene and verify that the Daylight System is correctly set up. Shadow settings are also verified: All lights must use shadows that are ray traced to support transparency properly.
The Lighting Analysis Assistant expects physically correct shadow settings for all light sources.
Materials Tab
Use the Materials Tab to search for all non-physically based, invalid materials in your scene. These materials have to be replaced by physically based materials for a correct lighting analysis. Physically based, valid material types are mental ray Architecture & Design Material (A&D Mtl) and Autodesk Materials.
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The Materials Tab allows you to search and find non physically based materials in your scene that are incompatible with lighting analysis workflows. Here we show that this scene has 21 invalid materials which will need to be replaced. You will need to replace all invalid with valid materials. A quick way to do this is to select all invalid objects and assign them a default flat finish Material. Keep in mind, however, that the color determines the amount of light reflecting from those materials (reflectance). You can deal with this at a later stage within your project. You also have to pay attention that you do not accidentally replace a window pane with the default opaque material.
If you need to quickly create a material with a default flat finish, we recommend that you use an Arch & Design Material assigned to a grey color of RGB 0.5 0.5 0.5 and use the Matte Finish template. This will be considered as a perfectly diffuse material that reflects 50% of the incoming light back into the scene.
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The process of checking materials is complete when the Lighting Analysis Assistant shows that 0 materials are found with invalid settings. Note: You have to click on the Update Status button in order to refresh the user interface of the Lighting Analysis Assistant.
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Microsoft Excel opens exported *.CSV files as a single blob of text, what to do?
Usually, Microsoft Excel imports *.CSV files correctly (i.e. with columns and rows well separated. However, in some cases, it may load the *.CSV file exported from Light Meter objects as a single blob of text. If this happens to you will have to manually open the *.CSV file with the File | Open command and make sure you specify the Text File (*.pm, *.txt, *.CSV) option. This should launch a wizard that allows you to load the incoming data to specific rows and columns into a new spreadsheet.
Can I do lighting analysis with Photometric Lights? Do I need Daylighting for it to work?
Many people need lighting analysis tools for artificial lighting conditions (museums, theaters, schools etc.). This is a supported workflow with 3ds Max Design, i.e. you can do a lighting analysis without specifying a Daylight System. The workflow is identical except for that you have to specify Photometric Lights.
Why are my Light Meters all white in the viewport after the calculation has been completed?
Typically, this is caused by an incorrect range of illuminance values in the Pseudo Color display. Adjust them in the Lighting Analysis Assistant, in the General Tab.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
What are the object types that are valid for lighting analysis in 3ds Max Design?
Lighting analysis results can only be guaranteed to be within physical correctness when you use a special subset of light sources and materials in 3ds Max Design. Those are: mental ray renderer, A&D Material, ProMaterials, Photometric Lights and mrSun+Sky using the Perez or CIE sky model. Using any other type of material or light source may not prevent the lighting analysis data from being reported, but we cannot predict how accurate those numbers will be. As for geometry, the type of geometry does not matter. It can be Editable Meshes, Polys, Patches, NURBS; as long as they are renderable by mental ray.
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Reducing the mr Sky Saturation to 0.0 will remove the green tint you may see in the rendered image. Note that this green tint does not affect the ligh levels reported by the Light Meters.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
I used an overcast sky model and I still see the sun disk in the background and in reflections.
This is normal in a sense that in 3ds Max Design, illumination is separated from reflections and backgrounds. The reason why you see the Sun disk is that the Environment Map (mr Physical Sky map) always display it. To eliminate this, you can set its size to 0. Note that although the Sun may be visible in reflections and background, the lighting values reported by the Light Meters are not affected by this as the illumination comes from the mr Sun and mr Sky lights (wrapped inside the Daylight System).
A yellow image pops up after using the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay. Do I need it?
If you see a yellow image pop up after rendering, this is caused by the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay. This image is a temporary data buffer where luminances and illuminances are recorded for every pixel. You can close this dialog if you wish.
The yellow image is temporary data buffer that is used by the Lighting Analysis Overlay render effect. You can dismiss this dialog or prevent it from showing up by disabling the Display Elements from the Render Elements Tab.
Daylighting Metrics) will discuss various ways to calculate and interpret the simulation results.
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You can create a Light Meter object from the Analysis Tab of the Lighting Analysis Assistant or from the Create | Helper Panel. Light meters do not affect the scene (they do not block or bounce light) so they can cover any area. Each subdivision represents a point at which incident illuminance normal to the grid will be measured (calculated). As a consequence, the denser the subdivisions are, the longer a simulation will take. Typical grid resolutions are in the order of 1ft x1 ft or 0.5 m x 0.5 m.
A Light Meter object has been created in the 3D space, at the workplane position; ~30 inches above the floor. It covers the entire room area and has a relatively coarse subdivision. Light levels will be reported at each intersection. Once all Light Meters have been created - and you have successfully gone through all the steps described in the previous sections of this document -, you can hit the Calculate All Light Meters button. This will initiate a lighting calculation process for the Light Meters only. At the end of the process, the calculated Illuminance values will be displayed on the Light Meters in the 3D viewport.
Note: Keep in mind that the Light Meter calculation uses the rendering parameter defined in the Rendering Settings dialog. For example, if Indirect Illumination calculation is turned off, the Light Meters will ignore indirect lighting.
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A Light Meter object has been created in the 3D space, at the workplane position; ~30 inches above the floor. It covers the entire room area and has a relatively coarse subdivision. Light levels will be reported at each intersection. To change the color range of the Pseudo Color display of the Light Meters, go in the Lighting Analysis Assistant | General tab and set the Min / Max ranges. Note that this does not affect the calculated values. Note that it only affects the color on the Light Meters and not the light levels themselves.
Pseudo Color range is adjusted for the Light Meters in the Lighting Analysis Assistant | General tab.
The Lighting Units (lux or foot candles) can be changed in the Customize | Units dialog. Once the data has been calculated, you can export it to a *.CSV file (format readable by Microsoft Excel) for further analysis. The generated data contains Illuminance values for each calculated point, for every frame of your animation. Depending on the complexity of your project, you may want to consider using a database system such as Microsoft Access to run custom queries and formulas as the data set may be cumbersome to deal with otherwise.
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In 3ds max Design terms, this is implemented as a Render Effect. This tool will basically print num bers in pseudo color form on top of the rendered image. You can enable this feature from the Lighting Analysis Assistant or from the Lighting Analysis | Create | Lighting Analysis Image Overlay.
The Lighting Analysis Image Overlay render effect must be added in the Effects panel to be enabled.
Showing light levels from Light Meters overlaid on the rendered image
To show numbers calculated from the Light Meters on your rendered image, use the Show Numbers from Light Metering Helper Objects option in the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay Render Effect.
Lighting Analysis Image Overlay showing numbers from Light Meter Objects.
Showing light levels projected from the Camera overlaid on the rendered image
Another approach is to report numbers on the image as if a grid was projected from the camera. This is convenient when statistical analysis is less important but presenting an idea of the light levels in a complex space is needed.
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Note: Keep in mind that this type of projection is view dependent and numbers correspond to the intersection of a ray projected from the Camera into the scene. As a result, they will be a mix of points on the floor, ceiling, walls and furniture.
Show Numers on Entire Image (Screen Grid) option in the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay Render Effect is now used.. The Screen Grid layout Options manages the density of the grid on screen. Now that you know how to access and use the various analysis tools in 3ds Max Design, the next section will provide you with some suggestions of what to might want to calculate and how to analyze your results.
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Microsoft Excel opens exported *.CSV files as a single blob of text, what to do?
Usually, Microsoft Excel imports *.CSV files correctly (i.e. with columns and rows well separated. However, in some cases, it may load the *.CSV file exported from Light Meter objects as a single blob of text. If this happens to you will have to manually open the *.CSV file with the File | Open command and make sure you specify the Text File (*.pm, *.txt, *.CSV) option. This should launch a wizard that allows you to load the incoming data to specific rows and columns into a new spreadsheet.
Can I do lighting analysis with Photometric Lights? Do I need Daylighting for it to work?
Many people need lighting analysis tools for artificial lighting conditions (museums, theaters, schools etc.). This is a supported workflow with 3ds Max Design, i.e. you can do a lighting analysis without specifying a Daylight System. The workflow is identical except for that you have to specify Photometric Lights.
Why are my Light Meters all white in the viewport after the calculation has been completed?
Typically, this is caused by an incorrect range of illuminance values in the Pseudo Color display. Adjust them in the Lighting Analysis Assistant, in the General Tab.
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Autodesk Revit and 3ds Max Design for Lighting and Daylighting simulation
What are the object types that are valid for lighting analysis in 3ds Max Design?
Lighting analysis results can only be guaranteed to be within physical correctness when you use a special subset of light sources and materials in 3ds Max Design. Those are: mental ray renderer, A&D Material, ProMaterials, Photometric Lights and mrSun+Sky using the Perez or CIE sky model. Using any other type of material or light source may not prevent the lighting analysis data from being reported, but we cannot predict how accurate those numbers will be. As for geometry, the type of geometry does not matter. It can be Editable Meshes, Polys, Patches, NURBS; as long as they are renderable by mental ray.
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Reducing the mr Sky Saturation to 0.0 will remove the green tint you may see in the rendered image. Note that this green tint does not affect the ligh levels reported by the Light Meters.
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I used an overcast sky model and I still see the sun disk in the background and in reflections.
This is normal in a sense that in 3ds Max Design, illumination is separated from reflections and backgrounds. The reason why you see the Sun disk is that the Environment Map (mr Physical Sky map) always display it. To eliminate this, you can set its size to 0. Note that although the Sun may be visible in reflections and background, the lighting values reported by the Light Meters are not affected by this as the illumination comes from the mr Sun and mr Sky lights (wrapped inside the Daylight System).
A yellow image pops up after using the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay. Do I need it?
If you see a yellow image pop up after rendering, this is caused by the Lighting Analysis Image Overlay. This image is a temporary data buffer where luminances and illuminances are recorded for every pixel. You can close this dialog if you wish.
The yellow image is temporary data buffer that is used by the Lighting Analysis Overlay render effect. You can dismiss this dialog or prevent it from showing up by disabling the Display Elements from the Render Elements Tab.
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Daylighting Metrics
In this section three different daylighting metrics and pertaining simulation workflows are discussed and some very basic directions are provided which of these metrics might be most adequate for your particular project. The three metrics are daylight factor, CIE clear sky illuminances and climate-based metrics.
Daylight Factor
The daylight factor is defined as the ratio of the internal illuminance at a point in a building to the unshaded, external horizontal illuminance under a CIE overcast sky. The CIE overcast sky is a standardized description of a completely overcast sky, meaning that the cloud cover is continuous and no blue sky is visible. In contrast, a sky with partial cloud cover is often referred to as an intermediate CIE sky. A clear CIE sky has no clouds. The CIE (International Commission on Illumination) has defined standard sky luminance distributions for all three types (see Figure below). More recently, the CIE diversified into a larger number of intermediate, standardized skies. 3ds Max Design supports the two extreme CIE sky conditions, overcast and clear. For intermediate skies the Perez All Weather sky model has been implemented (see below).
Visualisation of the sky luminous distribution of the standard CIEvovercast, intermediate and clear skies.
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The mr Sky set to use the CIE Overcast Sky model. Once you have run a lighting simulation under a CIE overcast sky, daylight factor results are accessible for all Light Meter objects. All you need to do is to set the Values to Display radio button to Daylight Factor as illustrated below. The Light Meters will calculate illuminances at each point as usual but the values will be reported in percentage (%) values corresponding to the Daylight Factor. I.e. simulated illuminances are divided by the horizontal outside illuminance that was earlier specified under the mr Sky interface. Please note that the daylight factor is independent of the outside horizontal illuminance whereas total and diffuse illuminances depend on it.
Note: This is option only available when the CIE sky model is used.
Change the Values to Display to the Daylight Factor mode on Light Meter Objects. When exported to *.CSV files, Light Meters also report the Daylight Factor in a dedicated column.
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The mr Sky set to Perez All Weather model. Select this sky type if you desire to do lighting analysis with weather data files. First, download the *.EPW file of your choice from the Energy Plus website. You can browse by region and city in the Weather Data section of the website.
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The Energy Plus website allows you to browse by regions for weather data files.
Locate the EPW symbol matching the region of your choice and Save Target As..
Once the *.EPW file has been saved on your disk, load it in the Daylight System of your 3ds Max Design project.
Tip: Use the Scene Explorer to locate and select the Daylight System from a list view as opposed to selected by picking in the scene.
When you load an EPW file into 3ds Max Design, the software resets the azimuth and altitude of the Daylight System according to the information provided in the EPW file. Depending on the date and time you pick the software also resets the direct and diffuse outside illuminance used by the Perez All Weather sky model.
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The Daylight System can be driven from a weather file. Use the Weather Data File option and click Setup... to enable this functionnality.
A Weather Data File has been loaded and a fixed period from the file has been selected. A period corresponds to an entry in the Weather Data File (row). If you desire to perform a lighting analysis study as an animation you must specify a Start and End point in the Weather Data File configuration dialog. By matching the 3ds Max Design timeline you will end up with an animation corresponding to exactly one rendered frame per entry in the Weather Data File.
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Specify an animation by identifying a Start and End point in the Weather Data File.
Match Timeline will change the 3ds Max Design animation ranges to fit the selected Start and End points. Once a Weather Data File has been selected and configured, the Daylight System orientation and illuminances will be controlled from the file. As you scrub the timeline, you will see the values changing.
Once a Weather Data File has been loaded in the Daylight System, you can confirm that the Illuminances values are read from the file: The controls will be greyed out in the user interface but their values will change from frame to frame in real-time.
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Light Meters collect light levels for every rendered frame. At the end of the process, you can export to a *.CSV file and inspect the data for every Light Meter point, at every frame. The number of frames depend on the length of your animation, which can be set by matching the timeline in the Weather Data File configuration dialog.
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The problem
While many graphical user interfaces allow users to specify RGB colors via color pickers, the resulting RGB value used by a simulation doesnt usually correspond to the color displayed on your computer screen. As a result, picking a color based on the appearance of that color on your screen will lead to physically wrong outcomes.
What is the right red to pick for this apple? It can be difficult to tell and trust what you see on screen.
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Typically, for physically based raytracers, the diffuse color of a material is in fact a diffuse reflectance value; where 0.5 means that the material reflects 50% of the incoming light for all R, G and B components. For example, a white wall will not reflect more than about 90% of the light it receives. Therefore, the RGB color should not be more than 0.90, 0.90, 0.90 (floating point colors) or 230, 230, 230 (integer colors).
A white wall (90% reflectance) reflects twice as much light than a grey wall (45% reflectance). This is directly caused by the diffuse color of the materials. To select the desired diffuse reflectance, select the tint (Hue) of your material and then rely on the V value, which usually closely matches the reflectance of your material.
A RGB value of 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 for the diffuse color of a material represents a diffuse reflectance of 50%. This is also mathematically equivalent to a Saturation of 0.0 and a Value of 0.5 in HSV space.
A material with a perfectly white diffuse color correspond (from a rendering point of view) to a diffuse reflectance of 100%. This is too reflective for a wall or a ceiling. Normally, white paint should be around RGB 0.90,0.90,0.90 (90% reflectance). 112
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Patch name
Diffuse reflectance
90.94
.9094
neutral 8 (.23 D)
58.50
.585
35.71
.3571
neutral 5 (.70 D)
19.12
.1912
8.87
.0887
black 2 (1.5 D)
3.17
.0317
The industry standard GretagMacbeth ColorChecker has known reflectance values that can be used to compare against other finishes. Here, we are listing the reflectances of the lower row of swatches (white to black).
TM
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By eye balling, we deduct that the average reflectance of the pavement is roughly 20%: its brightness is close to the swatch #22 on the chart which has a knownreflectance of 20%. This level of precision is good enough for a most lighting analysis workflows.
Look for a R XXX or LRV in the back of color swatches from paint manufacturers, that usually represent the Diffuse Reflectance value. When working with 3ds Max Design, be careful with color books provided with software packages or on the web. Several software packages provide color books based on manufacturer content. For example, the Adobe Photoshop application provides Pantone colors, and AutoCAD provides RAL and DIC colors. You can even find color books from paint manufacturers such as Benjamin Moore (http://www.benjaminmoore.com). However, these colors are not defined with global illumination rendering in mind. They are approximations based on display, lighting conditions, and gamma settings, making them a little bit unpredictable with Global Illumination rendering engines. We have found that a Pantone color selected in AutoCAD or Photoshop software, will not generally process correctly with a GI renderer. Using a Pantone color supplied by a client may be better than eyeballing it, but be aware that you are not running a physical simulation. Check the rules in this document to make sure your approximated color does not exceed reflectance values from the real world. Darken the color if necessary. 114
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Textures Maps
As previously described, the amount of light bounced from a material is defined by its diffuse color. With textures, the reflectance of the material is defined by every pixel. As a result, if the texture is overly bright, incorrectly gamma corrected, or if your digital camera / scanner is not calibrated properly your texture will provide wrong reflectance values to the renderer and consequently lighting analysis reports will be incorrect. Calibrating digital cameras, scanners and gamma correction workflows are beyond the scope of this section. If you are unfamiliar with these processes,, we recommend you remove all textures from your model and assume average reflectance values using grey shades.
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A solid glass material where light attenuates inside the volume enables you to really perceive the thickness variation of the glass. This is nice for special effects and pretty pictures but overkill f or typical lighting analysis workflows. To acheive this, you need to exploit the caustics feature of mental ray and the Color at Max Distance for Refractions in the A&D material. Instead, we recommend using another modeling strategy, which is described next.
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Glazing as monolithic (solid) geometry, without attenuation and refraction inside volumes
We recommend you model glass panes as solid boxes and tell the renderer to not attenuate or refract light inside the volumes. This will let the raytracer casting rays through windows without having to refract light inside the geometry. With this technique, the glass panes will more or less turn into gel filters where light energy is attenuated ( which is what you want) but refraction and distortion of light will not be taken into account ( this will save rendering time).
Solid objects where attenuation inside volumes and refraction is disabled. This is a perfect strategy for architectural glazing and lighting analysis. Notice how light attenuates (shadows) without being refracted. The material acts as a puregel filter, which works well for glass panes. Obviously, on curved objects this looks unnatural.
Note: This is how most Revit models are defined: a solid box representing the total thickness of the glazing assembly where one polygon is facing inside the building and another is facing outside, regardless if it represents a single sheet of glass, a double pane or triple pane insulating glazing system.
Here is how it works: the Transparency Color of your material (typically the A&D material or Autodesk Glazing will attenuate light rays for each polygon that is traversed, without refracting it. Light will only be filtered by a faint color. For example, if you modeled a triple glazing system where the thickness of the glass panes is physically represented, you will have 6 polygons to traverse. Therefore, if 6% of the light was lost after traversing each polygon (a Transparency Color set to 0.94), we would end up with a total glass transmissivity of 0.94 * 0.94 *0.94 *0.94 *0.94 *0.94 = 69%, which is plausible for a triple glazing system.
Each polygon traversed by a ray of light that looses 6% of the initial energy, for a total of 69% energy left on the other side of the glazing assembly. This amount of loss is ruled by the Transparency Color in the A&D Material. Attenuation happens each time a polygon is traversed by a light ray.
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To create a similar material in 3ds Max Design, you have 2 options: use the Architecture and Design (A&D) Material or the Autodesk Glazing Material. For the A&D Material, define the Diffuse, Reflection and Refraction parameters as illustrated. Note that
To create glass, the Diffuse Level must be set to 0.0, Reflectvity Level and Color must be set to 1.0, Transparency Level must be set to 1.0 and Transparency Color set to the desired transmittance value (0.94 in our case). The IOR set to 1.5 will represent generic Glass. Finally the A&D materialmust be prevented from attenuating and refracting through volumes in the Advanced Rendering Options. If you want to make your life easier, the ProMaterial Glazing is already built-in to handle the case described above. Since you want to create a solid glass layer that attenuates light by a factor of 88%, all you need to do is to specify the Transmittance of the ProMaterial Glazing Material to 0.88 and instruct it that this applies when traversing 2 polygons.
Glazing Material set to attenuate light by a factor of 12% after traversing 2 polygons will produce identical results as the case described previously.
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Translucent Glazing
Although the mental ray Architectural & Design Material shader has the capability of weighting specular transmittance (clear) and diffuse transmittance (translucent), we have no formal study that proves that the resulting luminance and illuminance levels are accurate. Please see this website: http://www.pfbreton.com/?s=glazing (search for glazing).
Importing Radiance Materials (*.rad files) exported from the Optics 5 software
You can manually extract the information provided by these files and convert them into a physically correct 3ds Max material. Please see this website: http://www.pfbreton.com/?s=glazing (search for glazing).
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A portable spectrophotometer can define the response curve of your computer screens and printers.
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Note: Repeat the process for each type of paper you might use in your printer as each profile takes into account the whiteness of the paper that was used during the calibration process.
If you are doing mainly work with 3ds max, or print images with services available in large stores (Wallmart, Cosc etc), I recommend you to base your work on the sRGB profile. This is the lowest common denominator that is supported everywhere. Gotcha!: One common mistake to do here is to select the monitor profile that may have been generated by the monitor calibration device (Ex: Display01.icm created by a ColorMunki). Dont do that!
Turn on the Ask when opening option. You will be able to assign your default profile on file open if the incoming file profile mismatches yours.
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A color profile is usually associated with an image. If you open an image that has a different profile than your working space (Adobe RGB vs sRGB in this current example), you may see this dialog:
Photoshop detected that the incoming image had a different profile than the workspace. Knowing what each profile does is not really a concern to you in the moment. It is data that is used by Photoshop to convert pixel colors into something that closely matches the color gamut (range) of your display. My recommendation is to convert it to the working space (because we established that 3ds Max is closely compatible to sRGB in a previous step).
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Configure the Proof Colors to match your target output (printer + paper profile).
This is where you use the color profile defined by the Printer Calibration step in Step 2. You may have multiple types of papers. Remember to select the one that matches your target printer / paper combination.
Once you look at colors on screen under the Proof Colors mode, you can go ahead and adjust the image to lo ok like you want it to look. If the image looks a bit faint, do not worry, this is normal: the Proof Colors mode try to emulate printed paper. Since paper do not emit light like your screen, the result will necessarily be faint as well. This is where you need to fine tune the brightness and contrast of the image to give it a bit more punch.
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Image seen under Proof Colors mode, using a target output matching my printer profile. If your intention is to print the image, adjusting final contrast settings should be done in that mode.
Images viewed under proofing vs. under normal conditions. Once you are ready to print, instruct Photoshop to manage the colors, by using the same printer profile as the one used to proof the colors in the previous step:
Pick the same profile as the one you picked under the Proof Colors mode.
Photoshop Print Configuration Dialog with Color Management enabled. The resulting print output will be as close as possible to the image you saw on screen. Trying it is adopting it
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Making the color of a wall twice as dark will reduce the amount of light in the room by a factor of two.
Similarly, using a single light source instead of two will also produce the same effect: we get half of the light back in the scene as in the previous example. Light can be ADDED or SUBTRACTED:
Using a single light source will reduce the amount of light in the room by a factor of two.
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Here is simplified math behind the phenomena: Wall Luminance (cd/m2) = Light Quantity (lux) * Material Reflectance (color) / PI As you can see, this is simple maths that only implies simple multiplications, divisions and additions. Light is calculated using linear algebra. The more light sources you have, the more light you get. This is why we refer to it as LINEAR SPACE. Guess what? 3D Rendering engines also work that way: they ADD lights together and MULTIPLY them with the color of the materials to obtain luminance. 3D Renderers calculate in LINEAR SPACE.
Gamma Corrected 50% grey: Appear correct on display, feed incorrect (too bright) reflectance data to 3D renderers
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Linear Space 50% grey: Appears too dark on display, feed correct (not too bright) reflectance data to 3D renderers
Here is the dilemma: images must be gamma corrected for display purposes (so they look good), but this creates a situation where physically incorrect data can be feed to 3D rendering engines if this is not taken into account. Therefore, 3D rendering engines must De-Gamma the image textures prior to perform any light calculations. This De-Gamma correction will bring back the image textures into a LINEAR SPACE. In summary, images used as data to perform calculation or used to feed a numerical value to the renderer (diffuse textures, bump maps, normal maps) must be in linear space from the point of view of the 3D renderer while images used for display must be gamma corrected to look good (i.e. non-linear space).
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De-Gamma 2.2
Material
Physically Correct!
Data flow for a diffuse texture that looks good on screen passed to the 3D renderer in a physically correct way.
Input Gamma: when 3ds max loads an image from disk. Leave at 2.2 for diffuse textures. Output Gamma: when 3ds max saves an image to disk. Leave at 1.0 if rendering out to HDR or EXR, 2.2 if rendering out to TIFF, JPG or PNG.
System Default will use the values from the Preferences dialog. Override will let you override the Gamma values for a specific Bitmap. Typically used for HDR output (see below). Note: Avoid the Use Images Gamma, its buggy and unreliable.
3ds Max: Image File Browse Dialog: this is where you can define a per bitmap Gamma correction value.
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HDR Imaging
This section will demonstrate how a linear color workflow can bring flexibility in image compositing software. We will explore how HDR imaging can be used to change lighting scenarios in real time and how render elements can be leveraged for controlling objects reflectivity, indirect lighting, and image exposure. This applies to V-Ray users as well as mental ray users, Adobe Photoshop (32bit), and Autodesk Composite users
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Left image: exposure is correct for the interior but too bright for the exterior. Right image, exposure is correct for the exterior, but too dark for the interior.
The problems are multiple: The camera cannot capture both interior and exterior zones at the same time without clamping colors to dark or white pixels. The image format in which the data is stored is limited in dynamic range: a JPG stores data in 8 bit per channel (rgb), which can only accommodate 256 possible levels of brightness (2^8 = 256). The resulting image is far from being close to what you perceived when you took the picture. In fact, your eye / brain are capable of clearly seeing the interior and the exterior at the same time, but when you look at the picture on screen, you dont get the same perception. Your perception of the final image varies depending on the hardware you are using, the quality of your monitor etc.
How to solve those problems? Step 1: Data Acquisition: capture all the luminance range of the scene and store them into a single image file.
To overcome the problem of limited ranges from cameras, a common technique consists into taking several pictures at different exposures as illustrated:
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We can capture the entire range of luminance by taking several pictures of the same scene at various exposures.
Then, we combine the pictures into what is known as a high dynamic range (HDR) image. The most common formats are: *.pic, *.hdr (Radiance image format) *.exr (Open EXR image format) *.psd (Photoshop) Software products such as Photoshop or HDR Shop have built-in capabilities to create HDR images from a series of low dynamic range photographs. By using advanced image manipulation techniques , it is possible to determine the response curve of the camera and calibrate the HDR image to store real world luminance levels. At this point, we obtain a situation that is identical to physically based rendering, i.e. real world luminance values stored in a high dynamic range (HDR) image file. Note, however, that this image file cannot be displayed as -is on screen, which leads us to the next step.
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Step 2: Exposure Control: compress the wide range of luminance levels into a single, displayable image.
The display device must compress the physical luminance levels into something that a screen can support (i.e. 8 bit per channel) by transforming the data with an operation usually known as Tone Mapping, or Exposure. In our example above, we obtain something like this:
For example, Adobe Photoshop CS2 and beyond provide out of the box tools to accomplish this task.
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We can see the brightest areas as well as the dimmest areas at once after using a digital exposure capable of adaptation in localized areas (Photoshop).
HDR picture processed for display purposes with a Tone Mapper performing local adaptation based on contrast (Photoshop CS2). Note however, that the result is very subjective. There is no correct answer . The important point to make is that the user is now able to control the images exposure as he wants, without being affected by the limitations of his camera. There is a huge gain in flexibility here.
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Matching an HDR image with 3ds Max Exposure Control: real world luminance values
As you saw in the previous example, Camera Exposure can be done in software on top of an HDR image that recorded luminance levels of the real world. We will then see how this can be leveraged inside 3ds Max. When using the Physical Units (cd/m2) option in the 3ds Maxs mr Photographic Exposure Control, the assumption is that background images also encode physical lighting units. For example, if you photographed a sky that had an actual brightness of 2500 cd/m2, the 3ds Max exposure control would expect the image to be in a 0 to 2500 range for the RGB values.
When using this option, any data seen through the Camera is expected to be at a physical scale. This is also true for HDR backgrounds.
A luminance meter is required to calibrate HDR images to real-world luminance values. Luminance meters can quantify luminance levels in cd/m2.
With this option, we can calibrate HDR background with the mr Photographic Exposure so Shutter Speed, Aperture and Film Speed values match values that would have been used with a real camera photographing the same sky!
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Lets assume this real-world scene where the brightest area (the sky) has a measured luminance of ~2500 cd m/2:
The luminance of this sky is at ~2500 cd / m2 in its brightest spot. This number is obtained with a luminance meter.
My digital camera produced this result with the following exposure settings:
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Here, we can see that image has somewhat arbitrary values. Our goal is to rescale the image so its brightest spot get close to 1.0
An HDR image loaded in HDR Shop shows that our sky (the small rectangle) reaches ~26 units. This is somewhat arbitrary We need to normalize the HDR image to a range between 0 and 1.0 to keep things under control. This is done in HDR Shop with the Scale tool:
To get there, we rescale to a factor of 1/x. In our case, this is 1/26, which is ~0.385
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Step 3: Load the image in 3ds Max and define its scale
We now have an HDR image ranging from 0 to 1.0. Our goal is to scale it back up so 3ds Max interprets the sky portion of the image as if it has a brightness of 2500 cd/m2. Load the image with a Gamma Correction value of 1.0 to keep it linear:
Dont miss this step! Failing to do so will introduce non linearity in the image, which is exactly what you want to avoid
Dont miss this step! Failing to do so will introduce non linearity and re-scale the pixels to other values as well.
The HDR image plugin of max allows for converting to LDR on input. DO NOT enable this feature! Keep it as Real Pixels with the Def. Exposure ON.
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The RGB Level of the Ouput rollout allows for scaling up or down pixels read from disk. Our goal is to bring it back to the measured luminance: 2500 cd /m2
This re-rendered image now has an identical brightness as the source LDR image. Both HDR background and CG exposure now work according to physical values. Relighting the scene with photometric lights is now made possible. We now have a calibrated LINEAR COLOR SPACE
Image rendered with the HDR picture as a background. The Photographic Exposure Control now works correctly with the HDR image. We have a calibrated environment.
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3ds Max can render images that go beyond the 0-1 range. This is important to maintain physical accuracy of lighting calculations and an advantage we can leverage in floating point capable compositing applications.
3ds Max has the capabilities to render in full floating point precision (32 bit for Red, Green and Blue respectively). Note how the pixel values can go beyond the 0-1 range.
Gotcha!
The main idea behind this process is to disable any Exposure Control that 3ds Max may have and perform this task in the 2D environment after our layers have been added together. Keep in mind that we leave it up to the 2D application to reconstruct the final image. Therefore, we must maintain the integrity of the data into the image files we render to disk by: Turning OFF exposure control so we keep the data in a non-altered way in the resulting files. Saving our HDR images with Gamma Correction = 1.0 to maintain the data in a linear form.
Ignoring those criteria will produce unexpected results in the 2D compositing application, essentially due to incorrect mathematical equations. 140
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Light Group C
Light Group B Light Group A
Color Correction
Color Correction Color Correction Linear Add Camera Exposure
Each light group is rendered individually, color corrected and added together. Camera Exposure is done at the very end.
Light Blending Workflow Example: interior rendering assembled with separate layers.
Each layer is rendered separately. They are combined in a compositing application to reconstruct the final image. It is important to render images out as HDR formats otherwise, clamping and artifacts will occur. It is also important to turn 3ds Max Exposure control OFF so we maintain the raw lighting data in a linear form (unaltered by the exposure control).
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Table Lights and Downlights only, saved asTable Lights and Downlights.hdr respectively.
Light is additive. You need to use the LINEAR ADD blending mode to reconstruct the final image properly, so each layer is added with the others.
Exposure control is one at the END of the process, just like in real life, whether it is your eye or a camera.
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The final image shows that all layers are added on top of each other. HDR data saved in the images prevent clamping from occurring. Because adding is a linear mathematical operation, we refer to this as the linear workflow.
Combined effect: LED wall + Downlights + Table lights simply added together.
With layered images, we can change the Hue and Intensity of each layer individually in real time! The final image is still plausible since you only alter the underlying data and leave the exposure control at the very end of the process.
Color variations explored quickly in 2D by applying color correction on individual layers. No need to re-render the images!
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Another color variation (Model courtesy of Aksel Karcher - www.electricgobo.com and Autodesk)
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