Studio Lighting

[Chad Kauffman]

I am trying to use a specific wood finish from a furniture manufacturer and the studio lighting seems to add a lot of red tint. Do I adjust the lighting or the finish sample?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Attach a picture here so we can see what you mean.

[Chad Kauffman]

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I'm assuming you're using the default studio lighting--  perhaps changing the background color or just alpha compositing afterwards.  If either of these assumptions isn't true-- let me know.  It's important, because by default the skylight is neutral-- if you've changed something, however, that may not be true.

 

I'm pretty sure your best bet will be to alter the material textures-- in this case bring them into Photoshop or eq. and turn down the saturation a bit.  Alternatively you could try the Saturation slider in nXt or the Image Editor to see if that will give you what you need.

 

Nice renderings, BTW.

 

 

 

[Chad Kauffman]

Yes, I have been using the default studio lighting. I will try the saturation slider as I have already tried the Image Editor.

[Chad Kauffman]

I've discovered that the finish sample changes considerably when using "Auto Balance" within Microsoft Photo Editor. (Turns orange) Where can I get a better selection of wood samples? I've tried scanning and taking a photo of the real deal.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

This is an area where other users may be able to help.  We've got a few users doing high quality furniture who may be willing to share.  Creating your own textures is not an easy process.  Even once you've gotten the scan and the color balance right, you still have the problem of producing tileable textures without too much obvious repetition.  This is usually done partly with software and partly with black magic.

 

High quality textures are available for sale from outfits like Arroway.  Our content and entourage page has some starting points-- see the materials stuff and the texture stuff.  Manufacturers often have decent samples as departure points-- it sounds like you may already have some-- I can't quite tell from your post. 

 

Avoid MS's Auto-Balance if you don't like it, BTW.

[Peter Milner]

It's your background causing the problem as I suspect you've got it set to Solid colour.

Change it to Sky where it will use the HDRI and then save the image with an Alpha channel.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

I did, finally, get around to trying this.  I left the background as white but turned down the brightness to compensate (-0.35) in this case.  This is necessary because the furniture is being rendered in complete isolation and the tone operator is over-exposing it.  

I did use the Path Tracer for the image below, but you'll get similar results using the original engine.  The Path Tracer does a better job with the lighting inside of the shelving, for example.  It takes quite a bit longer to resolve, though.

Is this more what you had in mind?

[Peter Milner]

Here's what I get with background set to Sky

[Peter Milner]

..and now with your furniture

[Chad Kauffman]

That is a beautiful thing! Your input has been invaluable. Thank you.