Newbie Render Test.... Missing sunlight

[planit2d]

Hi there Guys.... second time here and still very new to all of this. I am having trouble with sunlight in my scene. I am using a very underpowered machine so it's a "run over night and check in the morning" process at the moment for me.... very time consuming and frustrating to get to the morning and not see what you were hoping to see.
BTW. I'm using a Macbook Air 1.3 ghz with 4Gb RAM so a bit painful until I upgrade machines.

Anyway, I created this render using "Twilight_Indoor_Downlight_6in(15cm)_100w.skp" lights and rendered using Easy 08, which to my eye, i'm happy with at this early stage of learning, however I have a bunch of "spots" in the render (ceiling as well as cabinet and floor near the window).
I proceeded to have a go at Easy 09 as I read that that would fix the problem.... It did, but I lost all my sunlight from the scene. I am now trying Easy 10 (very slowly) to test again but at this point still no sunlight...??? Q: does the sunlight present itself as the passes increase and i should just remain patient... or have I missed something upfront all together

Any help would be much appreciated.....Thanks

Easy 08 with spots

Untitled.png (577.95 KiB) Viewed 7940 times

Easy 10 with no sunlight

Untitled_1.png (666.61 KiB) Viewed 7940 times

[planit2d]

apologies..... Mentioned render in the post was Easy 08.... actually was Easy 07

Anyone able to shed some light on this for me...??? thanks in advance

[Chris]

For the windows, are you using Architectural Glass with Shadows turned off? That's what I would look at first.

[planit2d]

thanks for reply Chris.... It is architectural, common, shadows off,I was given that hot tip on my first post
the images attached above were done one after the after so nothing changed in the scene regarding materials etc...???

i just did another quick test to be sure using Easy 01 and Easy 10... sunlight is visible in 01 but not in 10...???

[Fletch]

cheers guys.... the glass was correct and the sun was on but I had ticked the box "rotate sun with sky" putting the sun on the wrong side of the scene..... thanks for your help, all good now

Are we sure this is not the same issue as before?

Dumb question... but a quick test - If you delete the window glass completely, does the sun shine in?
I see your sun is set to power of 2 - normally it is 4. This would make the interior lighting dominate the sun possibly making the sun light actually coming in, but hard to see.

[planit2d]

Cheers Fletch.... thanks for your help fellas

I have just tested the following...

Increased sun to 4
Easy 01 - window in and window out = sunlight visible (this is what I was getting previously)
Easy 10 - window in and window out = sunlight visible (this is not what I was getting previously)

Only thing I've changed is the sun strength as you suggested, glass was fine..... MUST have been the sun... but why would the sunlight be REALLY visible in easy 01-07 but not at all 08...???

[Chris]

The interior/interior+ methods use a totally different mechanism than the low/+ through high/+, so the results (especially with lighting) will be different (Interior/+ is actually going to be more realistic than the other methods). As Fletch mentioned, the issue was likely simply that the interior lighting was overwhelming the sunlight make it unnoticeable.

[planit2d]

Thanks Chris, thanks Fletch.... Appreciate the help guys

[Fletch]

Use Easy 09 for architectural renderings. It is approximately 2x faster to clear than Easy10.

Easy10 is really only for complex lighting jobs like caustics or dispersion through dielectric glass (think jewelry, diamonds and rubies, or think lasers). Easy 09 will not give caustics from spot or point lights, but in 99% of the cases the added render times from Easy10 will not be noticeable in architectural renderings.

A caustic that you may see in Easy 10 architectural renderings is the reflection of the sunlight onto the ceiling coming from a glass coffee table. This could be realistic, but in my experience is more distracting to the client than it is helpful.