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Realistic Lighting Color

Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 12:05 pm
by Fletch
The natural thing to do when starting to light your space is to insert the light, and hit the render button.
However, the default light color is white. In real life, there are very few lights that are pure white. Perhaps a welding spark...

No, it's important to set your lights to good colors. The sun light color also needs to be given a warmer color.
So, what you want to know is "What color looks good?"
You could try studying this lighting chart, even sample the rgb color using the eyedropper in your preferred photo editor.
Image

Try these light colors as a starting point in your next interior:
Kitchen design and model by the award winning Dan Stronge.

In the example below, the IES lights in the under cabinet lighting has been changed... but that is not important, it's only meant as a study in light color.

Remember that the exposure of your camera for interiors is very important. Also, post production in a photo editor will always do wonders to enhance a raw render and take it to the "next level".
WhiteLight-vs-WarmLight-InteriorRenderings.jpg
WhiteLight-vs-WarmLight-InteriorRenderings.jpg (179.36 KiB) Viewed 38880 times
Here is a real photographic example of a cloudy day with the interior incandescent lights near the stairway.
Image

Re: Realistic Lighting Color

Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 5:10 pm
by Dan_ddd
Hey Fletch

Great set of images! It really has helped me understand how to set up my renders
:^:

Re: Realistic Lighting Color

Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 7:49 pm
by unclebim
Thanks Fletch, great examples. This might be helpful too: http://planetpixelemporium.com/tutorialpages/light.html

Re: Realistic Lighting Color

Posted: Thu May 10, 2012 11:02 pm
by Fletch
Thanks for the reminder of the article, UncleBim, I like these as a good starter point for some colors, but as the article points out, it depends on the eye (and monitor or printer) of the one viewing the image. So, the article says just as stated above, these colors for lights are just a suggested quick starting point.

Re: Realistic Lighting Color

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:41 pm
by ChaletScout
That's really helpful thanks a lot.

Love the flooring, is it part of a collection?

Re: Realistic Lighting Color

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:21 pm
by Dan_ddd
ChaletScout wrote:Love the flooring, is it part of a collection?
I made the floor myself. When im next at my computer i'll post the map spec and bump

Re: Realistic Lighting Color

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:08 am
by ChaletScout
Thanks Dan, will be perfect for a project I'm about to start.

Re: Realistic Lighting Color

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:08 pm
by Dan_ddd
Hi Steve

I've just posted the textures etc here: Oak_Block_Flooring

enjoy