No idea why the emission discs inside the dome are shadowed instead of bright. Might have to add a solidify modifier to the dome to give it empty space inside if the subsurface is treating it like whole solid the way a glass shader would.
Adding Solidify solved my problem. Sensor dome looks like what I had in mind. I also have a node set-up to keep the backface of those emission discs from shining so I only get the normal face light source. I also have a noise node added to the material. Added 70% anisotropic to the hull material and played around with the roughness texture sample, which I duplicated on the opposite side.
1024 samples and D-NOISE add-on applied.
1024 samples with standard denoiser at default parameters.
2048 samples with standard denoiser at default.
Light path settings: 256 max bounces, Dif: 64, Gls: 128, Trsp: 256: Trsm: 256, Vol: 32.
Clamping: Direct: 3, Indirect: 9, Filter Glossy 1. Caustics both checked.
Color Management: Filmic, medium high contrast, Gamma set a little high at 1.382.
If you want to really take advantage of Filmic, you might want to consider cranking up your main light source to physical values closer to the actual sun. If you're using a Sun lamp, something around ~520 is a good ballpark. You will almost certainly have to adjust Direct and Indirect clamping, as a result, and then tweak the Exposure setting to get to expose properly, but the resulting dynamic range tends to lend a much more "space realism" feel to renders.
I know switching over to the Eevee renderer, lamp output is in watts, which is what I read the cycles renderer was as well, and once tried to apply a formula for solar output based on distance, but those number didnt appear correct. For outdoor scenes, I tend to use 3 to 5, which looks about right, so I use those values for space scenes, even though I'm not trying to match the bright ambience seen in LEO photos—usually because I want the lights and glows to stand out.
520 sounds like it will wash the scene out like an overexposure. But I'll look at it.
I know switching over to the Eevee renderer, lamp output is in watts, which is what I read the cycles renderer was as well, and once tried to apply a formula for solar output based on distance, but those number didnt appear correct.
The situation in Cycles is a little confusing, because some lights--the sun lamp, in particular--are in Watts/m^2 (irradiance), while others--point and spot--are in consumer-bulb-equivalent Watts (i.e. a 40W light bulb, not 40 W/m^2 received radiation). The documentation talks about it a bit, although my understanding is that Area lights use irradiance for Power and not wattage rating.
520 sounds like it will wash the scene out like an overexposure. But I'll look at it.
Without Filmic, 520 will absolutely blow out the scene. With it, though, it actually works. The recent renders I've done in my Coro WIP thread all use that 520 sun lamp, yet I can set their exposure such that you can see both inside the shuttlebay and the exterior of the ship, as well as areas lit by nothing but bounce lighting.
Granted, I've got some pretty awful noise, but I currently suspect that to be related to poor setup in my materials or some other artifact of my scene having migrated through several versions of Blender. Once I finish the model, I'll pay more attention to what's going on with the noise, but based on the experiences of others (we've been talking about this a fair amount on the SFM Discord), my noise problem is atypical.
Yeah, I mentioned here, albeit not in a very prominent way that you'll need to go into the Color Management panel and crank down the Exposure (I usually use something around -3, -5, or even -7, depending on the surface) to get it to not blow out. It's the same area where you set the View Transform to Filmic.
Combining Exposure with Filmic should still preserve a fair amount of detail in the darker areas, giving you a very nice dynamic range.
Posts
Trying a different sensor dome with subsurface and translucence, with some mesh lights inside, and roughness texture on the side.
Adding Solidify solved my problem. Sensor dome looks like what I had in mind. I also have a node set-up to keep the backface of those emission discs from shining so I only get the normal face light source. I also have a noise node added to the material. Added 70% anisotropic to the hull material and played around with the roughness texture sample, which I duplicated on the opposite side.
1024 samples and D-NOISE add-on applied.
1024 samples with standard denoiser at default parameters.
2048 samples with standard denoiser at default.
Light path settings: 256 max bounces, Dif: 64, Gls: 128, Trsp: 256: Trsm: 256, Vol: 32.
Clamping: Direct: 3, Indirect: 9, Filter Glossy 1. Caustics both checked.
Color Management: Filmic, medium high contrast, Gamma set a little high at 1.382.
If you want to really take advantage of Filmic, you might want to consider cranking up your main light source to physical values closer to the actual sun. If you're using a Sun lamp, something around ~520 is a good ballpark. You will almost certainly have to adjust Direct and Indirect clamping, as a result, and then tweak the Exposure setting to get to expose properly, but the resulting dynamic range tends to lend a much more "space realism" feel to renders.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
520 sounds like it will wash the scene out like an overexposure. But I'll look at it.
The situation in Cycles is a little confusing, because some lights--the sun lamp, in particular--are in Watts/m^2 (irradiance), while others--point and spot--are in consumer-bulb-equivalent Watts (i.e. a 40W light bulb, not 40 W/m^2 received radiation). The documentation talks about it a bit, although my understanding is that Area lights use irradiance for Power and not wattage rating.
This site goes into great detail about the topic, too.
Without Filmic, 520 will absolutely blow out the scene. With it, though, it actually works. The recent renders I've done in my Coro WIP thread all use that 520 sun lamp, yet I can set their exposure such that you can see both inside the shuttlebay and the exterior of the ship, as well as areas lit by nothing but bounce lighting.
Granted, I've got some pretty awful noise, but I currently suspect that to be related to poor setup in my materials or some other artifact of my scene having migrated through several versions of Blender. Once I finish the model, I'll pay more attention to what's going on with the noise, but based on the experiences of others (we've been talking about this a fair amount on the SFM Discord), my noise problem is atypical.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Yeah. This is what I get.
HA! I literally chuckled at that one.
Combining Exposure with Filmic should still preserve a fair amount of detail in the darker areas, giving you a very nice dynamic range.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Yep, there's a bit of a difference.
All joking aside, these latest renders are looking really nice.
I was thinking the same thing.
He's in a soundstage.
Ha! Great answer.
I noticed the problem with setting the color management exposure low is it makes the material preview dark.