Cineversity

I have been following along with this tutorial and everything has looked good so far but when I got to the light ing section my reflections on the glass look like grainy cotton balls. Is this a render setting? What am I missing? I set up the textures and everything exactly like in the tutorial. HELP!

The Material’s default setting has changed: the Roughness in the Reflections is now 10%, to get the same results as in the tutorial, it needs to be set to 0%

Hi monparsons,

Thanks for the image, but it is just too small. Project files tell the full story.

The light sources used in the example file require attention to the theme of Samples.
By default, these values are relatively small, i.e., not set to produce the highest quality.
Yes, I use the plural here, as it is not just one Sample parameter that needs attention.
More Samples means longer calculation times. During the initial light set up, any longer delay (rendering) will disturb the flow of the art-direction of the lighting process.
If the mood is fine, the quality comes next. Not the other way around.

I have set up an example here, where one Light/Sphere combination works with low Samples and the other one with high Values.
Project file
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/ad0PLSO0T5LdR85PuB9WiTx1Hx4BUs7L5MJynANumG6

Note that the Light> Attribute Manager> Project allows selecting objects to be included or excluded. Included means, only the one in the list will get light, (if in the pathway of the light of course).

Sample can be found in the light, Details as well as in Shadow. More samples are provided in the Material> Reflection> Layer Samples.

The key is to keep the Samples as low as possible, while the quality is observed. This typically leads to the sweet-spot between render-time and quality.

All the best, stay safe, stay healthy.

P.S.:
https://help.maxon.net/us/index.html#OLIGHT-LIGHT_GROUP_DETAILS
https://help.maxon.net/us/index.html#OLIGHT-LIGHT_GROUP_SHADOW
https://help.maxon.net/us/index.html#MMATERIAL-ID_MATERIALGROUP_REFLECTION

Thank you for your help… I opened the file you sent and it feels a bit beyond me.  I am closely following a tutorial and am getting dramatically different lighting look than the sample. Is there a way to post my file so that you can look at it? For some reason I am only allowed to upload images to this post that are less than 800 wide which is ridiculously small and c4d files are not allowed.

I put together a comparison that has the tutorial on the left and my render on the right. I drew arrows to the reflections that i am talking about. Mine just look like fuzzy white dots instead of natural reflections.

Thanks for more images, monparsons.

Three attachments are the max, and a C4D file must be “zipped” as well as under 4MB. Often the tight MIME check is not accepting files. Hence Why I usually create an individual upload option and send it via the Cineversity Private Messages. I have sent you one, of course. Since I have sent it, I have set up a scene for you and a screen-capture.

Screen-capture, project file:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/RxCPzHpEv9y1NWNrbwePbekcWcfjgPuUm3MPRwKogiF

Please note that my way of working with light is one possible and individual idea of it, which might or might not match other instructor’s methods. There is no right or wrong, as light is a strong visual language, we all express it differently, with different ideas. I started my work with light when I was 13, with my own truckload light-show equipment for bands, etc. 135 events until I was 17. Then I focused more on my Photography, which is also a light-based art. So, over the decades, I have developed my take on it. As even very old Cinematographers collogues of mine have told me, it is a life long learning process, and each project is a new creation. The best learning tool for this is in my view Cinema 4D, as it allows for a swift set up of different options. So, please explore the lights in detail, it is at least half of the impact of anything we do here.

I wrote all of that, to be clear, that my take on it is not a critique on EJ’s work, not at all, and I think I have (hopefully) duplicated what he showcased here.

Let me know if there is any other question, I’m happy to look into it.

Enjoy the series.

I think you will need to increase anti aliasing preset to best and use standard renderer. I had that problem before.

Thank you for bearing with me on this. I looked at the files that you attached to your post but I am not that they address my problem. I understand that there are many ways to light a scene and that people have different philosophies. That makes total sense. My issue is that regardless of light setup, It feels like a glass bowl should have reflections that look like they are on smooth glass not grainy clear sandpaper. I am convinced that it is a material setting or a render setting that I am missing but I am so new to C4D that I am at a loss. I tried the Anti aliasing setting that the other commenter suggested. It made my render look nicer but it didn’t fix my reflections.

I am attempting to attach a zipped project file. Hopefully it makes all of this immediately clear.

Also… I was notified that you sent me a private message. I logged into Cineversity, but I can not, for the life of me, figure out where the Private message inbox is located. I am not trying to be intentionally obtuse but I am having a heck load of problems with this forum.

Hi monparsons,

Thanks for the file, very much appreciated.
Let me summarize what I tried to say above, very short and on the point.

You have either sharp highlights, or you have soft highlights from the Area lights in PSB mode.
If you have soft reflections on the glass, then the Reflection channel has a Transparency layer. This is based on “Beckman,” and the Roughness is set by default to 10%. THIS (!) the starting point of the grainy border.

In case you like to have it soft, you need to increase the samples of that layer, perhaps even to 12: Layer Sampling> Sampling Subdivision: 8 to 12 (based on your target.) This will increase the render-time heavily!

A sharp reflection is achieved while Roughness is set to 0%.

This is all there is to it.
=================

In previous versions of Cinema 4D this (Roughness=0%) was the default. Now it is 10%, and that is the difference, so far, I can tell.

To adjust the Anti Alias means that you render the whole image in a higher AA, or you set up specific tags to fine-tune it. Which I think should be considered not as the first remedy.

Three are a few things that I like to share since more people read along:

Specular highlights, the fake version, is for a decade not really the first choice anymore. The fake approach was good back in the last century when CPUs were slow. Besides some notable developments back there (Pixar’s RenderMan, had a Window frame option), those fake Specular Highlights were always round and often looked fake even. Pure reflection is used these days instead.

If you need soft reflections, I suggest placing an object add a material there and a gradient shader (Luminance channel) with a soft border, just to get the light source reflection super smooth and do not pay the price of extreme samples.

The Private Message box is up and in the middle of this interface.

My best wishes.

P.S.: I had to wait for a render of this scene, with a sample set to 12 it took here over an hour.

My suggestion to place objects in the scene for reflections instead of the light sources took not even a minute.

Please judge for your self, super smooth highlights in nearly no time:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/5Epor2D7kGskkn1krbh5kD2FJQOMgdaHu0jw2TlBUsB

I have set the highlights as I would expect them to be “rolled out” on film here, it you want them clipped, set the Luminance> Brightness to 400%, or higher if needed (Soft-Box_Refl.).

Cheers

monparsons - 07 May 2020 03:32 PM

I tried the Anti aliasing setting that the other commenter suggested. It made my render look nicer but it didn’t fix my reflections.

I had the grainy reflection but with the hull not the glass. My anti aliasing was none. I fixed that by increasing the anti aliasing.

And now Dr. Sassi had an answer for you, that is the roughness value.

I recall that I used the “Glass - Simple” material which is included in the material pack that can be downloaded using the updater. It was perfect and the reflection was too clear so I had to decrease the refraction value.

I also made a playlist about reflection, take a look at the last 3 videos if you have time.

https://www.cineversity.com//vidplaylist/lighting_shadow_and_reflection

Hi huanle5062,

Yes, the Glass Simple is pretty much what the tutorial used.
Thanks for sharing and keeping it mainly to the content of the tutorial.

Please remember, each single Tutorial Thread should stay on topic.
Thanks a lot.

Cheers

Thank you all so much for your help and advice!

Thanks for the feedback, monparsons, you’re very welcome.

I hope you had fun going through the series.

If there is anything else, regarding this tutorial, please ask here, anything else, perhaps in the Q&A Forum, I’m happy to look into it.

Cheers, stay safe, stay healthy.