Interior Rendering shows up black

[Anonymous]

I've been googling and looking through the discussion forums and I just can't figure out why my interior rendering scenes just show up black. I have opened up projects from previous releases that I was able to get interior scenes to render correctly and they render fine in 2013. I've imported the modified fixtures to the current projects file and they still don't do anything. The scene I'm talking about has a ceiling modeled on the underside of a floor. I've read this may be an issue, but my light fixtures light source is to be 1/4" above the plane of the ceiling. In my case, it's a 5/8" layer of drywall. I just can't figure this out.

Thanks,

Logan

[LisaDrago]

I would throw in a studio light to see if it is the light fixtures or not - it is jut an orb of light - no fixture. You can specify the offset from the floor to get the height you want.

LD

[Anonymous]

I threw one in...still no luck.

[LisaDrago]

On the rendering dialog box - what do you have the lighting set to? see attached image...

LD

[Anonymous]

I've tried Interior and Exterior with Sun only, sun and artificial...etc. Doesn't seem to change anything. I'm just rendering in Draft mode to save time, not sure that matters. I've also adjusted the exposure to no avail.

I've edited the fixture to move the Light Source Elevation to be inside the depth of my Ceiling, but that doesn't seem to help.

I've also turned off the floor 'layer' and that hasn't helped...

[LisaDrago]

WOW I am really at a loss - not sure what to say... hopefully an autodesk employee will take a look at this one...

LD

[Anonymous]

No problem. Thanks for trying.

I'm tempted to start up a "dummy" project with Revit's Out-of-the-Box template and insert lights and see if it works there. Seems I always run into this problem when the upgrade happens.

[LisaDrago]

Would not hurt to try... 

Hope you get it to work.. when you do post what you did - if you don't mind.

LD

[Anonymous]

You didn't say you cranked up the wattage on the light. If that's

too low it's going to render black no matter where you set the

exposure.

[Anonymous]

I changed to 150W and still nothing. I created a "dummy" file and just made a 40'x40' box with a floor and a flat roof and then added a ceiling and some fixtures and everything works fine there.

[Anonymous]

What if 150W is not enough for the exposure setting you have?

[octavio2]

If your issue is with a black bottom ceiling which refuses to change color, I had the problem today and resolved it by adding a new layer "finish" under the ceiling with a new layer of 5/8" gypboard, and then I delved into the additional dialogs and changed the colors to white.  (It was an involved and trial and error process).  Now  I do not have the black ceiling any more.

[Anonymous]

I've attached two images showing the space I'm working on. I've just generically added a ceiling, below the floor, and added 4- out of the box recessed cans from Revit. I cut a Section Box so that it'd actually show up, if I don't have the Section Box, it's ALL black (not just the ceiling).

I've done this same view without the floor "layer" on and it didn't help. My ceiling is just a 5/8" thick "structure" component of drywall, which isn't generic and actually has a material associated with it.

In the "dummy" file I created, I used the same basic set up and I was able to get the lights to appear. However, I used the generic ceiling material and there wasn't a floor. I can't imagine you just can't have a floor above, but who knows.

I can provide more information if necessary.

Thanks again to all of you,

Logan

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Now serving a big plate of "yes, you're still just learning"...

Even though the image on the screen suggested my camera was not inside a wall, when I looked at it in plan form, it was. I moved it forward a bit, out of the wall, and now things work.

Notes for future forum'ers...

It still requires (at least when placed under a floor element) that the Light Source Elevation remain within the thickness of the ceiling element. I rendered with it outside of my 5/8" material (back to the original 3" above bottom plane) and it did not render. So, light fixtures won't render "inside" a floor.

If you want the fixture itself to have a "glow", you need to edit the fixture's "Light Source Definition" to have it's "Light Distribution" to be a spherical instead of spot. I've attached an image that illustrates this.

Thanks for everyone's help...

[Anonymous]

Not much is going to render with those low settings anyway.

[Anonymous]

These are the render settings that will give you the

FASTEST and most COMPLETE rendering. The image

won't look like a realistic photo, but everything will

get rendered.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Vector2. That definitely sped up rendering. I did notice the windows rendered black now though. The adjacent door (also using glass as it's glazing material) rendered transparent. Any ideas why? I used your custom rendering settings and did all the different lighting schemes possible and the glazing in the windows always rendered black/opaque...

[Anonymous]

thaner- Those settings just mean it's not taking all that time

to accurately trace the rays, but it IS filling out the elements,

(except glass), because the antialiasing is set to at least 6.

But that's just for a quick preview render.

For quallity renderings put antialiasing to 9 and those two illumination

precision settings to 9. 10 is infinitely better if you can let it render

for hours and hours. And bump up those other settings a little to give

you the transparent glass. And of course the soft shadows at 8 or 9.

As for some elements rendering black, that's just in their material

settings.

[Anonymous]

We just had this same issue in my Revit class. The problem we encountered - the rendering all black - is that Revit renders doors as being CLOSED. The camera was just on the wrong side of the door! Try moving the camera, see if it's something like that for your issue.

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone.

Hope you're well.

There is a black strip that keeps appearing in the render.

I have rendered this same view more than 4times.
I even changed the pendant light and the camera angle without ANY luck!

Please help me with this problem in the attachment below.