Realistic view of sunlight inside a room

[Anonymous]

Hi. I have developed a model of a house and set the location parameters so it is in the correct place and orientation. I want to get a realistic view of how dark/light the interior rooms will be without the use of artificial lights. Basically if I was standing in the room with the lights off what could I expect in terms of natural light the room. I understand that this changes over the day. However when I render even in mid day the main room on the 1st floor looks very dark. 

I can see that there is a lighting setting in the render dialog. It gives options for interior and exterior sun. Switching between these two has a dramatic effect on the light in the room. The problem is I cant find anywhere that explains the difference between them. Is the "interior sun only" the setting for internal rooms to show the impact of natural light in the room? 

I would be very grateful for any advice to get me to a position where I am confident that the renders give a true reflection of the natural light that will be in the rooms. I don't want a big surprise and find it is totally different when we build/renovate the house.

I have added renders using internal and external sun only (taken at same time summer solstice) of the main room on 1st floor and included the project in case it might help. 

Many thanks

Tony

[RDAOU]

Renders do not give you a 100% accurate result of how good or bad the natural lighting is...you need an light analysis

However, to fix your render you need to adjust the exposure and light point values (see image below) ...you can also adjust the sun settings to change the Azimuth and altitude of the sun

   

[Anonymous]

The lighting in Revit renders is not realistic - rather use the analysis tool for lighting, where you should get more realistic lighting levels.

[Anonymous]

Thank you both. I will look at using the on line rendering to see the realistic natural light. 

Thank you for the feedback about the local rendering tool. I would appreciate understanding the difference between the 2 sun settings (exterior and interior). Also which is closest to the reality as the results are extremely different between the 2 settings? 

Many thanks

Tony

[barthbradley]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 However when I render even in mid day the main room on the 1st floor looks very dark. 

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Based on your Rendering settings of Sun Only  -- and the two small windows lighting that room being askew to the Sun  -- and the camera being positioned roughly 25 feet away those two windows  --  I say the Rendering is an accurate representation.  

[RDAOU]

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@barthbradley wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

 However when I render even in mid day the main room on the 1st floor looks very dark. 

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Based on your Rendering settings of Sun Only  -- and the two small windows lighting that room being askew to the Sun  -- and the camera being positioned roughly 25 feet away those two windows  --  I say the Rendering is an accurate representation.  

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Im now temped to download that model and render it with the given setting to check how realistic it is 🙂

[barthbradley]

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@RDAOU wrote:

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Im now temped to download that model and render it with the given setting to check how realistic it is 🙂

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You'll need a flashlight.  

he,he. 

[RDAOU]

It cant be that bad! common!

[Anonymous]

Hi. I would very much appreciate any cross checking you could do. That room has 2 large patio doors (each 2500x2100mm) and they are south west facing so I was hoping it would be quite bright. 

I am still unclear on which of the 2 renders I supplied is the more realistic. It goes back to my lack over understanding between interior sun only and exterior sun only. sorry to be dumb.

Many thanks

[RDAOU]

I will download it later and check I cannot download from this station... 

Do you have any specific material with applied render appearance?? ie: the image and bump set under the Appearance tab? (If you are using a custom material library I will not be able to test it properly … it will be a white model

[barthbradley]

This is the only camera I see in your project.  "3D View 1".  Is this right?

[barthbradley]

Something ain't right with your "3D View 1".  Recreate it and see if it renders for you better.  

Also, FWIW:  

[RDAOU]

@Anonymous 

A draft render with the below shown setting (no photo adjustments - Sun: Azimuth 135 Altitude 35) gives the results below...take into account that material also affect the luminance inside the room...so you cannot really judge on the quality of natural lighting from rendering only...but more or less it appears acceptable it will pass

EDIT: you were rendering at 19:00 with no artificial lighting...hence it is was pitch black "you need a flashlight" as  @barthbradley said... below is as per your setting (need some artificial interior lighting)

[barthbradley]

These are the Rendering settings that came with "3D View 1".  I didn't monkey with them.  I would if it was my work. There's a dozen or more ways you can tweak the Rendering.  For the most part, it's subjective work.    

[RDAOU]

The has been no monkeying around with the above renders!! First I ran with the default settings for A and EL and the second I ran with the Project Location he has set (hence it most probably set the time to 7pm where he is)

Below is the render with the raw settings which are there when you open the file see below it is still not that dark

[barthbradley]

Not sure why you are guessing about time or locale. Anyhow, I just Rendered with original settings. No "monkeying". This is what I got. Obviously, not an accurate representation.  Not even a pretty picture.  

[Anonymous]

Hi. Sorry about delay in responding. I was away last night. 

Thank you both for looking at the issues. Just to answer the questions (sorry I know it is too late). I created only 1 view to allow me to check daylight before proceeding further. The missing jpg is the floor covering. My renders were 12pm (midday) on summer solstice in the location of the house.

I am still confused about the difference between interior sun and exterior sun. I couldn't find a description of the differences. i would appreciate a link if anyone has one to the explanation. I really just want to know which is the one to use to get an approximation of the expected daylight inside the room.

I have rendered the luminescence in the cloud to see what it shows. I picked 2pm 13th August. It still seems dark 😞

Many thanks

Tony 

[RDAOU]

@Anonymous 

It is the same rendering engine different schemes... the only difference between them is the Exposure Value => When you render Interiors using Exterior Scheme you will get very dark output...and vise versa if you render an exterior perspective using interior scheme...

• When you use "Interior:" scheme,  you get somewhat brighter renderings (by default the Exposure value is 9 and 8 if using artifical lighting only)
• When rendering "Exterior:" scheme,  you get somewhat darker renderings (by default the Exposure value is 14 and 8 is using artificial lighting only)

You can adjust the exposure value on the rendering tab depending on the overall surrounding of the space you which you want to render... <--- this is the part which some call monkeying, I personally call it using the right settings in order for Revit to understand what to do and not just render using default values.

Realistic? I would say you can somewhat have an idea if a room will be too gloomy and dark or if it will be well lit but you will not be able to get the actual lux values out of it. You need a proper lighting analysis for that

[RDAOU]

@Anonymous 

I have just noticed the image you have attach!!!

You have an average of 1500 LUX => You have good Natural Lighting inside. Blue does not imply that it is dark but that the darkest corner of that space is at 700 lux which is still good.

Conclusion...someone is bad at rendering lol

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the explanation and the feedback on the luminescence. It is a same that the cloud render does not reflect well the values from the luminescence study. 

Sorry to be asking further questions but do you have any suggestions of tools or online services that could give me the most realistic render showing natural light?

Many thanks

Tony