Renderings

[Anonymous]

Just rendered a small building I'm trying to complete for a final class semester project. It took over 2 hours and I apparently set something incorrectly. The rendering looks like the scene is 2:00 in the morning - almost pitch black. Apparently, renderings are cast in concrete because I can find no way to re-open the Rendering Dialog box to try and determine what went wrong and how to repair it. Can a rendering be edited and, if so, how is it done . . . or, am I stuck with trying to start from scratch, guess at what I may have done wrong, and waste another 2 hours  only to find out the problem still exists? Help!

[Anonymous]

play with the exposure..

[Anonymous]

Could you elaborate a little? I understand your reply to mean start from scratch once again - correct? Is there no way in revit to edit the original render criteria without the time consuming rendering a whole new image? Thanks for youi help and interest.

[Anonymous]

no you adjust all the exposure controls AFTER it's rendered..

[rosskirby]

There are a number of reasons that would cause your rendering to show up dark, but it's difficult to say for sure.  It would help if you posted a screencap of the rendering settings you used.

In the meantime, make sure you have the time of day set correctly.  If it's set for 2 am, then the rendering will look like it's 2 am.  And while you may be able to lighten your rendering with just the exposure setting, it's really meant more for fine-tuning a rendering after-the-fact than it is for completely re-working the rendering, which seems more like what you're trying to do.

Next time, try test-rendering just a region of your view (check the "Region" box and move the extents of the crop box that appears to encompass a small portion of the view).

[Anonymous]

gdfisher- you said it was "almost" black.. meaning there was some image there.. that's why the first logical thing to do would be to increase the exposure and see what you got.. that way you might not even have to start over- you might like what you see.. you can get some great effects rendering in low light and increasing the exposure.. since your primary concern was "am I stuck with trying to start from scratch" and "wasting two more hours".. maybe not..

[Anonymous]

Great feedback, folks. I thought from the start that all the possibilities mentioned could be the source of the problem. Problem is, I can't find any command tabs or tool icons that allow me to reopen the windows to make these adjustments in Revit 2011 - they seem well hidden and not intuitive in the user interface. Can anyone point me to the correct path to initiate those tools? I think I can clean up the rendering if I can only find a way to the tools.

[ryan.duell]

You can adjust the exposure settings under Show Rendering Dialog > Image > Adjust Exposure.  Here is some additional information about the exposure settings you can adjust after performing a rendering:

Adjusting the Exposure of a Rendered Image

Thank you,

[Anonymous]

I hate being so uninformed, but I still need to know how to access the Rendering Dialog and Exposure settings. when I oen my rendering, the the rendering teapot icon is grayed out and no teapot with a light bulb icon appears in the View Control Bar. If I click the arrow under the teapot icon in the View tab, the only window selection available is the Graphic Display Options. It seems that everything the advice directs me to either is grayed out or isn't there at all. Even the Visual Style box only has the first 2 items available - the rest are grayed out.

[Anonymous]

gdfisher- i guess it's like that in the beginning.. but you can speed it up by reading tutorials.. training videos are great too.. and LOTS of trial and error..