Topic: [Resolved]: Overbright Scene and Renders

[claricampa]

Good morning all.
Came to share my recent experience with lumion.  I have a moderately sized model of a bridge which I attempted to render without success.  The lighting is not functioning properly.  My images are either too dark or too bright.  The sun can be overpowering.

I was looking at my graphic card pass mark, and it seems pretty decent (5,380) so i'm not sure what can be the problem.

My card is an Nvidia GTX 670M 3GB dedicated graphics.  I also have an Intel Core i7-3610QM quad core processor, and my ram is 24gb 1600MHz DDR3 memory.  I thought I was pretty well off when I customized this laptop.  Am I still falling short in some department?

You may see my attached image as an example of a still shot.  The movie is much much darker.

[peterm]

Hi claricampa

Unfortunately the laptop GPU you refer to only has a Passmark of 1919 (as it's the M mobile version and not the desktop 670 version), see http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+670M&id=1459.

This will be OK for basic scenes as its above the suggested minimum GPU specs, refer to: LUMION 3: Minimum hardware requirements.

You should still be able to render your scene depending on how complex the bridge and other things are in the scene, without issues of over brightness.  However, I do recall some users in the past getting over-bright results due to scene and low GPU specs.

1.  What is the 3D Point count, top right screen stats?

2.  Have you tried using the Limit All Textures to 512 setting ( Files button --> Settings).   (see attached pic 1)

3.  Have you tried using the Sun Effect in Photo Mode and Video Mode to adjust the level of lighting?

4.  Is that image you attached, from a screen shot or from a render? From Photo Mode can you provide an example full image size - for example Desktop 1920x1080 rendered result for us to look at.

5.  Check that your Editor Quality settings for viewing at highest quality are set correctly. (see attached pic 2)

[claricampa]

Trying to post reply , but receive error message...

[claricampa]

Hi,
Please allow me to answer you in order.

1. 2.3
2. Yes, I've tried many different combination settings, incl this one.
3. Yes, I cannot have the heading above -.1, or the exposure overpowers the screen.  Additionally, when building the scene the only position to give me a daylight reading is perfectly horizontal between night and day, so I cannot move the dial anywhere in the daylight area.
4. The image is from a render.  I also do not like that the bridge itself is dark and lackluster...
5. I've tried editor quality in all varying stars, the results are not much noticeable on the issue of over brightness.

I appreciate your time and help.  I have two more class projects that I need to render on Lumion this semester, and I would like to resolve this.

Regards,

claricampa

[peterm]

Thanks for reply.

1.  To double-check, you have the latest GPU drivers installed for the GTX 670M?

2.  What happens if you render one of the example scenes included with Lumion; for example the Wegner Villa Demo - render some of the saved snapshots from Photo Mode for daytime lighting.

3.  Run the Benchmark tool (Files --> click on summary chart) and do a screengrab of the chart and post here as attachment.

Also, run DXDiag and attach the file in a post here.

5.  What power supply is used in the laptop?

You may need to test the GPU, make sure its running OK.  You can do that with various report and stress tools:
1.  GPU-Z
2.  PassMark PC Performance tool.
3.  GPU Shark and stress test FurMark.  
4.  OCCT

[claricampa]

Hi I'm back with more feedback:

I’ve had a break-through! Very exciting, see point # 3.  I still wanted to answer your questions (for posterity’s sake).

1.  Yes I updated them yesterday (thanks).  Please see attached image 1 –prior to breakthrough - using the updated drivers.)  I suspect that the pinkish glow is due to the “sunset/sunrise” setting?

2.  Villa rendering.  See the attached, (image 2) after I had changed the settings, (after breakthrough!)– it appears to be correct, but please let me know if this is what it’s supposed to look like?

3.  How I’ve made progress:  Ok, I ran the benchmark – see image 3.  Then I noticed that it wasn’t indicating my correct vcard.  So, I changed around some of the settings in my NVIDIA control panel, the last one seems to give best results (the break through setting) image 4, even though it still does not indicate the right vcard.  I actually designated the Nvidia card in the global settings, and then added lumion to the program list, and made sure that it was customized to use all the “CUDA”… (images 5 and 6)
What made me go look at the NVIDIA Control Panel, is that I noticed that the benchmarks don’t point to my actual graphic card, so I was trying to see if it was something in the setting.  Apparently so, bc on the second benchmark, you see some improvement, but, by the same token, the system “speed” went down by half.  Wonder why?  I kept trying to change this around, to see if I could get the system speed up to at least the 7200 it was before, but with the improved benchmark – but no luck there.  However, vast improvement showing in the latest render, image 7.  Regarding the material for the arches, I probably still need to tweak it to get them to look amazing.  I will try to run a movie with this setting.

- DXDiag– see attached.

5.  What power supply is used in the laptop? – plug, 110v

6.  Using option # 2, I scored 1572 (but states it’s a partial result), compared to the website which said it should be 1919.  Then it states that my computer has a passmark of 2956.7 which is a complete result.  I’m a bit clueless about the whole thing :\

Thanks for all your help, and I look forward to any new comments you may wish to make… particularly regarding improvement on the speed or input on the passmark results?  Sorry for all the attachments.

Thanks,
claricampa

[peterm]

Good.  Thanks for the update and running Lumion is now resolved.

Yes, laptops require to have the dedicated card assigned via the NVIDIA Control Panel (or Catalyst for AMD/ATI cards).

The Benchmark (via DirectX) will report the Intel card even though an NVIDIA card has been assigned.  

I am not sure where the GTX 560 card comes into things that gave you a reported system speed of 7200, but what is showing now for the 675M seems about right.