Outdoor Light GI and FG tips by Evermotion

Start with a nice map in the environment slot

Use a slylight, a MR omni light, and a MR area spotlight

spot – ray trace shadows, .55, light orange

omni – 2.0, white

skylight – place anywhere, 2.0, light orange ...

set up the lights in indirect illumination

Note the global energy multiplier – quite high ... USE THIS WHEN THE SCENE IS TOO DARK

The GI Photons per light is set LOW to make a relatively fast first render, but please note, it is 50,000, 10x the GI photons of 5,000.

GI settings:

Do not determine a sampling radius yet, this is a quick preliminary render to determine basic lighting. You will save the photon map clicking the ... button.

Before rendering set the saving of Photon map. Click the ... button next to Save and choose some place to save it. Saving of the Photon map is very useful for later Final Gather rendering.

First render 50,00 gi photons

Shown next is an error for comparison, a render of 5,000 gi photons on the lites:

Next, increase photons from 50,000 to 5 million. That is 100x.

Sampling radius is 3.0. You can make a little plane in your view that size, that will be the radius of the photons.

Lights --- GI photons go up to 3 million

Render ...

Next we go to Final Gather ... radius is 10x the photon sample.