Dark, black ceiling

Why is the ceiling very dark, almost black in the photorealistic render?

As seen in the image above, it can happen that the ceiling appears much darker than the walls, even completely black. This occurs despite the ceiling being white. The phenomenon is caused by the two main light sources being too close to the ceiling, resulting in minimal illumination spread across the ceiling, while other lights typically shine downwards, not upwards.

In the room shown in the image, the two main lights are positioned as follows:

Move the lights a bit further away from the ceiling, roughly to eye level, and observe how the ceiling looks in the render:

The two renders above were done at quality level 2. In higher quality renders (level 5 in the image), the lights and shadows will distribute more evenly, making the ceiling color more realistic. The light intensity is the same as the previous ones, but the lights are at eye level, as in the previous image:

There is no exact answer to this question, but moving the two main lights lower and increasing the render quality will make the ceiling color appear more lifelike.

Keywords: #black ceiling #dark ceiling #main light