Spot on! Light objects - my go at visible lights

Started by KlausK, December 08, 2017, 06:39:18 PM

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KlausK

No problem for me as such.
The problem is that your findings are now burried in this thread.
Maybe you should open a new thread like "God rays with multiple sun lights and put also a link to this thread in there?
That would surely help to let people notice your technique more directly. On the other hand I named my thread rather unspecific.
So if someone tries to find information about "visible lights" this thread surely will show up.
Hm, whatever...hehehe
CHeers, Klaus
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

luvsmuzik

I know it is a tedious job and hindsight is always 20/20....but it would be nice if the various libraries from File Sharing had directories as well, so that topics could be made separately there. Searches often yield the result we want, but few fail to look at the source beyond immediate result I fear. Not a case of, "some people are never happy", just a thought. :)

Dune

50% is quite much, indeed. Didn't expect that. But AA3 is very low, even for defer atmo. With AA 6-8, and one sun, you might get faster, better results, I don't know.

Oshyan

It's fine to disagree, but we can only know the truth if you share your scene files so others can replicate your tests, as well as try alternate methods of optimization. :)

- Oshyan

bobbystahr

Quote from: Oshyan on December 16, 2017, 02:46:05 PM
It's fine to disagree, but we can only know the truth if you share your scene files so others can replicate your tests, as well as try alternate methods of optimization. :)

- Oshyan

Hear! Hear!
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

KlausK

hi, this is done with the help of spotlights and low sample settings mainly.
Lensflare in Photoshop, Santa on sleigh with reindeer is a free model from something like "artist3d.com".
I forgot. Too long ago that I downloaded this.
Anyways, Merry Christmas everybody (or whatever these upcoming days are called in your neighborhood ;))
See ya all next year!
Cheers, Klaus
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

bobbystahr

Good one Klaus and a belated Merry Christmas to you...and a Happy Newt's Ear heh heh heh
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

luvsmuzik

Awww I missed this one! Between welcome visitors and cooking for an early Christmas......
Very very nice. :)

icarus51

Quote from: KlausK on December 09, 2017, 08:06:24 AM
Thanks everyone!

First off @ Dune: the "snowflakes" are merely a lucky accident  :-[
This is only a background picture projected through camera.
It is a free to use Deep Sky picture of a constellation called Little Dipper. Here is a link:
http://www.deepskycolors.com/archive/2011/05/12/little-Dipper.html
Why it turned out the way it did surely has to do with my incompetence putting it in the background over the atmosphere correctly.

Ok, here is a little illustrated "How to" about the visible beam of light...

Important notice to start with:

- all single pictures in the 'contact sheet' are rendered at 1280x720px.
- AA is always 8
- Micropoly is always 1

So the stages are really comparable. There are some notes in the pictures as well.

When you start out with one spotlight and maybe one cloud layer you have to crank up the quality settings for them
to a degree which is simply not tolerable in terms of render time. Especially when you only want a rather quick result.
If you are going for a 'Masterpiece' then render time is less important, I guess.

So, I noticed that because of the jittering of the samples every frame looks slightly different.
The white dots move around and leave gaps. The graininess I want to get rid off.

The idea is to fill the spaces more and more. Not with higher sampling values but with more graininess.
Add more spotlights on top of each other with different settings the Aperture width, the Falloff power,
for the Inner and Outer Cone Angles, Max Distance, Strength - you name it.
I also separated the lights between surface and atmosphere. What they lit and where they cast shadows.

In the pictures I rendered no spotlight actually added to the initial render time!
I started out with 4m30s and 1 spot, and after adding the next 5 lights render time still was 4m30s!
Adding the Cloud Layer added 2 minutes render time in the examples. Which is ok, I think for the effect it has.
Btw, when using the Cloud Layer the render times vary greatly depending on the Camera position I found.

Since we cannot group or parent anything in TG (hint hint ::)) using this technique is mostly helpful with still images.
Because placing the spots is a tedious work. But the rather low render time it yields is worth the effort for me.

This is the result after a few hours of trial and error. I think, this technique can be enhanced more. Use more spots e.g.

Hope that is useful (and I mentioned everything ?_?).
Cheers, Klaus

Hi Klaus.
Beautiful, this is the issue that got me crazy for months. :'( .And now i see this! Incredible idea, the only solution that i didn't imagine.
Many Thanks, and i will try your method.