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.htmlWhy 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