How do we use a light source to light a single object in a scene. I haven't seen a spotlight, so I assume we place the light source around the object we want to illumine and do not make it visible. Is this correct? Anything we should know about this, such as light strength and shadows?
i've been thinking of a smiliar thing too. i want a light on certain places, but i think there is a spotlight right?
I dont think there is a way to create a spot light yet, but hopefully in future releases
I don't think there is a spotlight yet...but you can position the source center (using a small source radius) close to your object. Just tried it to light up the underside of an inverted crater....it works!
Thanks. I'll try it. I've been trying to engulf my object in the light itself, thinking it had no direction, but I'm not sure about it yet. I'll try something smaller.
Can you show your picture of the inverted crater?
Unfortunately, it is not directional....yup, I'll upload the image in a few minutes...just going for supper now...
I wish I had some Tocos :(...sorry
anyway do you guys know that the output link on a light does?
No idea. I guess we could hook it up to something and find out. :P
Quote from: Will on January 14, 2007, 07:52:26 PM
I wish I had some Tocos :(...sorry
anyway do you guys know that the output link on a light does?
Ok...here is the quick render showing the lit underside of the inverted crater....
Thanks. I'm assuming the light source is sitting on the left underside of the foremost mushroom. Am I right? Thanks, by the way. How high did you set the strength?
Quote from: gradient on January 14, 2007, 08:31:34 PM
Ok...here is the quick render showing the lit underside of the inverted crater....
yes, location is accurate....I just zapped the tgd, but the source radius was quite small, I think in the order of 20 or 30...but the strength was about 700,000
Wow. 700,000 :o I can't believe it. I'll try it. I'll post the picture here when I'm done.
Thanks.
Quote from: gradient on January 14, 2007, 08:59:55 PM
yes, location is accurate....I just zapped the tgd, but the source radius was quite small, I think in the order of 20 or 30...but the strength was about 700,000
The strength will depend on the color of your source...also the radius....my source here was a yellow. I remember trying 900,000 but it blew things out.....200,000 didn't do much. If you use a straight white light you may be able to get away with lesser strength.
@calico...so...how did it turn out....or, is it still rendering?
I gave up. The light source kept bringing out some weird red colors. I'll try again on another drawing, since what I'm working on now was more of a priority - trying to make red coals. I wanted the GI by itself to light the object in my coming picture, but it didn't happen as I planned. I'm improvising with a low sunrise. I haven't actually given up on the idea of using another light source, but it will just happen later.
Here is what I came up with (also posted another topic on a similar subject - No Sunlight with Alternate Lighting), after putting the light source strength to 6e+006. The light is very soft violet. I made the light source visible.
Fun stuff.
Yes, looks like you've got it working now....
For your red hot coals...try the same thing with an invisible red light source just above the coals....use a small radius with high strength....
gradient - thanks. I'm wondering about using luminosity for the coals. Maybe combining both would help, but coals are something that burn from within, right? I'm still struggling with getting the look, but love what we can do with the source lights.
@calico...burning from within...yes, and its something I'm playing with right now...I'll also try luminosity as well...
@calico....it's a start....didn't turn out too good, but here it is...I'll play some more when I have time.
Well, here's an interesting one....TG2 water apparently does have some transparency. Here is some underwater glow...same scene as above but flooded with water and changed camera angle.....
Nice work Gradient!!! Love the water effect. ;D
Neat, What if you put it inside a cloud?
Regards,
Will
Maybe this is what I'm after - using the source light. I've been focusing on luminosity instead.
@will...tried it inside a cloud...really need very very high strengths to get anything to show up because it has little to reflect off. Seems using a sun as a lightsource would be best in this scenario (in a cloud)...then turn down the strength.
Light source inside of purple water (inverted crater) set to 1e+008. Sun on the horizon is set to strength = 1. Transparency will be fun to play with, when it comes. If I build it, they will...never mind. :P
Very cool results everyone. The light source options are definitely a bit limited right now. We hope to add additional light types in the future as well as options to control lighting and shadowing per object.
- Oshyan
What about lighting color ramp fall off? I think that maya has a similar feature. This is where you can have the core light a white for example and then it falls off to an orange color, then to a blue until the color gradient fades to 100% transparency.
Hard and soft shadow mixes?
All nice options but I'm not sure we'll be able to provide any of them, at least not in the initial TG2 commercial release. We're concentrating on features that are useful to landscape rendering so if something seems particularly suited or important to realistic landscapes, expect it to be implemented sooner. Ultimately we intend to provide good interoperability support with other generalized 3D applications and this may be the best approach to getting complex functions like that, rather than hoping they'll be implemented in TG2.
- Oshyan
Basically the idea behind a color ramp fall off could be useful for a lens flair or blooming effect around any given light source or a sun/s. No big deal really, just a silly idea. One can always post work stuff like this in a external lens flair editor for example. I agree the first priority is terrains. :)
A single wish, procedural erosion (Fluvial-Thermal-Glacial), the gold of terrains! ;D
Aside from the already existing "Alpine Shader" in TG2, which is a sort of "procedural erosion", the only other actual "procedural erosion" that I'm aware of is created by Dmytry Lavrov, whose work I'm sure you're familiar with: http://dmytry.pandromeda.com/mojoworld/erosion_fractal/home.html The important thing to be aware of both with the Alpine Fractal and Dmytry's approach is that - as far as I know - they are not doing "true" simulative erosion. They produce a similar visual effect with the "infinite detail" advantages of procedurals, but the very nature of iterative erosion simulation makes it essentially impossible to be done with procedurals. There are methods which can perhaps give the results you're looking for, but this is truly on the cutting edge of terrain rendering and to see it implemented in a commercial product within the year would be... "something special". ;D
- Oshyan
The Alpine Shader is not that bad actually. I was fairly impressed when i checked it out for the first time. Best option still so far is importing eroded heightfields with the varying degrees of erosive effects and adding procedural details to them.
I have yet to see an example of simulative erosion myself. ;D