Maya for 3D Printing - Rapid Prototyping
In this course we're going to look at something a little different, creating technically accurate 3D printed parts.
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03-01-2006
, 08:31 PM
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changing the distance of Point Lights
I wanted to know isn't there a way to change the size of how far a point light will travel? I know there is decay rate, but that is not solving the problem. In fact using linear decay rate is making it worse. This is because when any type of light is used and it is too close to an object, it creates extremely large hot spots and I can't move the light becuase my entire scene is only about 200cm.
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03-01-2006
, 11:45 PM
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08-01-2006
, 06:33 AM
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Nice to hear from you. I always admired your work. Also I appoligise for the delay, but I was away for a couple of days.
As to your reply about adjusting the Irradiance Color, I am not using mental ray. However, are you saying that we should only use linear and quadratic decays in mental ray, or are you just thinking I am using mental ray because I am doing this to fake global illuminance? If it is just because you think I was using mental ray and linear decay to fake GI, then that isn't the case. My reasons are the following. First off, I thought I should learn about lighting in general before I even go into GI. Second, I didn't like using mental ray render and mental ray shadows because it gave too much of a sharp shadow, (meaning shadows don't fade away), and adjusting the Shadow Rays and Ray Depth Limit only creates a pixelatted fade of shadows or I am just doing it wrong. In addition, the reason why I was using linear decay was because I didn't understand how to get the look I was looking for with using quadratic decay. Furthermore, using no decay with its intensity set above 0.75 seems creates sharp hot spots as well but doesn't illuminate the room correctly. So I came up with a solution. Put a linear decay light inside the ligh fixture, and place a normal point light below the light fixture with no decay and its intensity set to a much lower value. This works with bigger rooms but it doesn't seem to work with smaller rooms. In conclusion, is there anything else I could do or should I just make the room a little bit bigger and forget about it? I know it would work that way, but I ask becuase just incase I ever need to create a small scene or a walk-in closet etc.
Also, I have one more question. While wortking with area lights, I noticed that if I point the light down towards the floor, after rendering it also lights the ceilling as well. I thought that area lights only light in one direction? Isn't this so, and is there any way to see a light's directional path in the camera view like in MAX?
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08-01-2006
, 11:12 AM
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08-01-2006
, 12:27 PM
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Then you'll have the control you want
Imagine you got some table lamp on a desk.
You'll put, of course, some point light where the lamp really is irl. You have some rendering with default intensity and notice that close area fits what you want but 95% of the room is totally dark, or lot more than you would. Of course activating photons calculation is out of question. So how the hell ?
Increasing intensity would be the solution for the room, but what about the desk, bleeding will be too intensive. No way then ? Yes, there is :
- Set a pointLight1 object centric on table+room with shads, set it quadratric. Control the bleeding on desk here.
- Set the second pointLight2 object centric on the room only, and set with this one the global lighting you would. You can, to have more control, have this global light as spot, e.g. if you want more global light on the floor than on roof. And once more, splitting there with UP and DOWN-ligting. Set these linear to prevent adding toooo much lights for final result.
pointL1 & pointL2 being at same world coodinates is not always true. It depends on what directly surrounds the light1. As you got a desk under light1, would be more close to reality to raise the light2 a bit.
And so on with the other lights and bounces when the scene gets more complex..
Window >> Relationship editors >> Light Linking >> obj or light centric. There you select a node on the left panel, it will show you the corresponding activated links. Simply click to add/remove a link.
Hope that helps.
Play around with it, there's a great part of powah in there :bandit:
But you absolutely got to work in the order of bounce lights and understand what your doing. That's a good way to me for faking GI with SoftRenderer.
https://www.cgarchitect.com/resources...3d/default.asp
>> get the last three to see what means understanding bounces. Ok that's explained for MAX, but these are concepts guidelines.
Who said : "Split .... if you want control !!!" :blush:
Last edited by Pyrus; 08-01-2006 at 12:52 PM.
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6
08-01-2006
, 06:31 PM
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no, but rather stick to what Pyrus says. also bookmarked the link he provided. cgarchitect.com will be very useful for me in the future cause I still got a ton to learn about rendering/shading.
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7
08-01-2006
, 07:53 PM
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better then this one that has ambient light which I notice that this user likes doing.
In addition, I notice the tutorial works on outdoor lighting comming inside a room, and I am not looking for that. I am looking for indoor lighting at night time.
I have put that project a side now because I need to start working on my game. I am doing a 3d pool game, which will be shockwave based. Basically, the pool room is in a bar where one room will be just a bar and the other room will be the pool room. As for my lighting, I am going to bake them. I am having a real hard time lighting the bar room because what I am looking for those types of bars that their main lights are only lite by neon lights and have very tiny filler wall lights. So I was wondering if anybody has any suggestions for that or do you think I am just jumping the gun hopping from one project to another?
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8
08-01-2006
, 08:16 PM
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first impression is a picture, then it looks like a VRay render in 3ds Max.
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9
08-01-2006
, 08:46 PM
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No it is not done in Maya. Your second choice is correct. The first render was done in Max, but not really sure if it was with VRay's. However, Maya can do the same. In addition these renders come from the tutorial link that pyrus gave me, and I was using it as an example of why I don't like the tutorial. Mostly it is because the person who did the tutorial likes using ambient light and everytime I try using ambient light my renders come out looking dead. He says that if the render comes out lifeless then it means you have too much gray in it. I tried adjusting the color and added more saturation, but my renders still come out horrible.Originally posted by MattTheMan
omg, that first one is not a picture? and its rendered in Maya software render? HOLY SH*T!
first impression is a picture, then it looks like a VRay render in 3ds Max.
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08-01-2006
, 08:57 PM
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I looked further into it, and its a standard scaline render in 3ds max. WOW!
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Last edited by MattTheMan; 08-01-2006 at 09:08 PM.
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11
08-01-2006
, 10:31 PM
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I'm not telling soft.renderer can achieve such results in maya, well, not as mray but close maybe to this type of rendering. In Maya, I wouldn't use Ambient light though. Point lights, low intensity, but lots of them... and i'm pretty sure it is fakable. Got still some dark point 'bout ambient occlusion with software renderer ... maybe using some dirt shader. I didn't investigate into software that much. Just in the very beginning. Now i'm addicted to MRay, and Turtle excites me also.
The aim Bob was only pointing at some lighting concept (soft or mray, vray ... whatever) ... light is light.
So Bob, yes, i think it IS closely fakable with software renderings, but get the concept as effective solution I would say. Faking irl if you use soft .... and .... get it really close, if vray, or mray, or any other advanced renderer is used.
Hope you got what i intend to say guys.
I'm not always sure 'bout my english
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a bit HS (cause MRay) but i'm in that too right now so I share
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Think about splitting. I'm having hard testing right now on lighting schemes in maya (why i 'flood' this topic). Well, some Py's humble way. Surely not the best, but I want it effective. So lets see
Here's a sample of a lighting scheme. midday round september. it's quite difficult now to tell the time, well, cause of the black bg (hdri is hidden for cam) and no trees, nothing, so strange hehe. Also cause many lights are missing so its bit early. I'll soon post a complete explanation on the very beginning.
Sky : hdri (0.2 color gain) so pale ambient blue, mostly for backlighting.
Sun : Spot - Photons (400k with relative very high temperature hehe, like 300000 intensity)
Corridor : Point area - Photons (100k with relative low temp 8k) linear
3 first main windows (the ones from main "cube") : point area quadratic - no photons.
Got 6 more to add and finalize modeling for the kitche (bottom left). Then i'll post "my" results. All these are Outer lights only. Faking sun and bright sky.
Got also all the inside lighting to add and bounce these photons with the modeling of the interior.
Then i'll post results as soon as I think its convincing. Hope i'll get it :blush:
There's some occlusion missing in that rendering also, detail but it looses depth a bit. FG helps but it's surely not enough.
Well, do not pay attention to rendering time, i pushed it while comparing real light details like photons second bounces within the tiny corridor window/holes "chassis".
Well, not telling more now, still lot to model and tune ... colors , intensity etc.
It will pay i guess.
(got many screenshot about progression like this one. In fact the basic scene I set up to tune the photons radius)
Sky HDRI and Spot-photons, volontarily overburned - i'm looking at precision samples in dark areas so)
So, once more, i'm convinced about splitting :attn:
I stop bothering you with this now lol ...
... but split dah lights and bounce them by hand ahhahahaha
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09-01-2006
, 01:22 AM
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As you can see, the lighting isn't that fantastic, but it does the job to create a cool effect.
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13
09-01-2006
, 01:33 AM
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It's not because i show you outdoor lighting, nor because I use MRay that this splitting concept is not usefull.
It helps doing whatever you want with lighting.
I stop here, good luck.
Regards, Py
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14
09-01-2006
, 04:20 AM
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... and I get so aggrivated when I am not getting these types of results. In addition, I didn't see too much your point, and I didn't understand about splitting. I thought it had to do with outdoor lighting coming into a room. However, if it does relate then please continue.
Also you wouldn't happen to know what kind of concept the above picture would be using?
p.s. sorry about the image size, but it's not mine and it is a image link tag so I couldn't so much to fix it anyways.
Last edited by junkyBob; 09-01-2006 at 04:24 AM.
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15
09-01-2006
, 10:04 AM
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Just that I might have missed something in your explanation.
So I preferred dropping and wait for someone who might understand what you ask better than I do.
I must say, in order to be sure of my understanding, that this particular explanation from you, is precisely what I tried to point out with this ...Furthermore, using no decay with its intensity set above 0.75 seems creates sharp hot spots as well but doesn't illuminate the room correctly. So I came up with a solution. Put a linear decay light inside the ligh fixture, and place a normal point light below the light fixture with no decay and its intensity set to a much lower value. This works with bigger rooms but it doesn't seem to work with smaller rooms.
I still feel convinced light-linking is your solution. Why ?Originally posted by Pyrus
If you use SoftRenderer, play around with LightLinkings: whatever object or light-centric, it depends only on the way you understand things.
Then you'll have the control you want
Imagine you got some table lamp on a desk.
You'll put, of course, some point light where the lamp really is irl. You have some rendering with default intensity and notice that close area fits what you want but 95% of the room is totally dark, or lot more than you would. Of course activating photons calculation is out of question. So how the hell ?
Increasing intensity would be the solution for the room, but what about the desk, bleeding will be too intensive. No way then ? Yes, there is :
- Set a pointLight1 object centric on table+room with shads, set it quadratric. Control the bleeding on desk here.
- Set the second pointLight2 object centric on the room only, and set with this one the global lighting you would. You can, to have more control, have this global light as spot, e.g. if you want more global light on the floor than on roof. And once more, splitting there with UP and DOWN-ligting. Set these linear to prevent adding toooo much lights for final result.
pointL1 & pointL2 being at same world coodinates is not always true. It depends on what directly surrounds the light1. As you got a desk under light1, would be more close to reality to raise the light2 a bit.
And so on with the other lights and bounces when the scene gets more complex..
Window >> Relationship editors >> Light Linking >> obj or light centric. There you select a node on the left panel, it will show you the corresponding activated links. Simply click to add/remove a link.
'cause beginning "splitting light roles" as you did (your explanation) is a good starting point. But it's not enough because lights in Maya affects ALL objects by default according to distance and intensity (with one of decay algorythm). And I would point out the word ALL
That's precisely what Light-linking is for :blush:
- Avoiding some "too much burned" color while adding lights to get some detail more visible.
- Avoiding lowering ambient/general lighting when you lower the main scene light because it's overburning new objects added for example.
Your question interests me dude, be sure of that.
So I want to help you improve the final result, with SOFT RENDERER (but with general lighting concept).
I'll try finding back some of the great tuts I found 1 year ago. About lighting a scene (outdoor or indoor).
Would be a great help.
Here's a good example of popping colors with the help of light-linking (splitting light roles)
WITH LINKING : popping colors, consistent volumes
WITHOUT LINKING : dull ambient, boring
Complete source
https://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutori...ral/235-1.html
A question to fix what you would do : would your pool room have some lights like this ? (without forgetting the filler lamps in the "bar's roof" which are not set in this image).
How would I fake such bar illum. Look at floor lighting under bar seats and hidden lights right under the top of the bar. That's a good example to me : Both areas are burned, while light doing that is in the upper hidden part, and not near floor. I'm willing to say : it's a bit impossible to realize with default linkings, intensity and decays in Maya. There must be lights for :
- one for burning the wood,
- decay lighting the upper bar, (bounce light)
- one for burning ground,
- one to get some light from the ground back on the bar bottom, (bounce light)
- and one last to have that ground a bit light (can't be the same light burning the ground, as this one will be IN the bar >>we dont want - in this case - a spherical bleed/burn, so light has to be inside the bar, so that we only keep and see the part we want from it. Well, a bit like what you explained in your example : one to burn and one to get a bit of a ambient light)
To be mentioned that this example-list applies to as many chairs we got in this scene. So with about 20-30 lights you can get a pretty nice result on the BAR. Still a lot of others to detail and think about. But this is usually a step by step process >> why I told you earlier that you have to understand Lights Bounces to fake "natural" lighting.
A more simple fact about this image is the bluish light on table, lighting back of the a seat with bluish tint.
Source is tiny, and quadratic, high temperature so high bleeding close (inside the glass in fact), and thus, really quick fadind intensity >> impossible to get the backLight for the chair, exept with LINKING/SPLIT ROLES.
Because the intensity set to get the bleeding, won't, ever, drop enough light on the back of the chair. And if you raise intensity or lower decay range, well, then you'll end up with overburned table hahaha. I feel this is good example of how intensity and decay in Maya leads to dupplicating light sources (to get some kind of a cool looking photon effect). But mostly, to gain much control on the local AND distant areas.
I've understood you don't want that kind of lighting detail though << it's just one more example about how thinking the lights. From early stage with 3 lights to final with 32 or 103 lights, [b]concept just remains the same[b].
Same concept to get correct light on your corridor walls (the shockwave game you gave the url).
Well, I fear i got more and more confusing each time I try to explain. Light is pretty difficult with text hehehe.
/me prepared some rope attached to the point light within the staircase lol :attn: (kiddin' of course
)Kind regards, Py.
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