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Stupid TS rookie Question on Lights
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Stupid TS rookie Question on Lights // Roundtable
Post by RichLevy // Oct 4, 2008, 4:37am
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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In WS is there a way to make a spot light have an effect on certain objects but not others (unfortunately placement is such that I need to light a couple of things but not light others)
This is on WS mside... please no Model side solutions...
Rich |
Post by jamesmc // Oct 4, 2008, 5:11am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Yeah, make the objects you don't want affected on a different layer and turn it off.
Then render the layer separately with the previous layer turned off.
Put it together in post processing using PSD layers and channels.
Edit: Sorry, that was a model solution.
PSD layers haven't been implemented on the WS side. |
Post by RichLevy // Oct 4, 2008, 5:18am
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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So likely I would have to do something similar on the WS side than? I can set it up separately and than composite the animation in After Effects also...
It's an odd situation... maybe someone knows of another work around...
Thanks
Rich |
Post by parva // Oct 4, 2008, 6:04am
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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In WS is there a way to make a spot light have an effect on certain objects but not others
short answer without any technical explanation : no, it's not possible. |
Post by RichLevy // Oct 4, 2008, 6:20am
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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short answer without any technical explanation : no, it's not possible.
hehehe, I apperciate the none technical answer hehehe.
I will just plan to do it in layers than and post it together.
Thanks for the confirmation.
Rich |
Post by trueBlue // Oct 4, 2008, 6:49am
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trueBlue
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I put a Sphere and a Spot light inside a Cube with other objects outside of the Cube. This view is from inside the Cube. May not be what you were looking for but thought I would give it a try. |
Post by RichLevy // Oct 4, 2008, 9:10am
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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Thanks True, that might not work for this application, but it is something worth checking into for other situations...
Rich |
Post by transient // Oct 4, 2008, 2:53pm
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transient
Total Posts: 977
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If I understand this question properly, basically you're asking to be able to select whether an object is affected by a particular light source?
Unfortunately, truespace doesn't seem to be able to do this. I would kill for this feature, and further to be able to have a light source only affect the diffuse or specular channels of an object too.
There's a daz studio plug-in that enables you to render out diffuse and specular light layers, per light (kind of like ipak, but more advanced). This would be an acceptable solution as well.
It''s nice to see someone else wants this, too.:) |
Post by RichLevy // Oct 4, 2008, 3:14pm
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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I
It''s nice to see someone else wants this, too.:)
At least there will be 2 people disappointed when this feature is not included next version of TS :D
Let's hope, I could make use of something like this for almost every animation I would like to try...
Let's hope.
Rich |
Post by W!ZARD // Oct 4, 2008, 9:17pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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At least there will be 2 people disappointed when this feature is not included next version of TS :D
Let's hope, I could make use of something like this for almost every animation I would like to try...
Let's hope.
Rich
Have you tried using constant shaders on the objects you don't want the spot to affect? Hard to make specific recommendations without knowing more of the specifics of your situation. |
Post by parva // Oct 4, 2008, 10:53pm
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parva
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I think also that shadow and lighting are different things in RT.
I have no clue about shadows there these are hard coded.
The problem with lighting, well, I have to admit, that I never experiment with it.
Maybe it's possible to create/use specific lightdirections for each light.
Currently there is just one lightdirection input taken from all lights in scene. |
Post by transient // Oct 4, 2008, 11:30pm
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transient
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Have you tried using constant shaders on the objects you don't want the spot to affect? Hard to make specific recommendations without knowing more of the specifics of your situation.
This isn't a shader issue, it's a current limitation of lights in ts. I guess the question is whether it can be done through scripting, but apparently not.
What Rich wants is common in 3d packages, at least the expensive ones. It's very nice to have, definitely worth a feature request. |
Post by noko // Oct 4, 2008, 11:46pm
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noko
Total Posts: 684
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In WS is there a way to make a spot light have an effect on certain objects but not others (unfortunately placement is such that I need to light a couple of things but not light others)
This is on WS mside... please no Model side solutions...
Rich
Rich, you might want to experiment with antinuation which can be set to light up close objects only and leave alone others further away from light source. |
Post by RichLevy // Oct 5, 2008, 12:12am
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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I will never claim to be a lighting expert, at most I am a lighting fumbler :) I will take note of the suggestions here and try to work around any issues as best I can.
Thanks for all of the help guys.
Rich |
Post by jamesmc // Oct 5, 2008, 1:01am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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This would be a simple example dialog box that I think does what you want it to do.
That is, you check off each light you don't want on in the scene on a particular object that you choose from the scene list.
Further refinements could be to exclude or add certain colors from an object or objects.
Could add radiosity and luminosity as well, where after an initial render, the results could be stored in a buffer and selected or deselected with interaction of shading changes to the object or light properties.
Just a suggestion - can be done with nodes as well, but I think a dialog box would provide more productivity |
Post by parva // Oct 5, 2008, 1:36am
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parva
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This isn't a shader issue, it's a current limitation of lights in ts.
Actually it's a shader thing ;)
at least how shader react to light. The lightsource calculates the shadow part and to exclude objects from shadow casting... mmh, don't know.
Like the diffuse formula "dot(N*L)" says. Taking the dot product from the surface Normal vector and the Light Direction (path trajectory from the surface to the lightsource). That's the reason why shaders/materials react to light.
I guess it's better for code to handle all lights at once but I know that it should be possible to set the number of lights the object should effect. Just not sure if this is possible in tS.
This is the case for realtime. If we had access to a software renderer the situation would be total different and should be no problem to do exclusion of lights and objects. |
Post by transient // Oct 5, 2008, 2:22am
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transient
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Actually it's a shader thing
at least how shader react to light. The lightsource calculates the shadow part and to exclude objects from shadow casting... mmh, don't know.
I think understand...... actually, I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll take your word for it.:)
I hope Caligari enables this, it will make complex vray scenes a lot easier to set up. |
Post by W!ZARD // Oct 5, 2008, 9:22pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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OK, I'm feeling a little dense here but I'm finding it difficult to imagine a situation where I would want a spotlight to affect some objects but not others. Yet there are people here talking as if this is an everyday requirement! Um... I don't get it!
It occurs to me that it should be possible to do this using a projector light which projects a custom image - a simple black and white map - into the scene so the white bits shine on the objects you want lit and the black bits shine on the parts you don't want lit. This might not work so well where you want an unlit object to occlude a lit one but it shouldn't be too hard to simulate the effect. |
Post by transient // Oct 5, 2008, 10:02pm
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transient
Total Posts: 977
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It can make lighting setups much easier, particularly if you're going for a specific effect and you don't want to spend ages doing draft renders. Since IBL and gi have come in vogue, this probably isn't as important as it used to be, but it's still a nice thing to have.
You can already do this with ipak and light layers to an extent, but it would be a great thing to have for vray too. |
Post by RichLevy // Oct 5, 2008, 10:36pm
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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I use lots of photograph textures, there is as little geometry on these models as I can make. Though I try to keep the lighting flat, there are instances where this is not possible. Now stack 5, 10 maybe 20 of these items around. Being able to light specific one from specific directions would be a nice thing... I did not ask for this as a feature, I know it is very specific to me.
Rich |
Post by W!ZARD // Oct 6, 2008, 1:53am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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I use lots of photograph textures, there is as little geometry on these models as I can make. Though I try to keep the lighting flat, there are instances where this is not possible. Now stack 5, 10 maybe 20 of these items around. Being able to light specific one from specific directions would be a nice thing... I did not ask for this as a feature, I know it is very specific to me.
Rich
Ah of course! I'm very intrigued by your lo res modeling process - I'm keen to try it myself sometime. Of course using photo textures this way would require some tricky lighting to make a scene consistently light. You could do a lot with shader setting of course but that would not give you the same degree of control over shadows.
Thanks for the explanation - makes perfect sense now!
Do you think that using a projector light with a B/W mask image would work in the context of your scenes? It might be fiddly setting the ligh position and creating an accurate mask but it should give you pretty good results. |
Post by RichLevy // Oct 6, 2008, 2:04am
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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Ah of course! I'm very intrigued by your lo res modeling process - I'm keen to try it myself sometime. Of course using photo textures this way would require some tricky lighting to make a scene consistently light. You could do a lot with shader setting of course but that would not give you the same degree of control over shadows.
Thanks for the explanation - makes perfect sense now!
Do you think that using a projector light with a B/W mask image would work in the context of your scenes? It might be fiddly setting the ligh position and creating an accurate mask but it should give you pretty good results.
I am open to any and all suggestions Wizard, as I mentioned I am not the best at lighting and setting up renderings. I fumble around and try to make things work the best I can, sometimes I just need some help :) All of the suggestions here will become things for me to experiment with... and more than likely future questions and threads on more specific approaches also :D
Thanks for your input to the thread, I wish I could give an answer to your projector light query, I can only make a note of it and try it out later in a more detailed scene and see how it works.
Thanks
Rich |
Post by W!ZARD // Oct 6, 2008, 2:48am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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I am open to any and all suggestions Wizard, as I mentioned I am not the best at lighting and setting up renderings. I fumble around and try to make things work the best I can, sometimes I just need some help :) All of the suggestions here will become things for me to experiment with... and more than likely future questions and threads on more specific approaches also :D
Thanks for your input to the thread, I wish I could give an answer to your projector light query, I can only make a note of it and try it out later in a more detailed scene and see how it works.
Thanks
Rich
Cool! Good luck with it Rich. I hope you get results that you'll be delighted with!;) |
Post by ralle // Oct 6, 2008, 10:50pm
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ralle
Total Posts: 14
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Just a theory, but if you could see your scene through the light of your choice,
you could render a black/white mask depends on which objekts needs to be affected and useing the result as a lightmask. In hope that the mask matchs with the illumination you want to have. Could be a try and error methode if it is need to make a camera exactly matching the light. :D
Just an idea, but i'll try this out next time.
Greetings
Ralle |
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