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interior lighting


Ilan Blumberg

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  • 1 month later...

I've a similar question re. object luminosity.

I'm modeling flatscreen monitors and would like them to emit their own glow, rather than shine a spotlight on them.

Ideally, I'd like to put a transparent image in the screen and light it from behind without using 20 spots - a very slooowwwing technique to say the least...

Is there any way to do this with the Vanilla-flavored RW/VW 10?

Thanks!

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Pang,

Thanks for the reply. My monitor is approx. 21".

Would you be able to share the spot settings you used?

How deep does the box need to be?

& what is the best color for the box?

Depth of box seems fairly important, but how do you position the light? It's hard to tell where the light actually is relative to the transparency's plane, because it doesn't scale with the image when you zoom in. Is there a datum point on light objects you can measure from?

My apologies for the 20 questions. I've prob'ly spent too much time messing with this already...

Thanks in advance,

CD

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I have been using a depth of around 6". When we actually build lightboxes for duratrans that is the depth we use. The inside is white, it seems to give the best bounce, but that could be determined by the colors of the transparencies.

With the point tool it doesn't seem to matter alot the exact placement. I usually zoom in and put it as far as it can go away from the transparency so it has the max spread. It just needs to be in the box. If your graphic becomes too transparent you will get cast shadows from the sides of the frame. This can give you unexpected light on the other side of the room, if that is a factor.

You can right click on the light and see what edit options there are. Not too many with the point. If you use the spot tool their is a place your can measure from at the tip of the light. I think the point works better for lightboxes

If your virtual monitor is a 21", one or two should be enough.

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I don't know if this is exactly what you want, but you can get a very nice fake "glow" by creating a texture with constant reflectivity. Though they don't actually cast any light, this makes nice looking luminaires and computer screens.

I haven't tried it, but I believe you can use this in combination with setting "color" to be an image, so you could probably get a glowing computer screen or TV screen with a picture on it.

[ 01-23-2004, 04:55 PM: Message edited by: Kristen ]

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quote:

Originally posted by Kristen:

I don't know if this is exactly what you want, but you can get a very nice fake "glow" by creating a texture with constant reflectivity. Though they don't actually cast any light, this makes nice looking luminaires and computer screens.

I haven't tried it, but I believe you can use this in combination with setting "color" to be an image, so you could probably get a glowing computer screen or TV screen with a picture on it.

You are correct, but like you said it will not actually give off light. You'll have to put point or a spot right in front of the screen to fake the luminousity. In RW you cannot make an object a light source.

Good Luck

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello Ilan:

I would use a constant reflectivity shader, with an image color shader. If you want the screen to actually project its image onto other objects, the image transparency shader can do this if you place a light on the other side of the polygon. Combining these two would do both, but I think the projecting part would be unrealistic.

You may try using the constant reflectivity shader with image color, then place a point light with the average image color slightly in front of the screen, that would give you an indistinct glow that matches the image. The screen will be unaffected by the point light because of the constant reflectivity.

HTH!

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I've had some limited success doing what you mentioned. How big is the flat monitor? I have built a closed box behind the monitor screen and put in one spot. When I needed to make a monitor wall (like a control room) I made a panel with holes for the transparencies and then created a box behind and put in a couple of spots, two or three seem to do the trick.

It would be nice to have a tube light source so we could get a more even light in a small space.

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I took a stab at this the other day with "reasonable" success ;-)

This is a box with a "screen" with an image based transparency. Behind is a spot and behind that is a NURBS reflector so that you cant see through the transparency into the box.

The other spot is to fake glare off the screen, the directional for general Lx, and the little flock of points is for light spill on the desk and reflected radiosity back at the unit. (Recognise those Dave D? ;-)

It didn't seem to matter how bright the Screen light was as far as "glowing screen" was concerned, brighter just made a very ugly projection on the desk of the sgreen image. It can just be seen here.

Not fantastic, but getting there.

-

-

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Ilan, I forgot to reply,

When you say a "lamp from the resource browser, you mean like a desk lamp or something??

I don't believe they actually have light sources in them (?)

If not you can just place a light object (point) inside them.

Lighting is DIFFICULT to do really well. I've watched skilled proffessional photographers spend literally 3-4 hours setting up lighting for a 1 shot pic!

Remember CAD is fake -and your lighting (and Radiosity in RW) will have to be faked to a certain extent too.

You didn't mention whether you want to light indoors, outdoors or close detail, because all of these things differ as well.

N.

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Following the references to Constant reflectivity I did some more testing last night with interesting results. First, here's the same scene tweaked a little with the original Image transparency -

Now here it is with the image transparency replaced with a Constant texture. -

Not as "glowing" I think, but not optimised for this texture.

Now here it is with both Transparency AND Constant reflectivity -

"Glows in the Dark!" "As seen on TV!"

What's really interesting is that when I turned off the light inside the screen it made no difference to the Glow at all! (just lost the unfortunate screen projection on the desk)

I'm happy.

Then again, I'm easily pleased. :-D

cheers,

N.

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