Josh Schulman Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I'm working on a project that involves many L.E.D. light sources. The goal of the rendering is to highlight the L.E.D. sources. Is there any way to create light objects in Vectorworks 10.5 that will let me do this? I have Renderworks installed as well. The closest that I've gotten is to make a very small disc (2"), make it a mirrored surface, and point a very small spot light at it. This becomes a real pain to do as the lights need to follow the contours of the building. Any thoughts? Thanks, Josh. Quote Link to comment
CipesDesign Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 Have you experimented with a "holed" surface, such that a light source from behind would show through the holes? Quote Link to comment
Josh Schulman Posted February 4, 2005 Author Share Posted February 4, 2005 No, I hadn't thought of that. Though that means punching hundreds of holes in the building. The L.E.D.s are on 8" centers, so thats going to be lots of holes. But I'll give it a try. Thanks. Quote Link to comment
CipesDesign Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 Well, wait. If you are working with WALLS, you could use a very tiny WINDOW symbol, and then just place the symbol every 8". Of course with the window PIO you will be limited to square openings (I think there is wishlist item for round, and other, window shapes). But I assume these are small lights? So maybe from the correct distance you wouldn't notice the shape as much as the effect... If you modeled your building with solid parts (instead of walls) then it would be pretty easy to cut a bunch of round holes using the add surface and clip surface commands. If you want more guidance on doing this just let me know :-) Oh and PS: I'd love to know more about this building. It sounds interesting! [ 02-03-2005, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: CipesDesign ] Quote Link to comment
matto Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 Unless you turn your reflective disc and light into a symbol that sits on the surface of the wall and doesn't break the wall. in the symbol edit option, select "insertion option" click "on edge" and "no breaks" That way the lights will follow the walls, without punching square openings. Quote Link to comment
Kaare Baekgaard Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 You can emulate this quite well by giving the LED lightsource a texture with white colour and 'constant' reflection - disable shadowcasting/recieving in the texture - and put a single lightsource within the shape. Make the LED into a symbol, so you can reuse it. Quote Link to comment
Kaare Baekgaard Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 Oops - sorry - I believe, I misunderstood your intention. But here is a thought: Make a gradient, circular transparency map (white in the perimeter, black in the center and an all white map of equal size. Create an image prop, and use the all white tas basis - and the transparency map as mask (greyscale pixels) Let all the options in the bottom of the dialogue be checked. Let the size of the imageprop be correspondent. with the glow of the ligtsource. Edit the prpo-texture and disable shadowcasting and -recieving. Put a point light in the center of the image prop with no shadowcasting and smooth distance falloff. Group them together - but do not make them into a symbol, and distribute them, so that the props do not cut into any walls. Actually this idea is new to me. I just tried it, and it is really cool. Quote Link to comment
Kaare Baekgaard Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 Just made a starshaped one using Photoshops 'lens flare'. This is a neat trick. Thanks for stating the problem:-) Quote Link to comment
Kaare Baekgaard Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 Works just as well without the point light. (Last post, I promise) Quote Link to comment
Peter van der Elst Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 --> Kaare, do you have some pictures of this, it sounds very interesting, but I don't really understand how it looks. Thanks!! Quote Link to comment
propstuff Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 see; visible lights Note: you can replace the disc with a hemisphere for better viewing angles but the gradient will not map to it as well as the disc N. [ 02-07-2005, 03:04 PM: Message edited by: propstuff ] Quote Link to comment
Josh Schulman Posted February 8, 2005 Author Share Posted February 8, 2005 Thank you all so much for your varied suggestions. I ended up making a disc that had no depth to it and giving it a chrome texture to make it reflective. I then placed a spotlight above the disc and made the beam of light 2" across, the same as the disc. It turned out okay. Quote Link to comment
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