Drafting/Rendering the appearance of a blacklit/glowing plexiglass "box"

[Mike_M]

Hi all,

 

I'm looking to draft a simple table/desk that is framed out and paneled with plexi on all sides. The plexi is tinted red and the interior is lit with LEDS to give it the appearance of a "glowing box". Drawing out the table/desk is well within my wheelhouse. Making it appear to be "glowing" is not. Anyone have any thoughts on how to do so or links to youtube videos that might point me in the right direction? I'm not well versed in the lighting elements of Vectorworks yet. My very mediocre attempt at throwing an under mounted LED lighting element to the underside of the table top and lowering the opacity of extrudes did not have the desired effect. I'll be diving into lighting as I continue to work though this project. I attached an idea of what I'm going for.

 

Thanks

[Kevin Allen]

1. use a Reflectivity>glow texture  or Reflectivity>Backlit and add a red Area Light behind.

[JBenghiat]

You need to apply a texture to the object with a glow reflectivity.

You can create a new Renderworks Texture in the Resource Manager, and then edit it.

Under Reflectivity, select Glow. 

In the Glow options, enable Emit light.

Apply the texture in the Render tab of Object Info, by dragging the texture to the object, or using the Texture Tool.

 

You do not need any additional lights for the glow, but you do need to be in wither Renderworks or Redshift, and you need your Lighting Options set to at least one bounce.

[Tom W.]

8 hours ago, JBenghiat said:

You do not need any additional lights for the glow

 

But you need to have a 'dummy' Light in the drawing in order to turn off the Ambient Light right...?

 

Also, Glow doesn't seem to work in Final Quality RW + Fast RW??

[JBenghiat]

14 hours ago, Tom W. said:

But you need to have a 'dummy' Light in the drawing in order to turn off the Ambient Light right...?

 

Good point. You need to insert at least one light, and it can be off, if you want to turn off the default light.

 

14 hours ago, Tom W. said:

Also, Glow doesn't seem to work in Final Quality RW + Fast RW??

 

It should. If you're not seeing the glow emit light, see my note above about bounces. In Lighting Options, you won't see the glow if Indirect Lighting is set to None. You need at least one bounce.

[mjm]

You might also need to boost the glow intensity to more than 100%

[Tom W.]

6 minutes ago, JBenghiat said:

if you want to turn off the default light.

 

oops yes I meant 'ambient light' not 'Ambient Light'!

 

7 minutes ago, JBenghiat said:

14 hours ago, Tom W. said:

Also, Glow doesn't seem to work in Final Quality RW + Fast RW??

 

It should. If you're not seeing the glow emit light, see my note above about bounces. In Lighting Options, you won't see the glow if Indirect Lighting is set to None. You need at least one bounce.

 

Yes I thought it did in the past but earlier it wasn't working. It was fine with various RW Styles but not FQ + Fast RW...

 

I noted your comment about Glow requiring Indirect Lighting - I didn't know this thank you - but I don't think I've ever had it set to None so wouldn't have ever been affected by it. Presumably FQ/Fast RW both have Indirect Lighting enabled? I wonder why it wasn't working...

[JBenghiat]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

Presumably FQ/Fast RW both have Indirect Lighting enabled? I wonder why it wasn't working...

Not necessarily. They will use whatever you have set in Lighting Options which is a document/viewport setting. I’m seeing Indirect set to none in new files. Otherwise, I’m seeing Glow work correctly in all RW flavors. 

[Tom W.]

7 hours ago, JBenghiat said:

Not necessarily. They will use whatever you have set in Lighting Options which is a document/viewport setting. I’m seeing Indirect set to none in new files. Otherwise, I’m seeing Glow work correctly in all RW flavors. 

 

@JBenghiat thank you! I am only rendering VPs + always using RW Styles so have kind of always ignored the document/VP Lighting Options settings. I sometimes use FQRW on the design layer as a quick way to see how something looks + know from now on to make sure I have Indirect Lighting for the document enabled if I do so, especially if using Glow textures! It's obvious when it's pointed out to you - thanks again for your patient explanation...

[Mike_M]

On 4/3/2023 at 4:47 PM, JBenghiat said:

You need to apply a texture to the object with a glow reflectivity.

You can create a new Renderworks Texture in the Resource Manager, and then edit it.

Under Reflectivity, select Glow. 

In the Glow options, enable Emit light.

Apply the texture in the Render tab of Object Info, by dragging the texture to the object, or using the Texture Tool.

 

You do not need any additional lights for the glow, but you do need to be in wither Renderworks or Redshift, and you need your Lighting Options set to at least one bounce.

 

Awesome, thank you!