Control level of environment lighting

[SamIWas]

I've been wondering for quite a while...is there any real way to control the amount of global illumination a texture creates without affecting the actual rendering of the texture itself?  Cinema4D has an option in the material for how much global illumination to generate, but it doesn't affect the rendering of the material itself.  In the attached image, the light boxes render very well and look realistic, but there is almost no actual light being generated onto the truck.  If I up the backlit part of the texture to from 100 to 250, I get the right amount of light onto the truck, but the boxes just blow out white.  

 

My goal is to get the boxes to look like the first image, and the floor and truck to look like the second image.

 

[markdd]

I don’t think so. However, you could make two textures added to two surfaces inside the light boxes. 
 

An inner surface could contain a glow texture purely for lighting at 250%.
 

An outer surface with a “decorative” glow texture set to 100% and not to “cast shadows”. That way you should get the best of both lighting and realism.

[bjoerka]

Maybe use a combination of a backlit texture or a glowing texture and an area light.

I just did a quick test with one hollow box, a thin extrude with a transparent texture in front and an area light inside the box.

May this is a way to achieve what you are looking for when you separate the texture and the light to get better control about the look.

 

1st image with only glowing surface, 2nd with area light inside the box.

 

 

 

 

[SamIWas]

11 hours ago, markdd said:

I don’t think so. However, you could make two textures added to two surfaces inside the light boxes. 
 

An inner surface could contain a glow texture purely for lighting at 250%.
 

An outer surface with a “decorative” glow texture set to 100% and not to “cast shadows”. That way you should get the best of both lighting and realism.

Hmmm...that is an interesting thought...going to try that one.

 

Nope...It appears that environment lighting doesn't pay attention to and texture's shadow casting properties.

Edited November 8, 2023 by SamIWas

[SamIWas]

3 hours ago, bjoerka said:

Maybe use a combination of a backlit texture or a glowing texture and an area light.

I just did a quick test with one hollow box, a thin extrude with a transparent texture in front and an area light inside the box.

May this is a way to achieve what you are looking for when you separate the texture and the light to get better control about the look.

 

1st image with only glowing surface, 2nd with area light inside the box.

 

 

 

Yeah...this was an option I thought about.  But with the way everything moves and tilts and the lights inside change colors depending on the set, etc, it would be a lot of extra work to maintain the area lights.  I was hoping for an option in the indirect lighting.  It's not show crucial or anything.

 

[markdd]

21 minutes ago, SamIWas said:

Nope...It appears that environment lighting doesn't pay attention to and texture's shadow casting properties.

I’m going to file a bug report on that.

 

I think then you will be left with creating an area light ( as @bjoerka suggested) instead of a glow texture, and use the forward texture that you have created already, but with “cast shadows” turned off. 

[markdd]

Just a thought. If you create your front texture with a 65% grey colour as opposed to white, then if you ramp up the glow value to 250% then you might get closer to the result you are after without the bother of using an area light.

Edited November 8, 2023 by markdd

[SamIWas]

On 11/8/2023 at 12:13 PM, markdd said:

Just a thought. If you create your front texture with a 65% grey colour as opposed to white, then if you ramp up the glow value to 250% then you might get closer to the result you are after without the bother of using an area light.

Man...I've been so busy, I forgot to check the forum.  I'll give this a go and see if it does anything.

 

What I'd really love is an option in the "override environment lighting" or whatever it is in the texture, for there to be an option to multiply the amount of lighting the texture puts out.  But it wouldn't affect the visibility of the texture itself.  An example from cinema is attached.  Two squares backlit by the same brightness light, with exactly the same texture settings, except one texture has GI boosted up to 2000%.  Teh squares appear identical, but the amount of light put out is different.