Uplight a Texture

[J. Miller]

Hello,

At times my clients ask for uplighting on Atomic Style Backdrops.

Atomic .VWX files do not have a textures attached to them.

Dos anyone have a cool texture that will capture uplighting and make the backdrops pop?

I'm ok with creating textures, but have not quite figured out how to get the best texture to make the scenic panels or backdops stand out.

Thanks

Jeff

 

 

[Jeff Prince]

For the example you posted, there are a couple of strategies.

1. use displacement mapping to create the illusion of 3D

2. actually model the surface using 3D solids.

 

This images below were created using the displacement mapping technique and rendered within Vectorworks.  The shingles are a sphere, the puffy jacket material is a flat 3D poly all the surface variation is from displacement mapping.  Only down side is the time required to render.

 

If you have a particular backdrop in mind that you want to use, I might have a displacement map that will work or could be quickly generated.

 

 

[JustinVanHassel]

@J. MillerTake a look at the Quest Events panels in the Entertainment>Event folder in the Premium libraries of VW2024. Those are similar panels to the Atomic panels and there is a nice texture applied to those to capture the uplight.

[LavenderGardens]

On 6/7/2024 at 11:29 AM, Jeff Prince said:

For the example you posted, there are a couple of strategies.

1. use displacement mapping to create the illusion of 3D

2. actually model the surface using 3D solids.

 

This images below were created using the displacement mapping technique and rendered within Vectorworks.  The shingles are a sphere, the puffy jacket material is a flat 3D poly all the surface variation is from displacement mapping.  Only down side is the time required to render.

 

If you have a particular backdrop in mind that you want to use, I might have a displacement map that will work or could be quickly generated.

 

 

such an interesting process!  Love the white pillow material, how does that work?

[Jeff Prince]

On 6/15/2024 at 1:49 PM, LavenderGardens said:

such an interesting process!  Love the white pillow material, how does that work?

 

Textures in many rendering softwares can use multiple Channels (called Shaders in Vectorworks) to depict a material.

In Vectorworks, there are 4 Shaders Color, Reflectivity, Transparency, and Bump.

Most people only use one Channel/Shader, such as Color or Image, to give a surface a "texture" like a wood grain pattern or a solid paint color.

You can create more realism with more Channels, where each is giving more life to the "texture", Reflectivity being one of the more common additions to the base color/image and simulates how light bounces off an object.  Transparency is also a popular one to use for glass, water, or similar surfaces and basically controls how light appears to move through an object.

 

The last Shader you have in Vectorworks is Bump, which is where most of the magic is happening in my image above.  Basically it is a simulation of 3D geometry that doesn't actually exist. you use a grayscale image to define the displacement of each pixel in a material to give the illusion of 3D.  Compare the image I posted above Left to Right.  On the right is the basic 2D plane, on the left is the same plane with a Bump shader at work.  This is "displacing" the pixels from the surface of the rectangle to another "height" based on the greyscale image (aka Heightfield).

 

When you research textures/materials you will likely come across the more universal system of PBR Materials (Physically Based Rendering).  These can be a bit more  sophisticated than Vectorworks as they use up to 6 channels to simulate a material, and like Vectorworks, each channel can have some modifiers associated with it to do even more.  Anyhow, it's a complicated topic, but not too difficult if you master the lingo and do some experiments.