Uplighting in Renderworks?

[ethelen]

Hello -

I am working on a model in which I need to insert a series of small, focused uplights around the top of a leather banquette. I am not having much success - the overall lighting appears brighter with each addition, but it is diffuse, not focused, light.

I've been experimenting with both spotlights and point lights, with brightness in a range between 80 and 10 for each light, and with spread and beam values in a range between 30 and 10 degrees, without much luck. I thought the problem might be the uplighting itself, but the lights behave the same whether pointing up or down.

Any suggestions for ways to achieve the effect of small, focused beams of light? Or suggestions on uplighting?

Many thanks,

Elizabeth Thelen

Design Assistant

Interim Design

[Guest]

Which rendering mode are you using?

[ethelen]

I've mostly been looking at it in final quality renderworks mode...

[Mat Caird]

Look at the following screenshots to see if this is what you want

http://www.katipogroup.co.nz/family/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=0

http://www.katipogroup.co.nz/family/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=2

Mat

[ethelen]

Thanks Matt - I am looking to create a beam as bright as the ones featured in your images, but a bit longer in length. How did you do it?

Best,

Elizabeth Thelen

Design Assistant

Interim Design

[Jonathan Pickup]

point lights will behave the same regardless of the spread or direction. Spot lights should behave differently, but keep the lighting values down to 10%

also reduce the layer ambient light as you increase the number of lights.

[Mat Caird]

hi Eliz

If you click on the pic it will open the full size screenshot in another window and you can read the settings from there.

To make the shaft longer, you could move the light source away from the wall a little bit. I don't think I had much luck with adjusting the spread of the beams.

Mat

[Kaare Baekgaard]

Any suggestions for ways to achieve the effect of small, focused beams of light? Or suggestions on uplighting?

Well yes... You should consider cheating, it is fast and reliable. What you do is create a texture in the shape of the spot of light on the ceiling. Use Photoshop to make a gradient. Use the gradient as an image transparency map. Use an all white image of similar proportion as image colour if the transparency map is not square.

See example here:

http://homepage.mac.com/kaarebaekgaard/.Pictures/Ekspedition.jpg