Lighting the Ceiling

[domer1322]

I need help .... I have never been able to figure out how to make a suspended acoustical ceiling (standard office ceiling in the US) look realistic in regard to the light reflected off of it. I want to avoid radiosity (too complicated and my CPU may not be up to the task), and I've tried placing many spotlights directed up at the ceiling ... this seems too cumbersome to be the best way. Any thoughts / tricks / tips... please.....

[michaelk]

domer1322

Dan Jansenson has a killer trick for this. I was waiting to see if he would post it.

With apologies and thanks to Dan, this is what I remember of it. I'm sure I'll butcher it, and miss some of the fine points, but this will get you started.

It's a great trick to make a white ceiling really look white.

1. GIve the ceiling a white texture and set Reflectivity to Constant. (no acustical grid on this ceiling.)

2. Make another ceiling. Move it down a few pixels in the Z dimension.

3. Give it a white texture (or acustical tile texture), but give the texture a transparancy (Plain? I think)

4. Add the acustical grid.

You have to play with the level of transparancy, but it will make the ceiling really white and you can bounce one uplight per lighting fixture into the ceiling. Set the beam angle much smaller than the field angle, play with the fall off, and you got it.

Now that 2008 is out, will we ever get Dan to write another book?

HTH

Michael K