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Use default Lighting


bcd

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I would like it if VWGM (OpenGL) could be set to use the default lighting even if Lighting Instruments are in the scene.

This option would be available in Design Layers as well as Viewports and would be on by default, especially if all lighting instruments are turned off.

 

Currently as soon as we place a Lighting Instrument the default lighting is switched off under the generally false assumption that the lighting instruments are going to be used to illuminate the scene. In my experience this is almost never the case. Lighting instruments are being placed to create a lighting plot & layout, which, much further down the design process may or may not be used in renderings to test the lighting design.

In any case OGL uses only 8 of these, presumably the first 8 placed, so for all but the smallest light plots will never be used to test the design.

 

I have a niggling that this has been asked in the past, but I can't understand why it wouldn't have been seen as an 'of course'.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Its going to do that by default at first, to make sure you don't have a file with NO light that renders solid black (A common mistake new Renderworks users used to run into).

When you first render with no light:

ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=10686&filename=Before%20Light%20Inserted.PNG

When you add a light, ambient turns itself off:

ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=10687&filename=After%20Light%20Inserted%20-%20Ambient%20Off.PNG

When you turn it back on while keeping the light object:

ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=10688&filename=After%20Light%20Inserted%20-%20Ambient%20On.PNG

Once you turn it back on however, it wont turn itself off and this can be saved as a template if you want to keep it that way all the time.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

You have to up the ambient lighting percentage if you want a similar appearance, it tones itself down to something like 35% so that you can more easily see the lights you have added. It'll never look EXACTLY the same, since there are now more sources of additive light, but I just left it at the default in the above images.

This is similar to the original reason it shuts itself off, because a lot of the time putting too much light in a file will give you solid white, which many users think is a rendering issue when its just that the render has been blinded by too much light.

Once you set the percentage how you like it, it'll stay there, it can be custom controlled in individual Renderworks Styles as well if you like.

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From my understanding the Ambient Light and the default lighting are two separate entities: the default consisting of a standard 3 light setup which gets turned off once a user places a light source.

The ambient can be on/off and the default will be on/off if a light is absent/present

ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=10689&filename=Screen%20Shot%202014-05-27%20at%206.47.43%20PM.png

ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=10690&filename=Screen%20Shot%202014-05-27%20at%206.47.59%20PM.png

ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=10691&filename=Screen%20Shot%202014-05-27%20at%206.48.24%20PM.png

ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=10692&filename=Screen%20Shot%202014-05-27%20at%206.48.46%20PM.png

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

You're completely correct, I was only thinking of Ambient Lighting. My apologies.

The default lighting does behave very differently and would be useful to control, since it doesn't just glow all around. It comes from a stable source that doesn't rotate when you rotate the rest of the model. (Best seen by adding a sphere, then using the flyover tool to move around, the light always comes from up and left.)

Is there more that you think would be useful for default lighting to be capable of? Maybe the ability to add/remove default light sources, alter their positions, intensities and colors?

I haven't played around with anything similar in another 3D/rendering application to see whats out there.

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It would be nice to have a greyscale slider to set the overall brightness and another to control the lighting threshold of a scene and have VW automatically adjust all the placed lights, ambients and glows to achieve a result. It's impossible now without a ton of trial and error to create a good looking scene from scratch.

Doubly nice would be a thumbnail preview of the result.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

To get slightly off track:

For the time being, you may want to give HDR background lighting a look. It makes it REALLY easy to create scenic or studio-like lighting without having to mess with dozens of various light objects. Unfortunately it doesn't work in OpenGL for quick previews, but looks great in RW modes.

However, I do not know if we have any training videos/materials that cover how quick it actually can be done. I'll have to add that to the list if I cant find one. I can't recall if the Daniel Jansenson Renderworks guides cover it.

(I will submit the original request as well as the additional fleshing out in the following posts in any case.)

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+1 on default lighting option when all lights are off. I would use it for OpenGL non-rendering work on projects with complex lighting.

I suggest Brightness and Contrast controls for the default lighting. Simple and understood by almost everyone.

Another thought is to have a command to convert default lighting into a light source(s). This would be a gentle starting point for beginners. "If you want more control over the lighting..."

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+1 Default Lighting controls.

Should this have a place in the Visualization Palette?

Add the default lighting as a line item - at least with on/off button.

Text could have a special color to identify as different from user added lights.

Sliders & numeric fields for intensity, contrast, color?

Live preview as the sliders move?

A hover or cmd key flyout box with some explanations & hints.

-B

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Didn't think of having it as an item in the Visualization palette, but that may make sense, may also make sense to move at least a shortcut to ambient light settings there as well.

The live preview is definitely required, but since OpenGL is now in the VGM, any changes made would show up in OpenGL on the fly already so that's covered.

The color, location, and intensity parameters listed in the last two posts I covered in the initial request, I'll add these additional thoughts as well as a setting for Contrast.

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I would like it if VWGM (OpenGL) could be set to use the default lighting even if Lighting Instruments are in the scene.

This option would be available in Design Layers as well as Viewports and would be on by default, especially if all lighting instruments are turned off.

 

Currently as soon as we place a Lighting Instrument the default lighting is switched off under the generally false assumption that the lighting instruments are going to be used to illuminate the scene. In my experience this is almost never the case. Lighting instruments are being placed to create a lighting plot & layout, which, much further down the design process may or may not be used in renderings to test the lighting design.

In any case OGL uses only 8 of these, presumably the first 8 placed, so for all but the smallest light plots will never be used to test the design.

 

I have a niggling that this has been asked in the past, but I can't understand why it wouldn't have been seen as an 'of course'.

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56 minutes ago, bcd said:

I would like it if VWGM (OpenGL) could be set to use the default lighting even if Lighting Instruments are in the scene.

This option would be available in Design Layers as well as Viewports and would be on by default, especially if all lighting instruments are turned off.

 

Currently as soon as we place a Lighting Instrument the default lighting is switched off under the generally false assumption that the lighting instruments are going to be used to illuminate the scene. In my experience this is almost never the case. Lighting instruments are being placed to create a lighting plot & layout, which, much further down the design process may or may not be used in renderings to test the lighting design.

In any case OGL uses only 8 of these, presumably the first 8 placed, so for all but the smallest light plots will never be used to test the design.

 

I have a niggling that this has been asked in the past, but I can't understand why it wouldn't have been seen as an 'of course'.

 

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. Yes.

 

And conversely... We should be able to turn the default light completely off when there aren't any visible Light objects.

 

In general, we just need to have control over this default light!

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Similar to described here, I'd like an option (perhaps in OpenGL Options) that allows OpenGL to render with default lighting, while other render modes use the scene lighting. In my workflow (stage design), I use OpenGL to make edits to my model, then flip to fast renderworks to check the result with lighting, then back to OpenGL for more edits, etc. Using OpenGL should be like turning the worklights on.

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