hbeach Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 Attempting to represent an arena-sized crowd with LED wristbands and not sure how to approach this. I'm curious if any of you have done something similar in the past. I'd rather not use an image masked to some kind of object because I'd like to have control over the wristbands - color, intensity, variety. Taking any and all suggestions. Quote Link to comment
Kevin Allen Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 Sounds like a challenge. With a spotlight lighting device, I use the Spotlight preferences to adjust the color of the lens in Spotlight preferences, bu class and use the color field. I would think I could manipulate another type of symbol in the same way. The figures would have to be converted to lighting devices. 1 Quote Link to comment
Simon Allan Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 I would do it in Photoshop. Much faster and won't impact your rendering times. Quote Link to comment
hbeach Posted October 4, 2018 Author Share Posted October 4, 2018 @Simon Allan Unfortunately, I am not the most confident with my photoshop skills. Also, I plan to provide some sweeping shots of the rig for my client which would be even more of a challenge if I stick with photoshop. Quote Link to comment
JBenghiat Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 You can combine image props for the crowd with symbols for the wrist bands. You would need a separate symbol for each color, and you could either place a point source in the symbol or use a glow texture. Doing something like a pixel map might push the limits of VW and be best done by a visualizer. There is one way to simplify a photoshop compost. For each wrist band, apply a glow texture that does not emit light. Set the texture’s color to something close to a chromakey green (magentas can work well too). Once exported to PS, use the magic wand to select all the chromakey pixels and create a mask (either use a layer mask, or just delete). You can then lay in an image or just paint underneath that will color the wrist bands. 2 Quote Link to comment
scottmoore Posted October 5, 2018 Share Posted October 5, 2018 You could place a ton of simple extrusions (square) around the arena, assign each a glow texture that has been set up receive it’s color from “class”, create several classes for wristbands, assign sections of the extrusions to those classes and there you go. Change class colors to change colors of the various selections. Adjust to colors or even use black to adjust intensity. The most time consuming part would be making them look fairly random. 1 Quote Link to comment
EAlexander Posted October 9, 2018 Share Posted October 9, 2018 I have had to do this a lot and I always come back to doing it in post (photoshop or aftereffects). I can't imagine doing it in VW. I found in Cinema 4D it to be much easier, but still a bit lacking in flexibility for updating "content" or density revisions. I've made some scatter brushes in photoshop that address this pretty well. Quote Link to comment
hbeach Posted October 9, 2018 Author Share Posted October 9, 2018 @EAlexander I am only hurting myself with how little I know how to do in photoshop. It keeps popping up as the answer to most of my questions. Quote Link to comment
Popular Post BSeigel Posted October 18, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted October 18, 2018 They're not wrong, this may be easier to do in photoshop...but I don't work for Adobe. So I'm going to show you how to do it in Vectorworks. I've attached my demo file in this post. RGB Bracelet.vwx 1. create a 2D ring that is roughly the size of a wrist, I went with 6in in diameter. 2. Take that ring and extrude it 1in . 3. Create a glow texture (If you check "Emit Light" under "Override Indirect Lighting" the bracelet will light up surrounding objects, but increase render time) My file has an example of both. 4. Apply the texture to your extruded ring. With the ring selected, create a symbol by going to Modify>Create Symbol. Use settings below. 5. Find the symbol in your resource manager, right click the resource and choose to edit the 3D component. When the edit window appears click outside of the object to deselect it. Go to the Data Tab in the Object info palette and select Attach Record. The resource manager will open and you will need to search for "Light Info Record", select the Light Info Record and that will attach it to the 3d symbol, next fill out the record. 6. Before leaving the edit window select the 3D object and create a new class. Then add the 3D object to the new class. I named mine "Glow Ring". Make sure to add the symbol in the design layer to this class as well. 7. This step is crucial. Go to File>Document Settings>Spotlight Preferences and go to the Lighting Device Tab. Enable Modify Lighting Instrument Color, Set by:Color Field, enable Use color field for the fill color. Lastly, set it to modify only geometry in the class that you created. This will change the color of the glow texture based on the information in the color field of the lighting device. 8. Now insert the symbol you created into your drawing by using the lighting instrument insertion tool. Then select it and change the color in the object info palette. Don't forget to right click the lighting device and select Turn on. 9. TADA! You know have glowing bracelet lighting devices that you can control! If you give them channel assignments it will be easier to select and mange them using the visualization palette. As I said earlier, I have some of these set to emit light and others do not. The ones that do not emit light render significantly faster. RGB Bracelet.vwx 6 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 Totally cool. WOnder what the render time on a stadium full of these might be… Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted October 18, 2018 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted October 18, 2018 With glow and indirect lighting it's not too bad at all compared to regular Light sources. (Unless you switch on Lit Fog) Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 Rendering 2200 bracelets on medium settings without them emitting light took just over a minute on my machine. 1 Quote Link to comment
EAlexander Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 (edited) Those look great and I am not trying to slag on your product or company here - I too don't work for Adobe, but it seems to me that the bracelet part is easy - it's the distribution for a render in VW that is the challenge. In VW, how would you distribute 25,000 of them onto a crowd through a stadium - with random placement and rotation, but still following the seating layout (voms, rows, etc)....? To me, this is why I do it in post. Again - no disrespect intended. Edited October 18, 2018 by EAlexander 1 Quote Link to comment
Kevin Allen Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 I think a Marionette script could handle the random distro. 1 Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 @EAlexander It would certainly be a challenge. My goal was to provide a user with a workflow to accomplish a task that they wished to complete in Vectorworks. Honestly, I'm sure there is a better way to do this with or without using Vectorworks and this is simply what I came up with this morning. To answer your question, it might be possible to create a marionette that does what you are requesting. Simplifying the geometry and tweaking rendering settings would be the first step. Then, you would have to create the marionette in such a way that it would insert various symbol instances based on a set of criteria and you could change those through edit fields. Not my cup of tea and it would certainly take some time to create the marionette, but I'd still be curious to see what a savvy user might come up with. PS: just refreshed page and noticed @Kevin Allens post Quote Link to comment
EAlexander Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 Thanks - I'll look into it more - haven't dived into Marionette at all yet. I asked, not as a challenge to you, but because I really want to know. I have a fair amount of randomization I need to do within VW and I always find it a challenge. It's so easy in Cinema4D and lots of times I do it there, then combine everything and bring a mesh back in VW, but I would like a more elegant solution within VW. I'll check out Marionette. Thanks! 2 Quote Link to comment
BSeigel Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 All Good, I'm excited to see what you'll come up with! This may be a good place to start: 3 Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 A couple of thoughts come to mind for trying to do this in VW - Consider reducing the ring to a single surface NURBS ring. The extrudes have a lot of extra geometry that will add up when you have thousands of them. If this is strictly for rendering, I would actually consider removing 1/4 to 1/3 of the ring. You'll never see a full ring if someone's wearing it and the gaps will help to sell the illusion. If the stadium is symmetrical use that to your advantage. If you happen to have a stadium model that has seats as symbols, use those as a way to approach getting 3D loci to distribute the rings on. If you have to fake it, I would use a surface array (or a couple of surface arrays) instead. I think it would be fairly simple to randomize the distribution of the rings if you have a set of loci. I would distribute too many and delete some rather than trying to work around every area that may not have any. I'm curious to see if someone tries it. Kevin 1 Quote Link to comment
LJ TMS Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 (edited) This thread could be helpful in creating your random looks... You could create a wristband for every seat, then use random selection to remove a percentage. Then random selection again for color. And again for intensity. Should help with your varied look. Edited October 19, 2018 by LJ TMS 2 Quote Link to comment
scottmoore Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 I am going to check out Pat Stanford’s script as that could be really useful for a lot of things. Assuming that would work, I would create a handful of symbols, all with differing insertion points so that they could all be placed in seating locations but have adjusted X, Y, Z coordinates. I would keep the geometry really extremely simple (extrudes rectangle) as bracelets really tend to look like a point of light in photos regardless. The only exception might be if you had a floor camera position with people in the foreground, but at that point, you would be much better served with a modeling program. Also, rendering the effect of bracelets is not well served in close-ups anyway. Quote Link to comment
JBenghiat Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 I'm not sure if the Foliage tool is available if you don't have Landmark or Designer, but it provides a low-overhead way of distributing random image props over a geometric area: http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2019/eng/index.htm#t=VW2019_Guide%2FPlants%2FAdding_Foliage.htm%23CSH_67 2 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted October 23, 2018 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted October 23, 2018 Off Topic for this thread but just wanted to note: I've requested the Foliage tool be added to all Design series if not all flavors of Vectorworks, not just Landmark. It's more of a visualization/rendering tool than it is a Plant-centric one. 3 1 Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 1 hour ago, Jim Wilson said: Off Topic for this thread but just wanted to note: I've requested the Foliage tool be added to all Design series if not all flavors of Vectorworks, not just Landmark. It's more of a visualization/rendering tool than it is a Plant-centric one. Tools like this are one of the main reasons I run Designer instead of Spotlight. There are a fair number of tools that have industry specific names that can be applied to tasks outside their intended purpose or industry. Definitely a missed marketing opportunity on NV part. Kevin 1 Quote Link to comment
danm01 Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 @Kevin McAllister what other Designer tricks do you use? I've thought about upgrading from Spotlight, but I haven't been able to wrap my head around the differences enough to justify the cost. Thanks! Dan Quote Link to comment
Kevin Allen Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 The Hardscape tool can also create floors. DTMs are useful to create natural stage platforms, or for outdoor events. These come immediately to mind Quote Link to comment
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