Custom Lit Set Pieces

[theatre4jc]

I have a client that has made a request for custom set pieces lit with LEDs of some type. The set pieces will be simple to build using metal framing and plexiglass, but I'm not sure how to best draw this in VW. At first I was going to do a simple extrude and just make it the be a glowing color.  But what I would like to do is draw the extrude with a LED fixture at the top and bottom to illuminate the extrude internally so that I can show it properly in my renderings.  Issue I'm having is how to do a texture to mimic frosted plexiglass.  The frosted glass textures that come with VW are to transparent and I couldn't find a texture that would pass the color, but not be able to see into the object.  Any thoughts on how I could get this accomplished?

[mjm]

48 minutes ago, theatre4jc said:

I have a client that has made a request for custom set pieces lit with LEDs of some type. The set pieces will be simple to build using metal framing and plexiglass, but I'm not sure how to best draw this in VW. At first I was going to do a simple extrude and just make it the be a glowing color.  But what I would like to do is draw the extrude with a LED fixture at the top and bottom to illuminate the extrude internally so that I can show it properly in my renderings.  Issue I'm having is how to do a texture to mimic frosted plexiglass.  The frosted glass textures that come with VW are to transparent and I couldn't find a texture that would pass the color, but not be able to see into the object.  Any thoughts on how I could get this accomplished?

Try rolling your own textures, starting perhaps with duplicating one which is too transparent. duplicate it in the resource browser and edit it till you come up with something you like.

 

Lampshade1.vwx

[markdd]

5 minutes of modelling got me to this stage. 2 textures.

1 x Glow texture for the light source top and bottom

1 x Frosted Plexiglass texture for the panel

 

 

Here is the file.

 

Lightbox.vwx

 

 

[scottmoore]

I highly recommend NOT trying to light a surface like you would in the real world unless perhaps the only thing you are rendering is the set piece itself. Otherwise, this can prove to be a real resource hog in your renders. I’ve found it much better to simply create a texture that “looks” like it is supposed to and allow that to work for you. Your rendering times will increase dramatically, and making color changes is pretty instantaneous. You can create those textures in a drawing program like PhotoShop, Pixelmater, etc. or you can do them directly in VW. 

[scottmoore]

Here are a couple of examples of textures that "appear" to be backlit but instead are simply textures.  The one on the right is a backlit piece of plastic where the back side is frosted and the front side has reflectivity.  It would appear to be illuminated around the perimeter with something linear such as LED.  The one on the right is a matte finish plastic with two lights uplighting it.  This is also just a texture.  The only light in this rendering is the one that is back lighting the truss so you can see the reflection.  A few things to note:  

 

- Both textures were created in Vectorworks; the one on the left by simply focusing two spot light objects on a 4' x 4' white or possibly gray extrusion.  I don't recall as it has been a long time since I've created these textures.  The one on the right was also a 4' x 4; extrude and then I added a piece of geometry surround it to which I applied a glow texture that was emitting light.  I adjusted the height of the extrude and the brightness of the texture until I got what i wanted.  In both cases I just did a screen grab of the 4x4 to create the texture.  While it may be easier to create these kinds of things in a program like Photoshop, we all have VW and you can, in fact, create these in VW so.....

 

- Both textures are brought in as white and I select the "use object attributes" to assign colors.  If you place all of your plastic on a class and assign the item;s fill to class color, then it is very quick to change colors globally in a project.  

 

- I have a ton of these textures in my texture library so I do not have to constantly create them.  

 

Hope this is helpful to someone.  

[mjm]

1 hour ago, scottmoore said:

Here are a couple of examples of textures that "appear" to be backlit but instead are simply textures.  The one on the right is a backlit piece of plastic where the back side is frosted and the front side has reflectivity.  It would appear to be illuminated around the perimeter with something linear such as LED.  The one on the right is a matte finish plastic with two lights uplighting it.  This is also just a texture.  The only light in this rendering is the one that is back lighting the truss so you can see the reflection.  A few things to note:  

 

- Both textures were created in Vectorworks; the one on the left by simply focusing two spot light objects on a 4' x 4' white or possibly gray extrusion.  I don't recall as it has been a long time since I've created these textures.  The one on the right was also a 4' x 4; extrude and then I added a piece of geometry surround it to which I applied a glow texture that was emitting light.  I adjusted the height of the extrude and the brightness of the texture until I got what i wanted.  In both cases I just did a screen grab of the 4x4 to create the texture.  While it may be easier to create these kinds of things in a program like Photoshop, we all have VW and you can, in fact, create these in VW so.....

 

- Both textures are brought in as white and I select the "use object attributes" to assign colors.  If you place all of your plastic on a class and assign the item;s fill to class color, then it is very quick to change colors globally in a project.  

 

- I have a ton of these textures in my texture library so I do not have to constantly create them.  

 

Hope this is helpful to someone.  

The problems I tend to run into are more of the multiple transmissible materials type. Where certain objects (and there can be a lot of them) need to have varying degrees of transmissibility both in a transparency sense and a backlit/frontlit sense, ex; A translucent plex panel, scored to allow full transparency and also front-lit and the cyc behind backlit. Not sure how to accomplish that with one texture like @scottmoore suggests. I am extremely interested to see if possible tho! I dug the reflective lit blue panel above.

[scottmoore]

When you are layering objects, you generally have to include those physical layers, however, you can still cheat. For instance, you can pre-light a cyc or a pleated curtain object in another drawing, export the image and create a texture from that. I don’t find myself using cycs too often, but have certainly done that a lot with pleated drapes, stone, brick, stucco textures, that sort of thing. It can take a while to get the look you want, but once you do, rendering times drop dramatically and if you are like me, rendering quite often to see the outcome of new geometry, new set pieces, object placement, etc., you will find the increased speed of renders invaluable. 

[mjm]

6 hours ago, scottmoore said:

When you are layering objects, you generally have to include those physical layers, however, you can still cheat. For instance, you can pre-light a cyc or a pleated curtain object in another drawing, export the image and create a texture from that. I don’t find myself using cycs too often, but have certainly done that a lot with pleated drapes, stone, brick, stucco textures, that sort of thing. It can take a while to get the look you want, but once you do, rendering times drop dramatically and if you are like me, rendering quite often to see the outcome of new geometry, new set pieces, object placement, etc., you will find the increased speed of renders invaluable. 

Dang, this exactly why I love this place!! Thanks @scottmoore!!