Need help with lights in WS

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Need help with lights in WS // New Users

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Post by jrboddie // Jan 10, 2009, 2:22am

jrboddie
Total Posts: 91
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I am trying to adjust lights for a daytime scene using the realtime renderer in the WS. Before I get to the ultimate problem, I would like to know if it is normal for a scene to be illuminated with NO lights?

The attached render has no lights in the scene, yet the objects are plainly visible. Am I missing a setting?

Edit: Ok further experiments show that I can get the effect of no illumination (all black objects with no detail) by adding a single light (a skylight, for example) and turning its output to zero.

Post by TomG // Jan 10, 2009, 9:22am

TomG
Total Posts: 3397
If you delete all lights, the workspace uses a default set up to render. Otherwise your screen would go black and you'd be unable to work :)


Sometimes people want no lights in the scene (eg rendering offline and using GI), or they are just deleting all lights to add more (but you need to see where to add them).


So yes, all planned and normal for that to happen :)


HTH!

Tom


PS as soon as you add one light that the workspace can render, the effects of the default lighting are removed entirely - your lighting does not "add onto" the default lighting; the default lighting only kicks in with a zero light situation.

Post by jrboddie // Jan 10, 2009, 9:36am

jrboddie
Total Posts: 91
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Great. Good to know that it is not a problem with my setup and the explanation makes sense.


Now to my problem.


I have a large scene to illuminate (the Alamo compound). I am trying to place the scene on a sunny day with the sun at a high angle in order to match shadows of a photograph that I am going to be using in my video.


The problem is finding a lighting combination that:

1. illuminates the sky dome uniformly

2. creates shadows that appear to result from sunlight

3. does not over illuminate interior spaces that can be seen though open windows/doors.


The best so far is to use an ambient to illuminate the sky dome and areas that would be lit indirectly and three directional lights spaced across the sky to make the direct sun/shadow illumination. (I think this is a variation on the WS sunny light setup in the library.)


I think it could be improved because inorder to get the sky bright enough using the ambient, there is too much illumination of areas that should be in the shade or not illuminated at all. If I could illuminate the sky independently of everything else, I am sure it would help.


Any ideas??

Post by TomG // Jan 10, 2009, 9:40am

TomG
Total Posts: 3397
For the real-time renderer only?


There is a Constant material someplace for it, so your skydome wouldn't then need illumination (the texture map will appear the same brightness no matter what). I can't recall if its in the install or on the forums as a separate item though, it was a third party development.


You could then use the ambient purely for your interior lighting, allowing you to adjust that as necessary without affecting the skydome.


(Or you could maybe overdrive the intensity on the skydome shader, set it to great than 1, which would let you turn down the ambient lights and still maintain your desired level of brightness on it - might be possible in the input box for Diffuse, or maybe down inside the shader, or you could add a new box in the LE to the shader to multiply or add to the result coming in from the input box).


HTH!

Tom

Post by jrboddie // Jan 10, 2009, 11:50am

jrboddie
Total Posts: 91
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Good ideas! I'll give them a try. (I have the constant material texture. It was used in the organics tutorial for the template.) Sounds like a plan!
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