#LightWave Light Shapes
3 messages in this thread
(I originally asked this question in AmigaArts. By suggestion I repeat it
here.)
How do you make a flourescent light or any kind of shaped light like a neon
sign that will actually light up an area with Lightwave? I've seen some scenes
where the flourecsent tubes are used in a hallway in the Gallery in Video
Toaster User and they looked real good.
Mike McCormick
You can't. The only lights supported by Lightwave are point, distant, and spot
lights. Anything other than this has to be faked. Fluorescent lights (as in a
lighting cove in a corridor) could be faked with luminosity maps running both
along the walls (with the top of the wall creating greater luminosity) and on
other areas where the cove lights would create recognizable patterns. This same
technique can be used as well for creating apparently luminous neon or other
cold cathode lights.
Jim Roof
Hi Michael,
An effective way to make a glowing neon tube is to do it in two passes… once
with the fully rendered scene, once with all objects removed except for the
tubing. Keep the same camera path.
Blur each frame of the tube-only animation. If your software supports alpha
channels, blur that too. Then composite the two animations together. The
blurred image will "glow" about the sharply rendered neon tube.
An alternative to compositing alpha channel animations is to use a "lightest
only" blending technique. I hope that one or the other does the job for you!
Regards,
John Dowdell