CompuServe Thread

#Need bright light source

5 messages in this thread
#74879From: Charles BlaquiereFeb 17, 1994 10:05 PM
Brad, If your letters disappear when you turn on the fog attribute, it could be because the fog length is overly large compared with the letters. Try a length 1/3 the planet's diameter for starters. To make your yellow planet seem Really Bright, you need more than a light yellow color, you need to simulate a light-emitting planet. One quick way is to position a light source (with shadows disabled!) at the center of the planet, so that moving the planet around will create light effects on surrounding objects. Other important visual cues are the glow and lens flare that occur around a bright object. These are handled very convincingly by the "L" program, discussion of which is felt by Mike Halvorson to be in bad taste on this section. Suffice it to say that luminous objects in seaQuest DSV look infinitely better than my feeble attempts at creating Really Bright objects in Imagine. Since your object is a planet, a simple sphere shape, you could create a fog sphere 25% larger than the planet, squash it in Y to make it look like an oval in the top and right views, and give it a yellow-white color. This would be placed in front of the planet, and with some experimentation could create a glow that starts invisible, and grows the closer one gets to the edge of the planet. Blaq!
#74953From: Brad BlockFeb 19, 1994 12:08 AM
Thanks! Can I ask you another question? WHat else do you do besides raytracing, by the way of graphics I mean? Do you code anything? Brad
#75041From: Charles BlaquiereFeb 20, 1994 2:39 PM
Here are some of the things I do to get a graphics project done: modelling in Imagine, Stage/Action animation creation, image processing to create/modify/tweak texture maps, backgrounds, etc., quick tests in Deluxe Paint (16-color 2-D package) to block out motion and timing, writing ARexx macros to automate certain post-processing effects, such as adding starburst light explosions to Really Bright objects. Apart from ARexx coding, I do no programming on the Amiga. Everything is done by clever use of my commercial graphics programs' functions.
#75064From: Brad BlockFeb 20, 1994 8:34 PM
Do you use Ray-Tracing in the workplace? Is your work commercial? If not, do you have some samples on CIS?
#75837From: Charles BlaquiereFeb 28, 1994 10:45 PM
Brad, Ahh, work. <laugh> My work is to program Tandem mid-range computers for Automated Teller Machine applications for a major Canadian bank. This computer animation thing is simply an old dream of mine, finally realized through the beauty of Amiga affordability. I've done about a half-dozen jobs so far, for less money than I care to admit. B^D Since I do animation, not still images, I stay away from ray-tracing like the plague. Think of the time difference between scanline and trace mode. Then multiply by 300 frames. Makes one shudder, don't it? <grin> Blaq!