Modelling Lights

[catbells007]

Add a light in the same position as your light source. Set it up with the correct values, shadow casting, attenuation, etc (probably need to be red if its an emergency light). Then add a glow to the light using video post or Combustion. You could maybe also add a little self illumination to the material of the light source.

[Chico]

cool question...:thumbsup:

okay heres an image I found ..I dunno if its like what youre on about, but its worth a shot.
http://www.geography4kids.com/misc/photos/lightbulb.jpg

Emergency light...red...so itd be painted over and you wouldnt need to worry too much about the glow from the centre like in this clear bulb. but you would want a soft glow/halo around the edge of the bulb maybe.

Shadows, youll want super soft ones as the light will be addmiting light from its entrie surface. So anything close will be casting softer shadows. Do this by droping the size of a shadow map (say down to a max of 128.?) and bumping up the sample size to 32 or higher. this will mean the shadow map will be calculated over a smaller res and to stop it looking blocky the samples should smooth it out.

As catbells mentioned youd definatly want to look into the decay of the light. set up an omni on a plane and ahve a play to see exactly how it works.

On the light bulb itself youll want to ally a self illuminate texture that has a falloff towards the edges. this way it will be brighter in the cetre than at the edges. Max 5 has translency, which with a tonne TONNE of tweaking you can get great results.

Youre likly to need to set up a couple of lights for different purposes, some will need to exclude the light itself.

Awwee man, I want do it now...Must....do....work....I May have a play later if I have time :thumbsup:

Good Luck

[Animare]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the help it had me stuck and frustrated for awhile...I remember seeing a tutorial about back lights or something like that somewhere once but couldn't find it

That glow effect should work but does that crash max cat?

Chicho the shadows are good, now Im just tweaking here is some early crappy renders to give you an idea of the light itself, Im still playing around with it...is the positioning correct?


Its going to be in the background and quite small so detail isn't an issue with the lightand the glow should cover most stuff up.

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/shanj/position.jpg
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/shanj/crap.jpg

Thanks again

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