Lighting Challenge: Light Bulb

[Andreseloy]

...opportunity to see what messiah can do - especially with those that have EasyGlass. It will also test out messiah's AA abilities to the max because of the fine wire filaments. ;).


Im at the very beginning,my first attemp with easy glass
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1559/image2ds6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Thanks for the advice
Andreseloy

[chikega]

Mario,
Did you create the light bulb? If so, they actually want you to download the object - so no need in creating it. Look for the link to it. Nice start. :)

[stooch]

i decided to play with thomases shaders. So here goes, basic TLHPRO easy glass settings didnt do much tweaking at all....

http://www.stooch.net/gallery/d/2265-1/test1.jpg

[PaulNewman]

Nice stooch. Bulb looks like solid glass though, not hollow.

[stooch]

yeah im working on it. the models that were provided need some editing to separate some things, this is just a start :) anyone know of a good way to make bloom in messiah?

and before thomas bites my head off. those fake specular things are on their way out! lol.

[stooch]

here is another test, still didnt separate the object light sources but its coming along. Not very happy with the AA on the filaments though! i set it to level 4, threshold .01 hammerseley 1.5 radius.

http://www.stooch.net/gallery/d/2268-1/test2.jpg

[stooch]

10 minute render

http://www.stooch.net/gallery/d/2270-1/test3.jpg

[stooch]

Getting there.

http://www.stooch.net/gallery/d/2273-1/test4.jpg

[Andreseloy]

Beutiful render stooch! I like very much
Andreseloy

[PaulNewman]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/SASHOF/bulb_a.png

Here's my first try...
23:28 using TLHPro Easy Glass
AA = Adaptive SS, Level 6, Threshold 0.005, Hammersley 1.5

[helluvapixel]

A helpful hint for glass is reflections Don't use specular (one cheat though is you can use a very low specular with low glossiness setting, but try it without).

[PaulNewman]

A helpful hint for glass is reflections Don't use specular (one cheat though is you can use a very low specular with low glossiness setting, but try it without).That's what I used on the above image, very very low and spread out specular to wash the glass with a soft feint coating of light which sort of accentuates it's form. Anyway you guys are the experts, thanks for the tips. :)

[helluvapixel]

That's what I used on the above image, very very low specular to wash the glass with a soft feint coating which sort of accentuates it's form.

The other ways I did that as well was a fresnel diffuse as well as translucency can give some interesting effects for glass.

However, I think your reflections need more transparency and/or a lower value (may need to tweak the fresnel gradient if you are using one).

[stooch]

Beutiful render stooch! I like very much
Andreseloy

thank you sir! i am not done though. need to work on that base.

[ThomasHelzle]

Cool results guys, keep them coming! :thumbsup:

Some glow on the filaments would be nice - can this maybe be faked with the volumetric lights? But I guess they are still a mess and only work with spotlights...

I had nice results with SSS added to EasyGlass (just up the Surf Thickness while leaving Translucency at zero - that gives you the oldest, fastest SSS fake which is often enough to lighten the glass a bit up and make it look more "glowing" by inner light...)

Cheers!

[PaulNewman]

Thanks for the tip, Thomas. So can we perhaps see a lightbulb render from you?

[ThomasHelzle]

Don't count on it...
I have other work at the moment...

And you guys are doing fine anyway ;-) :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Cheers,

[stooch]

Thanks thomas, I want to take a second to pimp TLHPRO shaders because it has been an absolute delight using them with their brilliant organization and controllability with the minimum of parameters to do it. Thats a very nice direction to take and should be an example.

By the way, how about a TLHPRO:Glow shader?

p.s. I am using SSS on my bulb, im also piping in the TLHPRO reflectivity into my diffuse channel and setting the operator to multiply. that way i can use my basic diffuse value as a quick way to control for the amount of burnout along the outer edges. By using multiplication you can modulate the output even more with the basic shader values! Like TLHPRO shaders state, this is not meant to simulate "realistic" glass, its a tool to match the output to what YOU deem desireable. Now to make that filament glow...hmmm

Cool results guys, keep them coming! :thumbsup:

Some glow on the filaments would be nice - can this maybe be faked with the volumetric lights? But I guess they are still a mess and only work with spotlights...

I had nice results with SSS added to EasyGlass (just up the Surf Thickness while leaving Translucency at zero - that gives you the oldest, fastest SSS fake which is often enough to lighten the glass a bit up and make it look more "glowing" by inner light...)

Cheers!

[ThomasHelzle]

Thank you Stooch, I am very happy that you like my work ;-)

What you describe was always my main goal when writing shaders.
You should find the AoN: Studio procedurals to be of a similar tribe ;-)

Well, I think version 1.1 of TLHPro is very close to being a realistic glass shader, but as you said, I don't believe in "simple photorealism" for illustrations - it always has to be "bigger than life" ;-)
Being able to go beyond simple realism is what I find often most important in my work.

So if you slap EasyGlass on a surface with the defaults, you get pretty realistic results, but you can also tweak it way out of bounds and combine it with other stuff if you want.

For quite fantastic surfaces, try combining two completely different materials with the TLHPro: Merger using one of the different layer modes like Overlay etc...

Glow: I always wanted to look into the area of 2D shaders (being done with the "Image" surface of the camera in messiah) but I haven't found the time yet. I think this would become a whole new package of shaders, from blurs to NPR stuff to glows to different kinds of filters...
But I first want to see some further development of messiah before I think about doing a next round of tools - currently it is way too silent for my taste. This doesn't inspire or motivate me.

Cheers!

[stooch]

good point on the 2D shaders, although i think a volumetric shader might be a bit more appropriate...along with hair lol.

yeah thats a pipe dream, i admit.

[stooch]

here is a 22 minute render.

http://www.stooch.net/gallery/d/2276-1/test5.jpg

as you can see i have a window in there, should i make it brighter?

Id like some critiques from you guys before i submit my entry :)

[chikega]

Nice renders guys ... Stooch, would there really be a caustic effect from a hollow glass bulb? If it were made of solid glass, then I could understand. Just a thought. :)

[stooch]

haha i dont know but i think it looks cool. maybe the caustics are caused by the stem itself not the bulb (the filament stem)

[ThomasHelzle]

I fear I liked the earlier renders better. Now it is all a bit washed out without clear reflections.

What exactly is the goal here? Matching that initial render or creating something original?

I somehow miss a more dramatic feel...

I actually like the caustics a lot :-)

BTW. If you look at such thin glass stuff (even some bottles show it) you often have the effect of not seing the thickness of the glass a lot. So I think it is rather correct.

Sometimes it helps to add some very very subtle procedural bump to make the glass look less perfect and allow for some waves or bumps...

Great stuff!

[helluvapixel]

What exactly is the goal here? Matching that initial render or creating something original?

Not sure about here, however the challenge on SDM I post is always for people to create an original. The title image is simply to inspire.

[stooch]

to all the "original" comments... well its a damn BULB!!! lol, i can pick different angles but something tells me that it will look the same from anywhere. As far as light and reflection object positioning, im just doing what looks good. Im definitelly being more original then those that arent even giving this a shot ;)

[ThomasHelzle]

You better don't become an illustrator then LOL

Cheers, I'm out of here...

[helluvapixel]

To pollute the thread, here is my C4D WIP (still don't like it):
http://www.jase.ca/forumpost/bulb/mybulb_c4d062.jpg

[stooch]

You better don't become an illustrator then LOL

Cheers, I'm out of here...

hey feel free to render out a bulb hotshot. :)

http://www.stooch.net/gallery/d/2279-1/test6.jpg

[helluvapixel]

stooch, I think the glass is too reflective and too smooth perfect. I need to diffuse my reflections a bit too.

[Wegg]

Would that thin little film of glass really cause that much refraction of light to cause a caustic to be that intense?

All I have arround me in my office are those energy saver bulbs. . .

Oh wait. . . we have the interweb.
http://www.replacementlightbulbs.com/bulb1209.jpg

Very little/no caustic stuff happening. . .

[stooch]

http://www.stooch.net/gallery/d/2282-1/test7.jpg

K, i removed the caustics and made the shadow less dense. I tried putting noise on the bulb and it just started looking like really shitty AA at best. I honestly dont think a bump map is necessary on the bulb, maybe on the specular channel??

[stooch]

More original i hope.

http://www.stooch.net/gallery/d/2285-1/test8.jpg

[helluvapixel]

The glass is far too reflective still. I suggest that you not see such a strong reflection of the filament to the inside of the glass.

Since most light energy is passing through (due to transparency) the glass is reflecting little back.

[ThomasHelzle]

Ah, much more interesting! ;-)

As for the reflection, I think it isn't that wrong when black is behind it. Glass with a black behind looks much more reflective than glass with white behind it. And because of the fresnel effect, at least the edges are quite reflective. Just the diffuse is a bit much IMO. Looks a bit like there is dust on the bulb :-)

The thing I find missing is some kind of environment or at least some material on the floor.
I think it could look cool to put some simple object like an upright cuboid partly behind the bulb.

Cheers,

[PaulNewman]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/SASHOF/bulb_c.png
640x480
render time = 18h 25m 40s
AA = Adaptive SS, Level 4, Threshold 0.005, Pattern Hammersley, Size 1.5
Ray Depth = 12
GI = Monte Carlo, Samples 5, Depth 1, Auto Reduction ON, Intensity 0.5
rendered with the help of TLHPro Easy Glass
HDR light probe from the Unparent Light Probe set - with permission from Keith Bruns at unparent.com (http://www.unparent.com/)
colour corrected using Digital Fusion (no effects added)

AA on the filaments and glass was very good IMO...
http://s3.amazonaws.com/SASHOF/bulb_b.png
300% pixel zoom of detail


The long render was frustrating. The first pass after an hour or 2 already looked good, but then the heavy AA just sucked all my machine's power for another 16 odd hours.

I don't think the wood texture map was of acceptable quality, showing some JPEG artifacts in the bump map.

I wanted to go for a sunny outdoors type scene. Sort of a bulb on a varnished table outside in the late afternoon.

Real bulbs have massive amounts of caustics streaming from imperfections in the glass when placed in direct sunlight. Of course my glass is CG, therefore perfect, hence no caustics :)

There's still much one can do to improve the image, including caustics...

[dobermunk]

Paul, this looks great! Digital wood? Hey, there's probably a species in Indonesia that does that ;-)
I think the glass looks too evenly dusty. If it were clearer with more direct incidence angle it would be more convincing imo

[PaulNewman]

Paul, this looks great! Digital wood? Hey, there's probably a species in Indonesia that does that ;-)
I think the glass looks too evenly dusty. If it were clearer with more direct incidence angle it would be more convincing imoThanks David. :) The even dustiness is the translucency thickness I set without setting translucency - Thomas' tip. I studied a lightbulb here and it was pretty much like that, although if it was driven by a fresnel node it would have been slightly more realistic. There's just so much you can observe in real life and try to transfer to 3D that I reckon this light bulb can easily keep a single person busy for a couple of years if you want to master it. Going for more stylized illustration images like the cover image and even stooch's renders allows way more freedom and is much more subjective.

I won't be posting more bulbs though, since my life's calling is not to master the 3D lightbulb, no matter how tempting that may be. Anyway, stooch seems to have taken on that role judging by how prolific he is with this. :thumbsup:

If I had to produce a 20 second animation sequence of my lightbulb doing something, I calculated that at this render time it would take 385 days to render on my machine. Now that right there is my final motivation to stop this challenge, even though no one even mentioned animation. :)

[dobermunk]

I calculated that it would take 385 days to render

LoL! I was afraid to admit that I lose patience with all these tests where you guys were bragging about 5 minute renders. I am definitely born for NPR!

[helluvapixel]

I am definitely born for NPR!

Give us one then.

[dobermunk]

Give us one then.
whippersnapper.

[PaulNewman]

whippersnapper.I've heard this NPR thing tossed around here for long now and still don't know what it is :shrug: Someone enlighten me? Pleeeeease?

[Suricate]

I've heard this NPR thing tossed around here for long now and still don't know what it is :shrug: Someone enlighten me? Pleeeeease?
NPR = non-photorealistic rendering :)

I found a nice quote in one book that deals with NPR: "Photorealism, like pornography, leaves nothing to the imagination."

So David, we are eagerly waiting for your NPR version of the light bulb... :eek:

[dobermunk]

http://www.the-book-of-worms.de/blog/pics/09_lightbulb.jpg
Rendertime 20sec. ;-)
btw: how did I get myself into this?

[PaulNewman]

NPR = non-photorealistic rendering :)

So David, we are eagerly waiting for your NPR version of the light bulb... :eek:Thanks! Yes, well, David should then show us how it's done, I suppose. This PR attempt of mine has frizzled me out and I need some NPR eye candy to relax again. And while you're at it, try for something with a 5min render time. I'm still shell shocked after that 18.5h render. :)

[ThomasHelzle]

David, that is looking very cool!

My favorite so far on this thread ;) :thumbsup:

May we ask for a shadertree or some hints at least?

Cheers!

[PaulNewman]

http://www.the-book-of-worms.de/blog/pics/09_lightbulb.jpg
Rendertime 20sec. ;-)
btw: how did I get myself into this?OK, now that's a respectable render time. Keep 'em coming, you're starting to warm up :thumbsup:

[dobermunk]

:-/ I wish this were done in messiah, I rendered in LW, using a sub-frame displacement synched to motion-blur AA passes. And one area light - ambient at 20% deep blue. I worked the technique out for my short film "Love.Leech.Tomato" - on which I'm progressing...
I'd tried to get this going in messiah, but ran into problems (ie sub-frame keys). Thomas, your post a while back had me thinking this might be dobale after all, but I couldn't get those results. I would LOVE to cut LW out of the pipeline - matching cameras and all that - but... can't get this to function.

@Paul - I am warming up! But mostly with rig / animation stuff. I'm discovering again. And have time to do so. What a feeling!

[ThomasHelzle]

Yeah, you can't do sub-frame-key-repeats in messiah, but when I need that, I normally set up an expression. What kind of keyframing do you need? Maybe I can help out?

Fine displacement with some fast animated AoN shaders should at least give you something similar?

If you repeat the same displacement-animation per frame, you should even be able to get rid of the flickering, or most of it...

Cheers!

[dobermunk]

Maybe I can help out?
If you're serious, I'll send you a scene. Another problem is that I control the amount with weight maps. I can get around this by hooking up metaeffectors though. me thinks...
If you repeat the same displacement-animation per frame, you should even be able to get rid of the flickering, or most of it...
Well, ideally, I could set it to a slider so that I could go from no jitter to freaky wild ;-)

[ThomasHelzle]

Yes, either metaeffectors and the weight shader multiplied with your strength, or you create an uv map and paint the weights on in ZBrush as a texture or something similar.
I personally don't like metaeffectors.
I wonder if we ever will see weightmaps in messiah?

I never tried that, but with the same displacement animation repeating on each frame, you should get the same pattern for each frame = no flickering. The more you make this discontinuous from frame to frame, the more flicker you will get. Should be easy to bind that amount to a slider...

I still don't fully understand what you are doing but I guess it should be doable in messiah too...

Is the noise post?

But the thing messiah is missing is an edges shader - I guess you use one in that rendering?

Cheers,

[dobermunk]

No post on that one. I did set this one to get an alpha, and adjusted the metal / glass with it. Remodeled a bit to get more of the look across in the geometry.

http://www.stickman.de/content/gallery/G_illu/pics/misc/lightbulb.jpg

Hey, you wanted xsi, right? Wanna barter ;-)

[ThomasHelzle]

hehehe - sure thing - "barter" sounds good if I understand it correctly :-)
I could even put a TLHPro License on top of that deal :thumbsup:

Maybe it is best if you send me that LW scene so I can see if I am able to reproduce it for you in messiah.

"barter" - learned something new today ;-)

Cheers,

[PaulNewman]

Looking good David! Is this still LW?

[dobermunk]

@Paul - yeah, LW. Thomas isn't THAT quick ;-)

[ThomasHelzle]

Careful - I'm already finished ;-)

http://www.screendream.de/stuff/NPR_Rabbit.jpg

("lapin rose decadant" by Christophe Desse!)

Cheers,

[stooch]

how the hell do you get 18 hour renders? lol, i have an FX-60 cpu and it renders in 12 minutes but its not exactly a rocket ship by todays standards.... although the AA could be better i admit.

[PaulNewman]

how the hell do you get 18 hour renders? lol, i have an FX-60 cpu and it renders in 12 minutes but its not exactly a rocket ship by todays standards.... although the AA could be better i admit.GI was used, and add to that a sphere light casting a softshadow at AA level 4, and obviously all the glass reflecting and refracting the GI and the soft shadows... this on a 2.8GHz P4.

[pnoland]

I need some help guys. I started to do some render tests on the bulb for our challenge in Messiah but I can't seem to get the shadows right. In this render I have a sphere light casting raytraced shadows with a quality of 5 and a spot light with the same shadow setting there is no shadow in the render.

http://team.subdivisionmodeling.com/pnoland/messiah/pics/bulb_test_1.jpg

When I switch the sphere light to shadowmaps the quality of the shadow looks like crap. I need some guidance with my shadow settings if you guys don't mind helping me out. :)

[PaulNewman]

I need some help guys. I started to do some render tests on the bulb for our challenge in Messiah but I can't seem to get the shadows right. In this render I have a sphere light casting raytraced shadows with a quality of 5 and a spot light with the same shadow setting there is no shadow in the render.Shadows are switched on, right? Why not post your scene so we can help.

[pnoland]

Here's my fxs scene file, I'm sure it's a stupid little mistake I'm making...that seems to be the trend for me. :D

http://team.subdivisionmodeling.com/pnoland/messiah/pics/bulb.zip

[PaulNewman]

Here's my fxs scene file, I'm sure it's a stupid little mistake I'm making...that seems to be the trend for me. :D

http://s3.amazonaws.com/SASHOF/pnoland_a.jpg

I loaded the scene, linked the missing object and light probe files with local versions I had and hit render. No problem with the shadow, except that it seems very jagged, but that may be what you're after? Is the above what you get when you render this file you posted?

[PaulNewman]

@ pnoland: I switched from shadowmap on your spherelight to raytrace and got the expected excellent results (dropping quality from 23 to 5). I can't imagine how a shadowmap on a spherelight can work, since it would spread / stretch the available resolution in the map in a spherical map and severely pixellate the shadow. Shadow maps work fine for spotlights with limited cone angles, unless you really pump up the map resolution or soften the map.

Can you get shadows to render at all yet?

[PaulNewman]

@ pnoland: What version of messiah are you running? Perhaps someone running m:studio 2.4d can also test this scene for you?

[Andreseloy]

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/7493/untitled2sk0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Andreseloy

[pnoland]

Thanks for the help guys, I havn't tested since I posted the file as I needed to sleep but I'm going to tinker with it this morning. Yes, I'm on 2.4d currently.

[pnoland]

Thanks again guys I think I've got it sorted out. In this version I added a little reflection to the floor material and got my bulb base to cast a soft subtle shadow.

http://team.subdivisionmodeling.com/pnoland/messiah/pics/bulb_test_2.jpg

Also, I got rid of the spot light (not sure why I had it to begin with) and have a combo of sphere lights for this scene with the GI settings. Might try caustics next...

[chikega]

After chatting with Patrick about caustics, I had to give it a go. Here's my first attempt. I'm using EasyGlass pretty much at it's default setting. I'm concentrating mainly on getting fairly believable caustics this go around. :)

http://www.3ddmd.com/images/Messiah/BulbCaustic.jpg

[Andreseloy]

Im very far(still) to those beutiful renders here!
Congratulations for this one
Andreseloy

[pnoland]

Very nice Gary, I'm going to work on the caustics some today. Yours turned out very cool.

[numberEleven]

Wow. Thats pretty chikega! I like the subtle blue-purplish hues.

[ThomasHelzle]

Very nice Gary!

Did anyone try to switch the bulb ON with a volumetric light?
Would be interesting to see if messiah is able to do this in a believable way.

Cheers,

[rush123]

I thought I’d throw my work in progress bulb into the ring, especially after Thomas’ challenge, on trying to ‘switch the bulb on’. This is my first render of this bulb, still a long way to go, I’m working inside out.

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/1095/lightbulbbase01qx7.th.jpg (http://img413.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lightbulbbase01qx7.jpg)

Some details so far, easy glass for the glass parts, filament is via volumetric particles, and the rest is standard shader nodes.

Size 640 x 480
Ray Depth 6
GI samples 6
Adaptive SS level 8 (probably too high)
Render time 20:26

R

[ThomasHelzle]

Superb idea with the particles for Glow! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Did you try a volumetric light?

I really look forward to your progress.

Best regards,

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