CGTalk - HELP! creating TV light

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uhuru

01-26-2003, 07:42 AM

I am trying to do a simple lighting effect, but am having so much trouble! All i want to do is light a scene where a guy is sitting in a pretty dark room watching the television. I want the television light to be the main light source, and I want it to light the room pretty much how a tv would do so in real life. If anyone could give me a few tips, I would GREATLY appreciate it! Thanks!

uhuru

mattwood

01-26-2003, 11:15 AM

If the screen of the TV isn't visible then create an omni light with a bluish tint. Give it very soft dmap shadows and put a fairly gentle but random animation on the intensity and colour. At random intervals (1-2 seconds apart) put sudden jumps in the intesity of the light to suggest camera cuts.

If the screen is visible and you're using a sequence of images on the screen then there's another trick that works. Load up the sequence into After Effects, blur it so much that it's almost a flat colour, then save it out as a new sequence of very small images (8x8 pixels will do). Now map that sequence to the colour of your light.

tuna

01-26-2003, 12:46 PM

make an arealight on the screen of the TV (the exact same size) apply whatever map is on the TV screen to be the colour of the arealight.

bingo

uhuru

01-26-2003, 02:46 PM

Thanks guys, i found the area light to be very helpful for what i'm trying to accomplish. The TV screen is not going to be visible so i just needed to place an area light on the TV scaled to the size of the screen. Thanks!

ONE MORE QUESTION:
The only problem i have now is that the area light is casting shadows way too hard and black. How do you soften the shadows a light casts?

uhuru

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