window lights in cityscapes enviroments

[soulburn3d]

Well, it really depends what you want. Is this a daytime shot? Will you need to see in the building? Will you want to see lights in some of the windows because it's a night shot? Most of those buildings you're talking about are almost completely reflective, and sometimes those windows in cg are treated more like reflective chrome than transparent windows to cut down on visual clutter. If you can provide more info on what sort of result you're after, maybe a picture of a real building, I'm sure we can help.

- Neil

[chanizz]

well, its a evening scene, like this one
http://k41.pbase.com/g4/95/402795/2/63931056.OOgmJsYy.jpg
Perhaps a bit darker, the thing is that its supposed to be both emitting light at the same time that it's reflecting, but perhaps thats too cluttery like you say.

All i really want is some windows in a not too overly lit scene that also indicates that the building is inhabited.

thx

[soulburn3d]

Well, assuming you're going to be pretty far away from the building, you can probably get away with a texturemap for the lights in the building. What 3d software and renderer will you be using? I would paint a map with little boxes for each window, and then place a random color in each window, many should be black, some should be white or a bright color, some in between (the color depends on what sort of building it is, residential will tend to have yellowish glows, office buildings will tend to be greener). Then use this bitmap as a glow/self illumination map (the name of the map changes depending on which 3d software you're using). If you're using 3dsmax, they also have a procedural brick map that you can setup to create windows with a random color, which is faster than painting it yourself. Then make the surface of the windows slightly reflective, and you should be good to go.

http://www.zgodzinski.com/galeria/i/warsaw2002/images/Warszawa-Warsaw-Financial-Center.jpg

- Neil

[tillaart36]

Not sure if you want to add variety in lighted rooms/windows and unlighted but here's a nice tut on how to do such:

http://www.pixelab.be/blog/2007/10/16/tutorial-random-object-visibility-in-3dsmax-with-materialbyelement-opacity/

[copain]

here is another tut you might want to take a look at

http://vyonyx.com/?p=1652#more-1652

[chanizz]

Hi again and sorry for not replying sooner, i've been swamped with school and personal projects have been low priority.

Great tips and links, thx a lot, hopefully i can show of some of what i've learned... providing i ever get the time...

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