PDA

View Full Version : spotlight cone on black surface?

Soulcialism
07-10-2003, 09:56 PM
since lwg is down i have to ask all my newbie questions here, sorry for demeaning anyone for reading this...

i'm trying to get a spotlight to show on a black single plane big surface, just like a flat poly, with the light shining on it, so that it's accented and the cone is visible on the surface, but i can't do it with a black surface and i was wondering if anyone has any idea how to go about doing such a thing. it works with other colored surfaces (as long as diffuse is at 100%), it's affecting the diffuse channel, but for the black surface no type of light effect is visible. do i have to bake the light onto it? is there something else i need to do?

thanks
Maxx
07-10-2003, 10:21 PM
I think the problem is that the color can't be pure black - try a slight offset, like RGB 2,2,2. If I'm not mistaken, this should clear up the problem - LW is rendering right now or I'd test it out for ya'.
richpr
07-10-2003, 11:01 PM
I used 32,32,32 and a volumetric light just to show the spot... 100% intensity for the light here... lower values of black work... the cone/circle just gets darker and darker
particle
07-11-2003, 12:24 AM
Maxx and richpr are right. Nothing in the real world is truely black, well black holes are. The black surface you made in lightwave will absorb all the light that hits it and nothing will bounce back to the camera. Just make it very dark grey and it will work wonderfully. Good luck.
particle
07-11-2003, 12:29 AM
I just thought of something else similar to this. Not much in the real world is truely white either. Almost all surfaces will absorb some fraction of incoming light. So when making white things, try to avoid pure white. There was a news article on slashdot, Blacker than Black, a while ago about the darkest material on earth. Even it reflected 0.35% of incoming light. An average black paint is about 2.5%. That puts the lightwave settings about 7,7,7, but higher might look a little better.
CGTalk Moderation
01-15-2006, 02:00 PM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.