object lights

#155

first of all: I hope francesca, you agree to this share of knowledge and correct any “unsophisticated” statements… if u dont want it, just a word and I remove all the stuff from here. but some guyz (includeing me) asked for, so…

This is a basic setup. just to get the shader running. nothing about “color per vertex - cpv part” or anything else… its all fairly good described by francesca here in this thread.

here we go:

1) a basic scene includes at least

a) a dummy geometry (in my case the red box) - "carrier" for the ctrl_objectlights geometry shader

b) a light - in maya 8 an area light (gives a good result) - in my case a sphere area light. leave it at the origin. if u create more lights for that network - leave them all at the origin.
c) a geometry thats acutally our light source - I used a subD funky thing…
d) a backround geometry or what ever. u should c something that gets affected by the light

GIVE all those parts a proper name! (e.g. in outliner...)

[img]http://www.vrankovina.com/forum/basic.jpg[/img]
  1. Hypershade

go to the mental ray tab and look for these 2 shaders

a) mental ray lights -> ctrl_geocolor
b) geometry -> ctrl_objectslights

just click them (LMB) and u should find them again under the “Utilities” tab

  1. Attach the geometry shader to the “carrier” geometry… I called it dummy - as francesca did in the file included in the package

a) choose the dummy and open the attribute editor. go to the first tab, wher u’ll find the transform node name. (attribute editor opens with the “shape” node by default…)
b) go to the mentalray part and open the geometry shader.
c) ctrl_objectlights MMB and drag it from the hypershade over the geometry shader slot (the slot should get dashed frame) - release. u have connected the geometry shader to the dummy.

  1. Attach the light shader to the area light

a) choose the light and open the attribute editor. go to the second “shape” tab (opens by default)
b) go to the mentalray part, check “light shape” and give it some shape. I used sphere, but I guess it doesn’t really matter which one is chosen. for the samples value I just typed some nuber that gives me enough samples for sure - I’m certain, that can be optimized :wink:
c) go to the custom shader part and open it. check “suppress all maya shaders (I guess this isnt a must…)”
d) MMB and drag the ctrl_geocolor shader over the light shader slot… - u have connected the light shader to the light.

  1. ctrl_objectlight setup

a) click the dummy. in the attribute editor go to the ctrl_objectlight tab. in the transform slot u shoud type the name of the transform node of your “light source” - u already know where u can find it :wink:
b) in the light slot u should insert the name of the light SHAPE node (yourlightShape)

  1. ctrl_geocolor setup

this is the part where your fantasy should get wings… those are the main light controls…
just play with them…

soft light: color - well thats obvious. intensity - this is a co-player with the attenuation part… if u set it to linear or exponential or physical u should set here a fairly high value…

shadows - just check it out.

attenuation - if u know a basic light setup - this is all common

all other stuff is not an issue right now.

  1. set your render settings to preview and render…

u should get something like this

goooood luck

#156

Can I use ctrl_objectlights for Maya 8?? If I can use, how can I set up it?? Please help.

Thank you very much ^^

#157

o.v.
thanck thanck thanvck you :applause: :applause: :applause:
Giap look at o.v. last post that is the anser for you
i~ll try and come back :thumbsup:

#158

hi o.v.

thanks alot for your small tutorial! It really helped me, because I realized that I didnt made anything wrong! My light setup was all the same as yours, mine just didnt want to render! So I checked my *.mi and *.dll files, replaced them with other ones (I dont know about you, but when I open the *.zip file from the first page, its full of the same files with different sizes!) and BOOM, it works now! I always thought I do something wrong at the setup stage!

So, thanks again! Now it works, and thats gooood! :thumbsup:

Greetz

#159

Well done OV

thanks
r.

#160

please excuse my ignorance;
but how do you create a sphere area light…?

thanx for helping me trying to catch up with you front runners

yours
Steef

#161

hi steef,

you have to create a normal area light, under the mental ray tab of that area light, you have to enable “Use Light Shape” and under the dropdown list of “Type” you can choose “Sphere”! Thats about it! But for o.vs. tutorial to work, you dont have to use a sphere area light, as long as it is an area light enabled in the mental ray section of the light!

Hope this helps :thumbsup:

#162

Thanx Visor,

i finally got it.

I do have a follow up question though…

Is it also possible to have several sourcelights with the same presets…?
Thus controlling them all at the same time…

I’m trying to make a cassette ceiling for a club that we are designing,
and the internal part of all cassettes have to emit light,
before i used all area lights and incandescense,
but using 195 area lights with full detail furniture underneath made
my laptop go ballistic

i’m trying to find a sollution seing i need to make an animation…

if anybody has any suggestions i would be highly thankfull

thanx
Steef

#163

yes u can… i has to be one geometry…

so if u have lets say 20 or 2000 :smiley: geometry objects, that should emit light do it as followed:

  1. select all objects (geometry) - make them polys (if they are something other…)

  2. go to mesh (maya 8) or polygon (maya 7) -> combine

and NAME the new node!!! u’ll need the transform node name for futher usage

#164

Hello!

Are there any news about that?
I am asking because I spent some time now trying to get this to work in Maya8, but failing after making ambitious efforts (I think).
Setting up the scene with the Maya AreaLight is leading to very strange effects in rendering like objects lighting the scene that are not connected to the geoShader.
And as already pointed out, setup with a pointLight works fine, but is missing the tab with the mrAreaLight Settings.
Anybody with a clue?
Regards,
Nando.

#165

hey nando,

I couldnt get “normal” results with the areaLight either. The only way I could make it really work was by using a spotlight turned to an arealight. If you havent tried this yet, have a look. If it doesnt work for you, I could prepare a scene for you!

Just let me know, hope this helps.

Greetz
Pascal

#166

Yeah, I did tests with spotLights too, but results were dependent on how the spot was orientated which isn’t really suprising, right? Playing around, I even tried to manipulate the spot with a mrPointLightShader, leading nowhere, unfortunately.
I was thinking of adding back the mr_AreaLight Attrs to the pointLightShape, since “… Any of the standard spot and point lights can be turned into an area light source…” (mr Docs). But I didn’t further investigate this yet, perhaps someone of you tried?
Any hints welcome.
nando.

#167

Adding back the mrAreaLight Attrs to the pointLight works. You could set the AreaLight Attrs and they get translated to MR as expected - also the whole objectLight Idea behaves fine. [b]

BUT[/b]!!! It’s a really really dirty hack - of course, at least by only copying the Maya7 “AEmentalrayPointLight.mel” into the Maya8 User Script Dir. You would have to connect a mrLightShader too for this to work (like mrpointLight or geoLight etc) else you would get an error message saying “the areaLight attribute on point lights is obsolete” … yesss, I know!

sofar, nando.

#168

hi,
i’ve a problem…when i use th ctrl_objectlights in maya8.5 everything works becuse the object emits light but is not illuminated…
can anybody help me??

Thank you

#169

Sbalordito,

Im having the same problem in 8.5. (Object light remains black) Did you manage to get it working? Or has anyone else had any luck with it?

Thanks in advance.

#170

Just give it a white surfaceshader so it gets illuminated whatever happens.

#171

Of course, why didnt i think of that.

Thanks.

:slight_smile:

#172

Did this cool shader ever make its way over to macMaya on OSX?

#173

Hi everybody i just found this thread and im really interested im trying to getr accurate neon lights … i wonder if i can use this with renderman for maya or render in mental ray and composite back ?

it looks great ill check the thread for info thank u

#174

Arian,

My guess is the files for this shader are compiled for pc not osx so unless you get a mac or maybe linux complie i dont think it will work completely. I’ve tried to get a couple of Ctrl shaders to work on my mac at work and havent had any luck.

I think the mac is expecting a .so shader library file.

Works on my pc at home though.