Turning the Lights on in the Suburban yards


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By Telek - 17 Years Ago

Hi

I am trying to put togethier a long shot using a couple of the yards from the suburban pack.

To make it a bit more challenging (best way to learn I always find :) ) I thought Id make it more of a night time shot. And thats where Ive hit problems. I hadnt realised that there was a limited number of lights, but I want to "turn on" the street lights in the park so that I can have an avatar walk around the park. Passing between the pools of light.

I was hoping someone might have some hints to start me in the right direction?

Thanks
Richard
By sjonesdc - 17 Years Ago
ric.revans (11/15/2009)

Hi

I am trying to put togethier a long shot using a couple of the yards from the suburban pack.

To make it a bit more challenging (best way to learn I always find :) ) I thought Id make it more of a night time shot. And thats where Ive hit problems. I hadnt realised that there was a limited number of lights, but I want to "turn on" the street lights in the park so that I can have an avatar walk around the park. Passing between the pools of light.

I was hoping someone might have some hints to start me in the right direction?

Thanks
Richard

Richard,

I'm a newbie too!  I don't know if this is the best way, but you can add lights,make them spotlights and position them at the top of the street lights.  Just a thought

sjonesdc :hehe:

STILL LEARNING!!!

By Telek - 17 Years Ago


That was my first thought, and then I learnt a surprising thing I didnt know. iClone is limited to the number of lights you can have. Its 4 Point lights and 4 directional/spot lights which isnt quite enough for what I want to do :( which is why I was wandering if there was another way or should I rethink the original idea

Thanks though, and please let me know if Ive misread that.
By Cricky - 17 Years Ago
ric.revans (11/15/2009)

Hi

I am trying to put togethier a long shot using a couple of the yards from the suburban pack.

To make it a bit more challenging (best way to learn I always find :) ) I thought Id make it more of a night time shot. And thats where Ive hit problems. I hadnt realised that there was a limited number of lights, but I want to "turn on" the street lights in the park so that I can have an avatar walk around the park. Passing between the pools of light.

I was hoping someone might have some hints to start me in the right direction?

Thanks
Richard


Change the Opacity of the Existing Lamps (Standard14) to Black, then Insert the Streetlamps from the Props in City Elements (Things on the Street) to the scene. These lights have AML on/off switches.
By sjonesdc - 17 Years Ago
Cricky (11/15/2009)
ric.revans (11/15/2009)

Hi

I am trying to put togethier a long shot using a couple of the yards from the suburban pack.

To make it a bit more challenging (best way to learn I always find :) ) I thought Id make it more of a night time shot. And thats where Ive hit problems. I hadnt realised that there was a limited number of lights, but I want to "turn on" the street lights in the park so that I can have an avatar walk around the park. Passing between the pools of light.

I was hoping someone might have some hints to start me in the right direction?

Thanks
Richard


Change the Opacity of the Existing Lamps (Standard14) to Black, then Insert the Streetlamps from the Props in City Elements (Things on the Street) to the scene. These lights have AML on/off switches.



This is nice to know, since I have City Elements (Things on the Street).

Thanks Cricky!!

sjonesdc :hehe:

STILL LEARNING!!!!

By stuckon3d - 17 Years Ago
Hello Ric and Sjonesdc,
I see Cricky already jumped in with a really good suggestion, another option is if you don't have the iprop he mentioned, is adding a "glow map" to the lamps in the park to simulate lighting, and instead of using one of iclones lights per post, you can use one light per group of lights. So that you can strategically place the four lights that actually cast shadows only on the path where your characters are going to walk by or going to be. Please be note that the light props that cricky is mentioning are not actual light sources. They are props using glow maps that turn the brightness of the glow up and down for you via AML script. Also i believe that those lights come with the city elements-Downtown metro areas and not with the city elements suburbs pack, which I believe that was the pack Ric was talking about. So how do you add a glow map, here is what you do:

Here is how you create a glow map for the lamp post:
1) select the park
2) press the y key to go to materials part of the panel, I know you both know this from the class ;)
3) click on the little eyedropper and select the lamp pots. this will show you the diffuse map for it
4) click the launch button so that it starts your favorite paint program.
5) inside the paint program, paint everything black except the bright area of the texture where the actual lamp would be. So all you see is that bright rectangle.
6) save the image with a different name. Like: Park01_06_Glow
7) go back to iclone and double click on the glow square and load the image you just saved
8) play with the strength of the glow to get the effect you are looking for.

This is how I did this image:



Hope this helped.

Stuckon3d
By safegaard - 17 Years Ago
Wow. Thanks to both. This was good tips. And yes, hotkeys rock-:)
By rgathje - 17 Years Ago
  I was playing around with lighting too. You helped a lot. Thank you.
By Telek - 17 Years Ago

Wow thanks for that guys.
Going to be long afternoon now before i get home and give that a try.
By the way Stuckon3D, the ibl method of ambient lighting and changing the shadow type made one hell of a difference :D

Thanks
R
By Flybynight - 17 Years Ago
Great tips Cricky and Stuckon3d. Will have try these :w00t:
By sjonesdc - 17 Years Ago
Thanks stuckon3d.

SO MUCH TO LEARN THAT MY HEAD STARTS TO HURT !!!!

sjonesdc

By stuckon3d - 17 Years Ago
sjonesdc (11/16/2009)
Thanks stuckon3d.

SO MUCH TO LEARN THAT MY HEAD STARTS TO HURT !!!!

sjonesdc


Heh heh, well you better get some more tylenol because this is just scratching the surface. Pon intended. :)
I dont know if you noticed the lights on, in the building on the background, that was using the glow maps as well as other types of mapping techniques. All of these "ancient secrets" will be revealed on the texturing class on Saturday, December 12th @ 10:30 AM. ;)
I know when i say that people shoud take all the classes im offering, it may sound a little self serving but, if you take the classes you will see how interdependent knowing the GUI is to modeling, modeling is to texturing, and texturing is to lighting, and lighting is to animation. That i feel that anyone that jumps in into a single class, like lighting for example, they might feel lost because the missed so much from the previous classes. All my classes build upon each other, so that by the end of all the courses, you will have a very, very strong solid foundation to make your vision come to life. ;)
By Emerald Animation (formerly reelcheapfilms) - 15 Years Ago
Here's a quick something I just came up with off the top of my head.  I have not done a "proof of concept" yet, so you may need to experiment.

If I understand correctly, you want to have something like a row of 8 lampposts, with your character walking under each one in turn and thus passing from light to darkness.

Here's what I would do -- come up with settings for the spotlight you want on the first lamppost, position it properly and have it pointing straight down.  Take a good look at the circle of light it casts on the ground.

Now the hard part -- create a cylinder with a radius equal to the radius of the lamppost's circle of light, and miminal height (like 0.01) then tweak the texture channels (mostly glow) until it resembles the lamppost circle of light as much as possible.  Save that cylinder as a custom prop.

Back to the easy but tedious part -- set up your row of lampposts, the first and second with the spotlight (we'll call them Spotlight A and Spotlight B), but the rest with your new custom cylinder taking the place of the circle of light.  The row will then look like this:

A B C C C C C C (where A means Spotlight A is on that lamppost, B means Spotlight B, and C means you are using your custom glowing cylinder prop)

Have your character walk along the length of the row of lampposts.  Now, go back to the beginning of your animation and step through it slowly.  Watch for the frame when your character is no longer affected by Spotlight A on the first lamppost, open up your timeline, and set a keyframe in the transform channel of both Spotlight A and the cylinder you placed under the *third* lamppost.  Advance exactly one frame, then move the cylinder out from under the third lamppost and position it so it aligns as closely as possible to the circle of light thrown by Spotlight A.  Then move Spotlight A to an appropriate spot on the third lamppost -- you may need to move forward and back one frame to make sure that the circle of light thrown by Spotlight A falls as closely as possible to the place where the cylinder formerly was.  So now your row of lampposts looks like this:

C B A C C C C C

Now, advance your animation forward until your character is no longer affected by Spotlight B under the second lamppost, then repeat the above process with Spotlight B and the cylinder under the *fourth* lamppost.  Your row will then look like this:

C C A B C C C C

Keep repeating this process until your character has passed under the last lamppost.

I think I may try coming up with a demo video tonight. 

By animagic - 15 Years Ago
@grc: don't be discouraged... I look forward to your video!
By mark - 15 Years Ago
And I can't wait to see sw000p's animation!!!!
By Emerald Animation (formerly reelcheapfilms) - 15 Years Ago
Thanks, I'm not discouraged at all, though I will admit I didn't understand half of the things sw00000p was referring to.  What is the "SoldRocks" tab?