topic Re: LightWorks "glow" parameters in Libraries & objects

LightWorks "glow" parameters

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:46:03 GMT

Does anyone know what the "Glow" parameters are for the LightWorks transparency shader in AC 9? They have it commented but don't list the parameters anywhere else that I can find. I've tried guessing based on the little info in the comments and have had no luck.

Thanks

Re: LightWorks "glow" parameters

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 02:25:52 GMT

I would guess it is a parameter for one of the global illumination solutions that is not licensed by Graphisoft. No LW shaders in the version in ArchiCAD can emit light. The closest you can come is to use a constant shader to have a surface always be bright and then to place some lights near it to illuminate nearby objects to fake neon/etc.

AC 9. Really?

Cheers,
Karl

Re: LightWorks "glow" parameters

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 20:15:04 GMT

Thanks Karl,

It's a transparency shader intended to fake the look of light emission around a "light source". In other words it is the light "emission". I did figure them out although the results aren't quite what I was hoping for as it looks too solid and seems to reflect exterior light sources as well. I was hoping for a soft erosion from the center out. The problem I had originally was that I didn't have the TR prefix and was just using LWA_glow_...

LWA_transparency = "LWA_TRglow",
LWA_TRglow_centrecoverage = cntrcvrg,
LWA_TRglow_edgecoverage = dgcvrg,
LWA_TRglow_zeroangle = zrngl,
LWA_TRglow_edgefalloff = dgfllff,
LWA_TRglow_noisedensity = nsdnst,
LWA_TRglow_detail = dtl,
LWA_TRglow_scale = scl

Yes, AC9, really. For the most part I am retired and the few clients that I do anything for are primarily one-off manufacturers so I'd be better off using something different anyway as dxf and dwg are what they really need/want the most. There is nothing that I haven't been able to accurately model with AC and find for the most part I'm often just rehashing things I created in AC 6.5 and when it comes to manufacturing or actually building something nothing is "freeform" for me as I have to do the math so It can get built anyway.

Re: LightWorks "glow" parameters

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 20:25:18 GMT

H Jeffrey,

Interesting!

You like using the 'window light' LW lamp object in the AC 9 library for the kind of glow you described. It casts a soft glow on objects around it. If you need the glowing surface to appear to be bright/emissive, use a constant shader or one of those you discovered on that surface - but just place a window light object in front of it to generate the soft light onto surrounding surfaces. Trial and error with the parameters for that object - better results with more lights in the matrix, but slower render times... as I recall... been a while...

Cheers,
Karl

Re: LightWorks "glow" parameters

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:25:41 GMT

Thanks again Karl,

Had to move on for a bit and then ended up with no power for the better part of the week due to the storm we had last Sat.

I am familiar with the window light but I was hoping to make the light source glow and not necessarily the objects around it.

From the LW parameters ref:
"Synopsis Transparency shader which can be used to create effect of a region of glow surrounding a light source."

The lights are their product and for rendering there is no sun in use. Whoever usually does their rendering uses C4D and the results they are getting with the lights according to AC are not what they were/are hoping for so they were hoping I'd be able to do it within AC.