topic Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks... in Visualization

Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Karl Ottenstein — Thu, 11 May 2023 10:40:47 GMT

Mark B's C4D thread was getting cluttered with LW issues, so I thought I should start a new one to talk about LW issues in general as we all get used to the new functionality. Hopefully, Dwight will share more of his tips and images here! 😉

My minor frustration of the day involves the SunObject and SkyObject lamps, as I'm setting up a new project template for 9.0.

You place one of each of these in your project - location doesn't matter- to get a multi-light sun, for soft shadows, and a multi-light sky dome, for a nice ambient effect. The params let you control the number of lights, etc. Then, you UNcheck "Sun" and "Ambient" in the LW photorendering settings, so that these lights will be used instead.

Here's the rub: If I place the SunObject and SkyObject off to the side of my printable area (they can go anywhere, but figure out where to cast the light) ... then when in the 3D window, when I zoom extents, the location of these lamps is included in the extents (even though they are invisible), and the model is too small. Solution: put the lamps into a layer that only shows up in 3D visualization layer combos, and place the lamps within the model area. Now they don't interfere with plan views, and don't mess up 3D extents either.

Well, one down. Here's the more unfortunate things about using these 'lamps'. When using "Sun" and "Ambient", harsh as they are, they are always ON, regardless of layer or selection settings.

But, if using this LW methodology with sun and ambient off, if you select just some elements, or perhaps a floor, or perhaps display everything visible (but happen to have the LW lamp layer off) ... then you're in the dark. These lamps have to be on a visible layer, and part of the selection set to produce light. Kind of obvious when you think about it...they are lamp objects after all, but not that obvious when you're used to the old 'sun/ambient' behavior.

I frequently render marqueed areas of a building for example. Can't do this with these LW lamps, unless I move them into the marquee.

Am I missing something, or will I have to just keep turning 'sun/ambient' on and off depending on what I'm rendering? On the plus side, the values of these checkmarks are saved as part of a view.

Looking forward to stories of other people's experiences as you dig into LW. 😉

Karl

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:38:06 GMT

Actually you started the C4D thread Karl, I just got heavy handed.

Anyway...

If only I had read your last post before I tried to use the LightWorks rendering engine.

Dwight Atkinson's apartment model exported to C4D. Initial light and texture setup by Jesper Lund, messed with further by Mark B.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 01:21:27 GMT

Burginger wrote:
If only I had read your last post before I tried to use the LightWorks rendering engine. I could have saved the cat, which I kicked out of the window in frustration.

I hope your cat has some of his/her 9 lives left and is back on your lap, casting soft shadows.

Karl

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Dwight — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 04:53:55 GMT

Actually getting some decent results. For more speed in the flythru have reduced anti-aliasing one notch - not perfect but acceptable.

Using cyclorama background for panoramic city image - new LightWorks material definition "constant" defies shadows and highlights - perfect for a wrap-around background.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Dwight — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 07:53:04 GMT

get yellow sunlite in there and bobsyeruncle.

Mauve windo lite against ceiling for soft glow.

This is easy to do in Lightworks. Only took all evening to tweak it.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Dwight — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 08:35:01 GMT

Yeah. That will be a big step. I wonder why it is taking so long. Probably having trouble with the localization. There are so few people who can translate from English to Strine.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Karl Ottenstein — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 17:32:46 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Actually getting some decent results. For more speed in the flythru have reduced anti-aliasing one notch - not perfect but acceptable.

Looking AMAZING, Dwight! I'm impressed with the level of detail and entourage that you've modeled in the scenes you shared ... and thus must be throughout this project for the flythru. What a lot of work!

As you've no doubt seen with watching the movie, vs looking at the stills, there is a psychological trade-off between resolution and motion. (As long as you don't have vibrating 'fringing' happening!) I can't recall who did the study and made the remark over 30 years ago when raster devices began to be used for computer graphics ... but they tested people's spatial perception and found that a low-res image that was moving conveyed the same spatial sense as a high-res still; similar relationships discovered between color depth - low color depth motion allowed the same perception as a high color-depth still. (Depends on speed of motion I suppose. A shoot-em-up game moving at the speed of light hardly needs perfect textures, but an adventure game does.)

Please keep sharing! I hope that after your project deadline you can submit some high res images from this home to the GS render contest and share here, too.

This is easy to do in Lightworks. Only took all evening to tweak it.

Karl

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 14:57:32 GMT

Karl wrote:
But, if using this LW methodology with sun and ambient off, if you select just some elements, or perhaps a floor, or perhaps display everything visible (but happen to have the LW lamp layer off) ... then you're in the dark. These lamps have to be on a visible layer, and part of the selection set to produce light. Kind of obvious when you think about it...they are lamp objects after all, but not that obvious when you're used to the old 'sun/ambient' behavior.

I frequently render marqueed areas of a building for example. Can't do this with these LW lamps, unless I move them into the marquee.

Am I missing something, or will I have to just keep turning 'sun/ambient' on and off depending on what I'm rendering? On the plus side, the values of these checkmarks are saved as part of a view.

Looking forward to stories of other people's experiences as you dig into LW. 😉

Karl

If you make these lamp objects visible on all stories, that gets you a bit closer to the ideal

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Dwight — Tue, 02 Nov 2004 15:17:29 GMT

Lifesaver Tip of the Century to Laszlo:

I rarely work with stories [storeys] but it is easy to imagine the frustration of having no light when initiating a rendering from an upper story without a light object ..... hope it is not the fifth floor because if you can't figure this problem out, you would want to jump!

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

__archiben — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 03:00:22 GMT

laszlonagy wrote:
If you make these lamp objects visible on all stories, that gets you a bit closer to the ideal

thank you! and so simple too!

another 'tip of the month' award to mr nagy?

~/archiben

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Dwight — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 03:14:18 GMT

But not really a "tip."

We should establish a new category for things that keep you out of disaster rather than mere productivity tricks.

More like an "Almost, but not quite obvious catastrophic duffus trap neatly avoided" of-the-Month.

There's other awards we should notice including Whiner-of-the-month. Instead of a sun chair or T-shirt, this award comes with a roll of duct tape.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 03:20:53 GMT

~/archiben wrote:
another 'tip of the month' award to mr nagy?

No slight to the most-helpful Laci! But, this doesn't really help with most of the issues in my post. This helps with one situation: select-all on a single story ... and even then, it requires that you turn on the layer that contains the lamps...which must reside within the model boundary box (or very close to it) to keep zoom extents working properly in the 3D window (if not in a perspective view).

It is helpful though, I agree! 😉

Karl

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Laszlo Nagy — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:34:17 GMT

Thanks guys. This tells me one should always write down these ideas because you can never know who you can help with it.

I was thinking about Karl's (and probably others') problem a bit more.
Here is a not so dreadful workaround.

1. Place the SkyObject on the ArchiCAD layer. Define pen 91 for its color, plus Send it to the back so it won't cause trouble in your views and when printing. Show it on all layers. This way you will always have the 'invisible' SkyObject available for you.

Now, the next problem is to know if the SkyObject is included in the Marquee when you want to generate a 3D View.

2. For this, Save a Criterion in the Find & Select dialog as show in the first attached image. It will find the Sky Object for you.
Then zoom to show all. Place the Marquee. Go to Find & Select. Load the Find SkyObject criterion. Find the SkyObject and move it within the Marquee as needed.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Laszlo Nagy — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 11:35:13 GMT

2nd screen capture to my previous post.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 20:12:09 GMT

laszlonagy wrote:
Here is a not so dreadful workaround.

1. Place the SkyObject on the ArchiCAD layer. Define pen 91 for its color, plus Send it to the back so it won't cause trouble in your views and when printing. Show it on all stories. This way you will always have the 'invisible' SkyObject available for you.

Now, the next problem is to know if the SkyObject is included in the Marquee when you want to generate a 3D View.

2. For this, Save a Criterion in the Find & Select dialog as show in the first attached image. It will find the Sky Object for you.
Then zoom to show all. Place the Marquee. Go to Find & Select. Load the Find SkyObject criterion. Find the SkyObject and move it within the Marquee as needed.

Not so dreadful at all!

OK, now I agree with my colleagues: this workaround should be a Tip or on ArchiGuide! 😉

Thanks!
Karl

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

__archiben — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 04:14:51 GMT

Karl wrote:
OK, now I agree with my colleagues: this workaround should be a Tip or on ArchiGuide!

but it would still be preferable in the long run if the sun object was integrated with archiCAD's own sun, and the sky object with archiCAD's ambient controls.

~/archiben

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Dwight — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 05:02:37 GMT

And as we hope that ArchCAD might someday have its lighting/imaging scheme rewritten for radiosity, these cheap draftsman's workarounds [sky and sun "objects"] will become integrated as Lightworks has implemented in OTHER SOFTWARE products.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Aussie John — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 08:51:14 GMT

excellent renderings Dwight, these are done straight out of Archicad (via LW)? still waiting for v9 to find out

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Dwight — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 09:21:52 GMT

Nothing is straight out. Always a touch of ye olde Photoshoppe.

For instance - to make a 360 pixel image have the presence of a 720 pixel image, a tool called "Focus Magic" smooths pixels. This is really good for batch processing images for animations.

The two-part image below is a 500 pixel image upped to 720 compared to a 360 pixel image boosted to 720 and filtered with focus magic. After animation compression, the coarser image is livlier.

Any still needs a bit of the old dodgeandburn to focus the eye centrally and away from edges.

Think like a photographer.

Re: Working with LightWorks - Questions, Tips, Tricks...

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 19:01:33 GMT

why is my ceiling always black???

why can't the sun and ambient factor turn it coloured like wals??

any help?