topic Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks in Visualization

Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 10:39:37 GMT

I am running a night time rendering using the Lightworks' engine and am having trouble getting lights to work.

I have searched through a number of threads with very good tips (dwight of course) which was helpful but nothing regarding lights not working.

They are turned on on the object itself, I have varied the intensities and on rendering, the 'lamps' are turned on but still I get but a faint glow from the lights.

the particular lights I was using was the 'runway lights' from the lampworld library, when this didn't work I thought I would put down a 'general light source' and still no light.

Can anyone shed some LIGHT on this problem, am I going mad or have I just forgotten to do something basic?

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 16:38:51 GMT

With further investigation I ought to explain what I am trying to achieve.

I am trying to light up a 'glass entrance canopy' to a very dull building (it already exist by the way) and the canopy plus lighting at night is to give the entrance a 'presence' so people actually notice it!

What I have discovered is that because there is not much to light up Mainly glass structure with only one support) very little shows. In reality if you shine a big light up into the sky you WILL see the beam of light especially when it is dark. Given the same scenario in Lightworks this does not happen using object EX-08 from Lampworld.

Is the answer to actually make the glass canopy as a light so it radiates light itself or is there another answer?

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:15:37 GMT

- you must use lamps from the ArchiCAD library for LightWorks effects.

- try making the glass canopy less transparent - think birdpoop and dust.

- think like a photographer would - add some uplighting using the WindowLight rotated to shine upwards into the translucent canopy.

post your image and the plan.....

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:18:54 GMT

better yet, send me the file and I'll solve it - add it as an article into the book....

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Karl Ottenstein — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 23:10:41 GMT

Dwight wrote:
- you must use lamps from the ArchiCAD library for LightWorks effects- think like a photographer would - add some uplighting using the WindowLight rotated to shine upwards into the translucent canopy.

Dwight,

I've been meaning to try this since you posted your beautiful images of the condo in Vancouver using the technique. Tried some window lights this way last night, and couldn't get much illumination from them. Finally, I changed the color to white and intensity to 100% and with no other lights (so that I could see what contribution was being made), there was almost no light generated at all.

What's the trick to getting the window lights to add observable / meaningful illumination? I suppose I should open the objects and dig around...

(I was successful months ago using them in windows to illuminate the adjacent walls ... is it that window lights only cast light for a very very short distance?)

Thanks,
Karl

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 23:31:06 GMT

windolites fill where shadows from penetrating sunlite were overwhelming.

thinking like photographer.

downlites mauve
fill lites yellow

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Karl Ottenstein — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 23:53:01 GMT

Dwight wrote:
windolites fill where shadows from penetrating sunlite were overwhelming.

thinking like photographer.

downlites mauve
fill lites yellow

Of course. My point is that they aren't filling. (OK, I hear the zero calorie / lite beer jokes coming...) The window lights barely illuminate when there are no other lights. With the LW Sun turned "on", I can't even tell the windowlights are there.

Karl

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:05:58 GMT

I guess I'm just good at it.

Use the SunLightLamp and Skylight and ambient lights.

Turn off the LightWorks sun.

There's a lot of finicky work to balancing the various energies.
I do put in a lot of ambient light, this lets me reduce the Sunlightlamp intensity for a more volumetric fell......

post or send for criique

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 03:06:55 GMT

"when this didn't work I thought I would put down a 'general light source' and still no light"

I had this same problem last week. general light sources just didn't give any light. at all. i'm sure im doing something dumb but i couldn't figure out what.i finally just gave up. i had time of day set to light times, intensity up to 100%. just nothing came out. frankly i don't think they work

donald mac donald

mac G-5, V9

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:14:50 GMT

Dear Mr "The Somerset Deconstructivist" Windsock:

Here's what I did with your rendering:

-made the LightWorks background rendering active
-had the background fade from greengrey to dusky mauve, much like post-industrial coal dust laden Somerset skies.
- turned off sun
- made skylite same color as greengrey background but lighter - 80 strength - simulate moon
- ambient to 75%
- four broad yellow uplites at pavement level evenly spaced under canopy - no distance falloff 100 strength.
- diagonal spotlite up for definition and glassglare.
made reflectance of glas "glass" and set refration at 1.6 for the thick glass.
- THEN: I made sure that the transparency and reflection features were on in LightWorks....

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:20:56 GMT

D McD:

start out all lights at half power with no falloff. Lightworks seems to have dramatic falloff.....

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

__archiben — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 05:38:51 GMT

Dwight wrote:
... much like post-industrial coal dust laden Somerset skies.

i grew up 'round them there parts and never knew . . .

~/archiben

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 05:46:26 GMT

just kidding.`

I am almost certain they never made steel in Somerset.

It was a bad excuse for a murky sky - the situation seemed to call for it.

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

__archiben — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 05:50:04 GMT

Dwight wrote:
It was a bad excuse for a murky sky - the situation seemed to call for it.

ah! the haze as seen through the eyes of a cidered-up farm-hand?

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 05:59:13 GMT

oh. peat bog fires, then?
What's the name of that spire on the nodule?

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

__archiben — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 07:49:42 GMT

Dwight wrote:
oh. peat bog fires, then?
What's the name of that spire on the nodule?

glastonbury tor? . . burrow mump? they're more towery than spirery . . .

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:22:53 GMT

Dwight

Thanks for looking at that, the layers appear confused but at least it shows that it can be done, you're description of the process being the important bit! I will have another go and post the result.

I still think there is one thing lacking and that is that it appears that you need a surface for light to fall on, to see a light, just having a light shining upwards in the dark doesn't give a beam of light. This has the effect of the light radiating from the surface it is falling on and none from the actual source of the light?

P.S. sat by fire burning peat(ah the smell) and drinking cider(or as we say zider!)

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:44:19 GMT

Excuse the rant, but how does this work in the real world? You see light in glass because of refraction and reflection. In real world terms, grime falls on glass, making it more "visible" - nothing is as perfect as in the model....

The other thing is that every real situation has many lights meticulously focused on many parts of the scene. We would be overwhelmed with light sources if this were the case in the model, so we cheat with fewer lights, but they still must be carefully placed for effect.

My expereince that glass canopies are usualy glared-out when the sky is black, so we need to find a time of day - usually right after sunset - where there's enough light in the sky to help model the elements, yet it is dark enough for their inner light to glow....

Lighting a canopy is difficult, but when a thing is hard to model in the computer, it is going to present a challenge in the real world. This challenge points out the problem you'll have using real light to model the individual glass panels...... perhaps the panels themselves need to be tinted......

you can have the light cones show in the rendering - as cheezy as that is, but we still can't make particles in the atmosphere...

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:12:51 GMT

Karl wrote:
Tried some window lights ...last night, and couldn't get much illumination from them. Finally, I changed the color to white and intensity to 100% and with no other lights (so that I could see what contribution was being made), there was almost no light generated at all.

What's the trick to getting the window lights to add observable / meaningful illumination? I suppose I should open the objects and dig around...

Well, the trick was that I came across a so-far-non-reproducible bug. Closing AC and starting over with a fresh file and just a 'cavern' created with walls/slabs to test the lights I again found this behavior of almost no light emission ... but then they began to work properly. No idea what the problem was... just went from almost no light to tons of light at the same settings.

On a related matter, in case this has not come up in the forum: don't use 8.1 lights with LW in 9.0. They don't have the LW falloff code in them. For example, the "General Light" object from 8.1 will honor the max-light-distance parameter with the internal engine, but with LW, light illuminates surfaces far in the distance. The light with the same name from the 9.0 library has the LW falloff code (which nevertheless operates differently than you would expect from the parameters of the object, which indicate that light should not extend beyond a fixed distance.)

Back to it...

Karl

Re: Lights (lack of) when rendering in Lightworks

Dwight — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:24:09 GMT

Thanks Karl. I ran into that at the beginning..... and was painfully reminded of the problem recently when opening a file that accessed the wrong [old] library and substituted may objects with old ones, lights included. AAAArgh!!!