General Light object in Lightworks, good or bad?

[Anonymous]

Hi!

Can anybody explain for me how it comes that a General Light with Intensity 1 and Color Black and minimum distance in light ending - still gives an extremely bright white color when rendered. See Image

I am trying to create some kine of Neon effect (which I have seen i the book Lightworks in Archicad), but unfortunatly the general light does not seem to work as it should.

Does anybody know what is wrong or perhaps has a own great working general light which i can get?! I believe something i wrong in the GDL for that light - the same result does not appear with Cone light.

Working in AC10

Thanks

[Dwight]

I suspect that you have two lights in the same place.

[Anonymous]

I´m sorry.

Lamps är close to eachother, but not in the same place.
Still I find it strange that when every parameter is set to the lowest you can get - still extremely strong light effect - and always white - not possible to add color to it.

I saw (through Mats Knutsson, Lasercad Sweden) in your book this technic to illustrate Neon Light. If I remember correct you placed a lot of General Light along the patch. I would be very interested to see the settings for the Light source.

(We will hopefully buy your book to the office as soon as possible, it has been adressed!)

Dwight wrote:
I suspect that you have two lights in the same place.

[Dwight]

Use GDL to knock back the strength of the light by a factor of 10 while maintaining the ability to project color. This is key to making the neon trick work.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tip.

I will try, although my GDL knowlegde is quite poor.

Help would be deeply apriciated.

[Anonymous]

I give up!

I can´t get any difference by changing any parameters in the GDL. Always extremly bright light, always white, and as weird as it can be, the light reflected on any surface is stronger when I move the General light source away from it.

What am I doing wrong?!

[Dwight]

This is a VERY SPECIAL GDL trick.

It is also very simple. So simple that if you are a GDL expert, you will laugh in amazement, but if you are a GDL newbie, you will permanently have a puzzled expression on your face.

So watch out.

This trick is also a trick made special for the book, so even though I am a really helpful guy on Archicad TALK, I don't want to give this one away. So I want you to feel obliged to buy my book if you read further. Of course, in buying the book, you are doing yourself a favor, so please feel free to read on so that you, too, can feel the relief from the guilt of stealing my intellectual property by buying the book, if guilt relief is your thing.

It is true that the GDL parameters can't be reduced enough to work in the neon light trick. If you already have the book, you'll see the script tweak on page 141.

Here's the trick, to reduce the output intensity, for you only if you buy the rest of the book:

General Light>3D Script

now reads:

light g/100*d, g/100*e, g/100*f, !!RGB

change to:

light g/1000*d, g/1000*e, g/1000*f, !!RGB

Please also note that this wll permit low emission light settings to emit colored light and not only white as the situation is now.

[Anonymous]

Hello again Dwight!

And thank you for your cooperation.

Unfortunatly I must say that the result is not what I am expecting. Still there is a very sharp white center on the reflected surface. Even if tha settings are set to a minimum and the GDL is changed. The colored light only appers at a distance and if Intensity is set to higher values.

I have Asked our support to check a file where I have lots of different settings on the lamp, but all have the same result on the reflecting surface.

[Dwight]

Try "Wall Light Indirect" with diffuse "on."

Things seem to be different with the General Light in 10.