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Glowing warp engines

Robert HarrisonRobert Harrison1 Posts: 16Member
edited August 2013 in Technical Questions and Answers #1
Hi all, i have hit upon a snag which i haven't encountered before. I want to make the warp engines on my warp station glow, in the past i have managed this by using Omni lights and the video post glow effect. However, since these engines are in effect a tube i am at a loss as to how i manage this without have dozens of lights...

help.jpg

I am using 3D Studio Max 9, help would be very welcome...

Thanks

Matthew
102986.jpg
Post edited by Robert Harrison on
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  • Chris2005Chris2005678 Posts: 3,097Member
    #2
    I'm not sure how to do it without any third-party plugins, but I use the Obj-Light light that comes with FinalRender, which allows someone to turn any object into a light source... as for glows, I used to add them via Video Post in 3ds max, now I render out a self-illumination pass for each glowing item... the impulse engines, warp engines, bussards, deflector and windows and do all the glow effects in After Effects.
    AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
    Gigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 12GB
    1TB NVMe SSD, 2 x 1GB SATA SSD, 4TB external HDD
    32 GB RAM
    Windows 11 Pro
  • lennier1lennier1913 Posts: 1,280Member
    #3
    Do you want some glow on top (usually done as a post effect because Max' built-in glows suck) or just for the material to illuminate the geometry?
    http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/max/glowingmaterial/
    ArtStation | DeviantArt
  • Robert HarrisonRobert Harrison1 Posts: 16Member
    #4
    Thanks for the help, i think i have it now.

    Matthew
  • Robert HarrisonRobert Harrison1 Posts: 16Member
    #5
    Okay so next question, while testing the new glowiness of my warp engines I place an Omni light source above the life dome. This should have cast the entire underside of the model in shadow right?

    So why do i get this?
    lighting.png
    102987.png
  • Chris2005Chris2005678 Posts: 3,097Member
    #6
    Robert Harrison wrote: »
    Okay so next question, while testing the new glowiness of my warp engines I place an Omni light source above the life dome. This should have cast the entire underside of the model in shadow right?

    So why do i get this?
    lighting.png

    If you're using Mental Ray, are you using Mental Ray shadows on the Omni light?
    AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
    Gigabyte RTX 3080 Gaming OC 12GB
    1TB NVMe SSD, 2 x 1GB SATA SSD, 4TB external HDD
    32 GB RAM
    Windows 11 Pro
  • LennOLennO5 Posts: 0Member
    #7
    Well you'd have to set your light to actually cast shadows. When your renderer hits a point in space (part of a polygon) it goes through something called a lightloop, which checks if(or better: how much) this point is illuminated by a light. Unless your lights are set to cast shadows, this calculation is totally unaware of your scene, the surrounding of your object. When lights are set to cast shadows, the light calculation actually checks whether the path between your sampled point and the light(s) is occluded by any geometrie between those two points. So either use raytraced (preferred) or depth map shadows.
  • Robert HarrisonRobert Harrison1 Posts: 16Member
    #8
    Thank you, i already had shadows on so i am not sure what i changed to make it work, might have been the raytraced i clicked...

    But thanks

    lighting2.png
    102988.png
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