Light ROM 4/Light ROM 4 - Disc 1.iso/text/maillist/1995/0695.doc/text0007.txt

Text File | 1995-07-04 | 1.8 KB | 39 lines

<snip>
>  I would LOVE to be able to use
>"soft" (meaning physically much larger than their target object,
>and diffuse in the bargain) light sources in 3D work.
>
>Yes, I know it would be slow and all (raytracing from large
>sources, huge specular highlights) but I really love the
>character of that type of light.  Yes, I know this is a "blue
>sky" wish, but what the hell, why wish for something too small?

 Actually you can get that Blue Sky lighting on your very own desktop with
Real3D but boy is it expensive. The user defines a line segment or a
rectangle as a light source and Real3D calculates multiple point lights
across it's surface. The render times can quickly become quite long but the
results are often quite beautiful. I've tried using multiple lights in LW to
achieve this effect and found the render times to be a bit slower.
 I suggest going the PIXAR route to get the effects you want in LW, fake it.
Use shadow maps instead of raytraced shadows to get soft shadows. Many
people have said avoid them like the plague - with good reason - but with a
little effort and a lot of ram you can usually get the effect you desire.
Play with Shadow Fuzziness. If you want a really soft shadow you can usually
keep the shadow map size small. The second and less obvious trick is to use
black and white reflection maps instead of Specularity to simulate
large/irregular specular highlights. The window shape highlights on TinToy
were not created with lights.


Paul Davies  [e-mail]
Concept Artist-RPG/Action Games
Magnet Interactive Studios Inc.

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