Topic: Linear lights

[lbourdo]

Hey Morten,

Thanks for the reply.  I have been trying to mess with the suggested way that Gilson showed us. 

I'm struggling where to start.  I honestly need help how to export the diffuse texture from photoshop.  When I save the image as a .jpg and .png it's solid white though it shows like his with the alpha channel in photoshop.

Second, where do I change the material in lumion?  On the actual ceiling?  On the back of the light cove?  In the cove?  The model I have is imported from Sketchup and there are several services with the same material so Lumion is trying to change all of them and I don't want that.  Do I need to change the material to be unique at the light cove? 

Third, how do I change the cove material to work with the diffused texture? 

Sorry for the rookie questions, this is the first time I'm really diving into Lumion and a bit lost on how to do these tricks to get Linear Lights.  Also, our ceiling is curved, so how do we apply this on a curved surface?

[michaelholt]

when u use other 3d software like max or cinema.... maybe you bake the texture there with the linear light.... so you have it in the texture for your ceiling..... sucks i know...... but possible...

[lbourdo]

Thanks for the reply Michael.  This model is brought in directly from SketchUp.  Which was brought into SketchUp from Revit.

I'm still confused on what part of the ceiling, etc that is to be a separate material.

Does anyone have a tutorial that lays out step by step how to face linear lights?  Again, if Lumion can't do this, it may not be worth the purchase.

Thanks,
Lorne

[lbourdo]

Ok after playing with it this is where I'm at.

I tried emissive on a material inside the lightcove but that didn't work.  You can only see the emissive portion if you bring the camera above the cove.

Then I created a U-Shape mass with reflective material and placed that in the cove.  Then put in lights about ever 6" or so (just guessed for this example).  I didn't spend time making it perfect.  But it seems to look fairly decent.

How might I go about making say a 4' object that houses multiple light sources and then it can be placed into the model whenever we need it?  Part of lumion Light library?  The attached images show the result.  But keep in mind this contains 64 light fixtures!  That I assume will bog down real quick if it's throughout out model.

[clint.lukesky]

Thanks a lot for these TIPS. i somehow managed to the result of these cove/linear lights. almost the same effect. thanks a lot. GREAT HELP!

[Morten]

How might I go about making say a 4' object that houses multiple light sources and then it can be placed into the model whenever we need it?  Part of lumion Light library?

You can't group objects in Lumion, so you would have to do it manually in each scene.

But keep in mind this contains 64 light fixtures!  That I assume will bog down real quick if it's throughout out model.

Yes, if the lights are set to 'Accuracy' it will take longer to render yor scene since each light requires that the entire scene is rendered once more.

Another option is to use Photoshop to paint the lighting onto a texture with an alpha channel which is assigned to a copy of the ceiling (but offset slightly so it's below the actual ceiling surface):

[BABE™]

May i request your file morton  ,and its contents........... as a download please ?
This needs to be explored and maximized
---------------how did you achieve that AMBIENT SHADOW without any spotlights ?

[Morten]

Hi BABE, it was just a quick test, so I only have an AutoSave of the scene (attached).

The 'lighting' was drawn onto a texture which was applied to a copy of the ceiling plane.

This copy was lowered a bit, exported to Lumion and a Glass material was assigned to it.

The Glass material is the only material in Lumion that uses 256 shades for opacity (where black = transparent and white = opaque).

---------------how did you achieve that AMBIENT SHADOW without any spotlights ?

The ambient shadow that you see along the edges of the room is just the default ambient occlusion shadow in Lumion.

In movies, you can adjust these ambient shadows by applying a Shadows effect to your clip and changing the various 'ambient' sliders.

[michaelholt]

Babe ...
this Cat is cute......

[BABE™]

thanx Morton , thankgod for autosave
im gonna experiment with this bigtime  

yes michael , its a begging cat  

[Morten]

Instead of painting the lighting with the Brush tool in Photoshop you can of course also just select + copy/paste the ceiling outline and assign a Glow effect and set Fill to 0 but this is a bit more complicated and I don't know how familiar Lorne is with Photoshop.

I forgot to mention that you'll need the Overbright slider in the RGB tab of the Glass material: Press and hold the CTRL key to make it appear.

[clint.lukesky]

ill try this one out Sir Morten. Thanks a lot!

[lbourdo]

Another option is to use Photoshop to paint the lighting onto a texture with an alpha channel which is assigned to a copy of the ceiling (but offset slightly so it's below the actual ceiling surface):

Hey Morten,

Thanks for the replies and tutorial for getting this done via a texture.

I am having a little bit of issues with this, I created my texture in Photoshop and it came out really yellow when you look up at it.  You can see the far cove shows up whiter.  I have my RGB on the texture set to white and same settings you've saved?  See attached.

I know Photoshop pretty well.  But I haven't used Alpha channels before so this is new territory for me.

Couple questions regarding your tutorial:

• You mention to make the image white.  Does that mean delete the layer I used the brush tool on to add lighting along the edge adn make the entire thing solid white background?  Leaving the Alpha texture I placed in step 5?
• Is my image showing up yellow because I have RGB set in PS?  Should I use greyscale?

[Morten]

You mention to make the image white.  Does that mean delete the layer I used the brush tool on to add lighting along the edge adn make the entire thing solid white background?  Leaving the Alpha texture I placed in step 5?

Hi Lorne, yes, that's correct.

Is my image showing up yellow because I have RGB set in PS?  Should I use greyscale?

No, RGB is fine. The reason it has a yellow/green hue is that the Glass material will still reflect the surroundings a bit. By default, the Reflection Control object which is used to generate the 360 degree reflection texture that is projected onto all reflective materials is placed high above the terrain.

So what you're seeing is in fact the terrain outside your building, being reflected on our glass ceiling/cove lighting plane.

What you can do is to add the Reflection Control object to the middle of the room (Lights & Special Objects category -> Utilities), so that it will generate the 360 degree reflection texture based on the surroundings inside your building.

Just bear in mind that the result will never be perfect as it's nothing but a simple workaround. In my sample scene, the cove lighting texture looks weird right above the camera for example, so the illusion is broken the moment you look up. In other words, your mileage may vary

[lbourdo]

Hey Morten,

Ok so I got your method implemented into my model.  It looks fine and dandy when I'm working in the model.  As sooon as I go to export an image, the lightcove looks spotty and not solid like the material should be.  Also as soon as I attempt to export it, then working in the model isn't solid like it was before I attempted to export.  The only way I can get it back to where it was is to close Lumion and reopen the file.

See the attached images.  I also attached my PSD file for reference.

Any thoughts?  I think I'm gonna go back to putting in lights up there so it's consistent