Comments on: Textured area lights in Blender http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender frequently lost in thought Wed, 24 Mar 2010 01:34:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: UncleZeiv http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-1479 UncleZeiv Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:42:44 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-1479 @John: sorry for the late answer. Have a look on the <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:UncleZeiv/SummerOfCode2008" rel="nofollow">Blender wiki</a> for more information, or look for the original <a href="http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~bjw/lightcuts.pdf" rel="nofollow">lightcuts paper</a>. Let me know if you need more information. Cheers! @John: sorry for the late answer. Have a look on the Blender wiki for more information, or look for the original lightcuts paper. Let me know if you need more information. Cheers!

]]> By: John http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-1422 John Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:53:02 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-1422 Yes, I did indeed fake it, and I had to use other software to achieve the effect. I broke the time lapse video up into eight sectors, averaged each one of those sectors down to one pixel, (a single representative pixel for color and brightness for the sector) and mapped each one of those eight pixels onto its respective area light. (If you map only one pixel to an area light, it is not a "texture" map anymore, because you cannot make out any repetitive texture, it is merely a color/brightness map. The same thing can be achieved with a multiple pixel texture as long as all pixels have the same values.) Here is the original image I used to test my method: http://gallery.john.whettens.org/view_photo.php?full=1&set_albumName=album01&id=monkeyTV Is light cuts another ray tracer? I couldn't find any information in your blog about what you are doing fundamentally. Your Lightcuts group seems to be very close knit and tight, but I don't see enough information about what you are doing to break into the conversation. Could you provide a little more basic information so that I can learn more about what you are doing? I have only been using blender for about five months, but I am trying to learn things very quickly. Yes, I did indeed fake it, and I had to use other software to achieve the effect. I broke the time lapse video up into eight sectors, averaged each one of those sectors down to one pixel, (a single representative pixel for color and brightness for the sector) and mapped each one of those eight pixels onto its respective area light. (If you map only one pixel to an area light, it is not a “texture” map anymore, because you cannot make out any repetitive texture, it is merely a color/brightness map. The same thing can be achieved with a multiple pixel texture as long as all pixels have the same values.)

Here is the original image I used to test my method:

http://gallery.john.whettens.org/view_photo.php?full=1&set_albumName=album01&id=monkeyTV

Is light cuts another ray tracer? I couldn’t find any information in your blog about what you are doing fundamentally. Your Lightcuts group seems to be very close knit and tight, but I don’t see enough information about what you are doing to break into the conversation. Could you provide a little more basic information so that I can learn more about what you are doing? I have only been using blender for about five months, but I am trying to learn things very quickly.

]]> By: UncleZeiv http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-1414 UncleZeiv Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:31:53 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-1414 @John: your test is nice; I'm curious to know how you did it. Do you alter the color of the area lights with a script? Let me know. Anyway, every effect can be faked, artists have been faking GI for ages, but this doesn't make GI useless, does it? Of course the ability to fake effects is a very important tool, particularly for animations, so your experiment is indeed useful in my opinion. @John: your test is nice; I’m curious to know how you did it. Do you alter the color of the area lights with a script? Let me know. Anyway, every effect can be faked, artists have been faking GI for ages, but this doesn’t make GI useless, does it? Of course the ability to fake effects is a very important tool, particularly for animations, so your experiment is indeed useful in my opinion.

]]> By: John http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-1412 John Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:18:57 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-1412 Hi, I have never used lightcuts before, and I don't even know what it is, but I saw the image in this post and I thought I would try to mimic it. In the scene that I built I used area lights to match the light from the image to mimic light projecting from the TV. The example render is at: http://gallery.john.whettens.org/albums/blender/finished1_713upload.mov The uncompressed file is obviously much clearer. So there are just eight area lights and AO turned on. Again, this is using the regular 2.48a build of blender using blenders internal ray tracer. So I think I accomplished with a regular build what you are trying to do with a special build of the software. Thanks for the inspiration, though. John Hi, I have never used lightcuts before, and I don’t even know what it is, but I saw the image in this post and I thought I would try to mimic it. In the scene that I built I used area lights to match the light from the image to mimic light projecting from the TV. The example render is at:

http://gallery.john.whettens.org/albums/blender/finished1_713upload.mov

The uncompressed file is obviously much clearer. So there are just eight area lights and AO turned on. Again, this is using the regular 2.48a build of blender using blenders internal ray tracer. So I think I accomplished with a regular build what you are trying to do with a special build of the software. Thanks for the inspiration, though.

John

]]> By: UncleZeiv http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-885 UncleZeiv Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:22:57 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-885 @DavidC: sure! @DavidC: sure!

]]> By: DavidC http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-873 DavidC Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:25:11 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-873 Could the image be animated? Could the image be animated?

]]> By: Alexander Ewering http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-180 Alexander Ewering Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:20:17 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-180 OK, I tried to build the same lighting situation using your build, tweaking the "Area light lights density" setting until the DOS prompt said "1141 point lights", which should be roughly equivalent to your example render. At PAL resolution (720 x 576) OSA 5, took 2 minutes 31 seconds. So I guess, definitely an advancement :) OK, I tried to build the same lighting situation using your build, tweaking the “Area light lights density” setting until the DOS prompt said “1141 point lights”, which should be roughly equivalent to your example render.

At PAL resolution (720 x 576) OSA 5, took 2 minutes 31 seconds. So I guess, definitely an advancement :)

]]> By: Alexander Ewering http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-179 Alexander Ewering Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:26:01 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-179 I could do that, yeah :) I'm using 840 spots for getting smooth results (render time is then 8 minutes): http://pub.instinctive.de/screen1.png Packed Blend: http://pub.instinctive.de/screen1.blend Cheers I could do that, yeah :) I’m using 840 spots for getting smooth results (render time is then 8 minutes):

http://pub.instinctive.de/screen1.png

Packed Blend:

http://pub.instinctive.de/screen1.blend

Cheers

]]> By: UncleZeiv http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-177 UncleZeiv Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:00:24 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-177 @Alexander: why don't you grab a lightcuts build and perform a comparison on the same machine? That would be interesting. How many spotlights are you using? @Alexander: why don’t you grab a lightcuts build and perform a comparison on the same machine? That would be interesting. How many spotlights are you using?

]]> By: Alexander Ewering http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/2008/07/textured-area-lights-in-blender/comment-page-1#comment-176 Alexander Ewering Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:21:06 +0000 http://unclezeiv.kerid.org/?p=29#comment-176 UncleZeiv: Hehe, didn't want to spoil your fun :) If I quadruple the number of spotlights, the boundaries disappear; however, rendering time roughly quadruples as well and is then close to yours. UncleZeiv: Hehe, didn’t want to spoil your fun :) If I quadruple the number of spotlights, the boundaries disappear; however, rendering time roughly quadruples as well and is then close to yours.

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