Vehicle Headlights
csteell_c2893e4ab6
Posts: 475
I want to add lights to a WW2 Jeep not shining too brightly! Could I parent a couple of spotlights to the headlight area to the front of the jeep or is there another way to do this? Cheers
Comments
That's the best way.
If the geometry of the jeep contains individual surface for the headlights, you could turn them into emissive surfaces and shine them that way.
If not you could use a map to control the emissive strength, or use the Geometry Editor to create a new surface. Though I would not expect these to be necessary with most native models, at least.
I find that two spot lights usually work very well, particularly if you use a little ground fog in your scenes. The directional effect of the headlights can be set to acuratly match the direction effect of the headlights and light up the road; however, sometimes the headlights themselves will still look dark. Emissive surfaces make the headlights look bright, but tend to spew light out unrealistically in all directions. Therefore, I find that using both is best, first use two spot lights to light the scene and the turn up the emmision of the headlight surfaces just enough to make them look realistic.
If you really want to make your lights look realistic, try Emission Profile Master.
Many thanks everyone.I have Emission Profile Master. I will give that a try! Cheers
A similar question - any tips on how to create a realistic torch (flashlight) beam? I've tried with a spotlight but have had trouble with making it look right.
Same suggestion: Emission Profile Master. You can set relative intensities for each 5 degrees of spread. There is a Flashlights Set that uses their own ies profiles, but cannot be altered, just the overall intensity.
Yeah, I'll wishlist it (EPM) but too much to pay for one specific use.
Anyone familiar with Emission Profile Master? I have tried to follow the instructions for car headlights and I am getting nowhere! Cheers
Add a round emitter in front of one of the headlights, and size to fit. Select one and run the script. Now either hit the "I feel Lucky" button to get a random pattern, or adjust the individual emission angle sliders. When satisfied, click "Save and Apply", which will prompt you to save the profile somewhere. (It needs to be saved so that you can load it again when needed). You can adjust the Emission in the surfaces tab. To adjust the profile, select the emitter and run the script again. Select the emitter in the upper half, and click "Read" to load the saved profile. Adjust as needed, Save and Apply...
Copy the emitter to the other headlight.
Didn't have to wait long ... it appeared on sale so I grabbed it. Thanks for the tip.
Now the trouble is deciding when the profile is just right... One more tweak... That's it... No, wait, one more... Okay... Well, maybe one more...
Congrats. I saw that the flashlight set was on a deeply discounted sale a few days ago as well. Below is an example of a pre-Iray WWII jeep product; I added the Iray Uber Base shader to the headlights and turned on the emissive ighting. I bought the jeep in the store in 2010.
Good that you could get a file attachment to work here - I usually can't.
I guess you would need some volumetrics to show the headlight beam? Which is actually what I am needing for my flashlight scene.
I used a Volume sphere stretched into an ellipse and a volume cone with the flashlight and using the glass/bulb as an Emissive light.
Click on image for full size.
Yes, that's approaching the effect I'm looking for.
Definitely try just putting a normal Spotlight within a Volumetric Cube.
You can change the Scale of the Spotlight to 0.001 without affecting the light at all, but basically making the "white lined" representation of the Spotlight itslelf invisible, so that it can be parented right in front of a flashlight prop.
Then play with the Spread Angle of the spotlight in it's parameters to make a tight beam like a flashlight. The default Spread Angle is 60, try around 20.
Obviously look at the Luminous Flux (Lumen) parameter of the Spotlight (probably 20,000+) to set the brightness.
You can also look at the Surface Parameters of the Volumetric Cube and adjust the SSS Amount and Scatter Measurement Distance to adjust the amount of particles that the beam lights up, if it's that kind of volumetric prop.
Edit: Just quickly tossed a crypt prop, a Volumetric Cube and a Spotlight set up how I mentioned into a Scene and rendered a terrible angle, not baked anywhere near enough, but just to show what you can start with, with very little effort in the attached image.
Thanks - really getting close now.