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SY's Fast Flames-how do I get a shadow?

jenniferhugheyjenniferhughey Posts: 404
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

LOVE the way these look, however, I can't get them to cast shadows, say if the flames are behind someone, there should be a shadow in front of them on the ground.. is there a way to do this? I tried adding spotlights, but the flames are too close to my character to put one inbetween..

Comments

  • DrNewcensteinDrNewcenstein Posts: 816

    If the item has a material that has an Emissive channel, boost it. Otherwise, drop a very small primitive like a 1" plane with 2 divisions, throw an Iray Emissive on it, and slip it between the flames and figure. You can scale it down to 0.000001 before it affects the light.

  • jenniferhugheyjenniferhughey Posts: 404
    DrNewcenstein said:

    If the item has a material that has an Emissive channel, boost it. Otherwise, drop a very small primitive like a 1" plane with 2 divisions, throw an Iray Emissive on it, and slip it between the flames and figure. You can scale it down to 0.000001 before it affects the light.

    I think it was the emissives I changed, and the flames themselves looked brighter but still no shadow. I'll try the plane and see if that works. Thanks!

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,333
    edited January 2018
    jenniferhughey said:
    DrNewcenstein said:

    If the item has a material that has an Emissive channel, boost it. Otherwise, drop a very small primitive like a 1" plane with 2 divisions, throw an Iray Emissive on it, and slip it between the flames and figure. You can scale it down to 0.000001 before it affects the light.

    I think it was the emissives I changed, and the flames themselves looked brighter but still no shadow. I'll try the plane and see if that works. Thanks!

    Put a spotlight at the base of each of the flames, make it invisible and yellow-orangish in light, and a wide number of degrees that it casts light, like 270, or 330 degress. The flames' planes should already be somewhat transparent so enouh of the sportlights' light gets through to project light & cast shadows.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • DrNewcensteinDrNewcenstein Posts: 816

    I've been experimenting lately with turning Tone Mapping off, and that really kicks up the output of Iray emissives. I mean, like REALLY. I'm running 0.5 watt lights in Contemporary Living, and it's just dark enough, if I give the windows 98% opacity instead of 20% using an Iray Worlds Goth City preset. I also have to drop the Sun from 5 million to 5K, and take a zero off the skydome. There are 22 light sources (18 ceiling lights and 4 lamps) plus the skydome. The ceiling lights are a half watt each, so 6 watts for the ceiling with 12 lights, and 3 watts for the ceiling part with 6 lights.

  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,644
    nonesuch00 said:
    jenniferhughey said:
    DrNewcenstein said:

    If the item has a material that has an Emissive channel, boost it. Otherwise, drop a very small primitive like a 1" plane with 2 divisions, throw an Iray Emissive on it, and slip it between the flames and figure. You can scale it down to 0.000001 before it affects the light.

    I think it was the emissives I changed, and the flames themselves looked brighter but still no shadow. I'll try the plane and see if that works. Thanks!

    Put a spotlight at the base of each of the flames, make it invisible and yellow-orangish in light, and a wide number of degrees that it casts light, like 270, or 330 degress. The flames' planes should already be somewhat transparent so enouh of the sportlights' light gets through to project light & cast shadows.

    This right here is one of the things I do when I want to use the flames in my own promos but need brighter lighting than a fire would actually provide.  I didn't in the promos of the set, mind you.  Those generally have the naked flame plus a fill light.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,333
    DrNewcenstein said:

    I've been experimenting lately with turning Tone Mapping off, and that really kicks up the output of Iray emissives. I mean, like REALLY. I'm running 0.5 watt lights in Contemporary Living, and it's just dark enough, if I give the windows 98% opacity instead of 20% using an Iray Worlds Goth City preset. I also have to drop the Sun from 5 million to 5K, and take a zero off the skydome. There are 22 light sources (18 ceiling lights and 4 lamps) plus the skydome. The ceiling lights are a half watt each, so 6 watts for the ceiling with 12 lights, and 3 watts for the ceiling part with 6 lights.

    Sounds interesting. I have never did a render without tonemapping. I will try.

  • DrNewcensteinDrNewcenstein Posts: 816
    edited January 2018

    The only issue is that you lose vignetting capability, if that's important to you.

    Post edited by DrNewcenstein on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,333
    edited January 2018
    DrNewcenstein said:

    The only issue is that you lose vignetting capability, if that's important to you.

    I've never tried vignetting but you remind me that I should. I'll have to look up what that means.

    Ah, so I see. Vignetting then is OK to loose. Nik Filters can add i if need be. 

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • DrNewcensteinDrNewcenstein Posts: 816

    Vignetting is a nice built-in feature to have just to save that extra work, and you can leave ToneMapping on and play with the Exposure Settings to get basically the same effect as turning it off, and I guess that would provide some fine-tuning. Say you had light objects in a scene (candles, lamps, etc) and you set them to their real-world settings but it was too bright. Turn on Tone Mapping and adjust the Exposure levels over the whole scene rather than setting fictional values on the scene elements like a millionth of a watt. Either one works.

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