Making a surface as a light source

denisnormandin

Hi,

I'm trying to make some objects in my project secondary light sources. There should probably be an eazy way since they are actual Neon ballasts (from the West Park set).

My problem is that there is no 'Luminance' parameter for the 'strip_light_tube' object in the WP_Strip_Light. So I don't know how to 'light them up' (or if it is even possible).

I tried to go around the problem by creating a 'primitive' cylinder that has the 'Luminance' parameter. But it is hell to aling those 'neon tubes' with the  WP_Strip_Light... and I have four of those in my scene.

So... what would be the best way to light up that prop?

Leana

Luminance is a parameter from the Iray Uber shader. The neon tube uses the Daz Studio Default shader in your screenshot, it's a 3DL shader and doesn't have that parameter.

So you need to apply Iray Uber base shader to that surface to give it Iray surface parameters.

denisnormandin

Leana said:

Luminance is a parameter from the Iray Uber shader. The neon tube uses the Daz Studio Default shader in your screenshot, it's a 3DL shader and doesn't have that parameter.

So you need to apply Iray Uber base shader to that surface to give it Iray surface parameters.

Thanks, I'll research that. For now, I have no idea how to do it.

denisnormandin

OK, I found a tuturial on shaders.

The problem now, is that when I go to presets to find a uber shader, the whole 'WP_Strip_Light' gets selected and I cant apply the shader specificaly to the 'strip_light_tube'.

 

NorthOf45

denisnormandin said:

Leana said:

Luminance is a parameter from the Iray Uber shader. The neon tube uses the Daz Studio Default shader in your screenshot, it's a 3DL shader and doesn't have that parameter.

So you need to apply Iray Uber base shader to that surface to give it Iray surface parameters.

Thanks, I'll research that. For now, I have no idea how to do it.

DAZ Studio will convert on-the-fly to Iray-compatible shaders to the best of its ability using the information available from the 3DL settings, but the original 3DL materials has no luminance setting, per se. You can apply the the Iray Emissive shader preset directly from the Shader Presets/Iray/Daz Uber folder. Shader presets must be applied directly to surfaces, so select the surfaces you want to convert in the Surfaces tab, specifically the "strip_light_tube", and apply the preset. Use the Ctrl key to get the Material Preset Load options dialog to choose whether you want to keep any images (usually you would want to). For the Emissive preset, the default luminance is quite feeble, so you will need to adjust, like with your tube primitives.

You can convert all the other surfaces using the Uber Base preset, which will be good for most. Glass and transparent surfaces are the ones that usually need something more specific.

By the way, there is an Iray version of West Park available, but, you know, more $.

Leana

denisnormandin said:

The problem now, is that when I go to presets to find a uber shader, the whole 'WP_Strip_Light' gets selected and I cant apply the shader specificaly to the 'strip_light_tube'.

Select only the surface you want to apply the shader to in the surface tab. Then hold ctrl when loading the shader preset, you'll see an option to apply it to "selected surfaces" rather than "all surfaces".

denisnormandin

I've tried to select only the desired surface (image 1), but like I said, when I go to the 'Presets' tab (image 2), the selection changes to the whole 'WP_Strip_Light' (image 3).

Then when I try to load holding 'ctrl', I do get to the 'Material Preset Load Options' dialogue box and choose 'Selected' (image 4). And then when I check for the properties for the Strip_Light_Tube (or any of the components within the 'WP_Strip_Light', I see no change (image 5).

BTW, what Uber preset should I use?

Richard Haseltine

Look at top-left in the Editor tab - Iray Uber is already applied, and the Emission property group is showing in the left hand column..

denisnormandin

Richard Haseltine said:

Look at top-left in the Editor tab - Iray Uber is already applied, and the Emission property group is showing in the left hand column..

OK, I see that. But the emission property only has a choice of color. Now set to black. How does that work to get Luminance from that 'light_tube'?

denisnormandin

Oh! I see that setting it to another color brings other parameters that didn't show with the default black.

 

Richard Haseltine

denisnormandin said:

Oh! I see that setting it to another color brings other parameters that didn't show with the default black.

Right, the Iray uber shader hides properties that aren't currently relevant. With a black emission colour there's no light at all, so all of the other proeprties get hidden. You will see the same with several of the Such-and-such Strength properties too.

denisnormandin

Richard Haseltine said:

denisnormandin said:

Oh! I see that setting it to another color brings other parameters that didn't show with the default black.

Right, the Iray uber shader hides properties that aren't currently relevant. With a black emission colour there's no light at all, so all of the other proeprties get hidden. You will see the same with several of the Such-and-such Strength properties too.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.