Carnival Carousel Lighting Lights

jukingeo

Hello,

I just purchased the Carnival Carousel sku#12943 and I have noticed that there are light bulbs on the carousel, but there is no option to turn the lights on.  Yet, in the fairground package that shoes the carousel with people, the lights are lit.  I would like to know how to do this as I want to do a dusk type setting with the carousel in the background and the lights lit.

Thank you

Sven Dullah

I don't have it, but it's a 3Delight product, so I suspect it has a material preset to make the bulbs ambient? First decide in which render engine you want to do it! With IRay use the emissive channel to make the bulbs emit light. With 3Delight, either fake it by making the bulbs ambient, then positioning pointlights at every bulb, that cast light, or use an emissive shader for the bulbs.

jukingeo

Sven Dullah said:

I don't have it, but it's a 3Delight product, so I suspect it has a material preset to make the bulbs ambient? First decide in which render engine you want to do it! With IRay use the emissive channel to make the bulbs emit light. With 3Delight, either fake it by making the bulbs ambient, then positioning pointlights at every bulb, that cast light, or use an emissive shader for the bulbs.

The bulbs are a separate item, if that is what you are referring to.  When I saw that, I clicked on the bulb strings and it comes up, but there no options for lighting them.  In terms of a render engine, I am set on Iray.  Where is this 'emissive channe' and what do I do with it? I am still very new to Daz and I don't know where everything is as of yet.  Now I have noticed that not all the bulbs are the same color.  They alternate white and red.  Would this mean I am stuck there having to light up each bulb indivitually?  If so, I can see that as a big task.  Nevertheless, I do want to light them up.

Thanks,

Geo

MelanieL

I've lit them successfully in 3Delight by selecting the lights (CCRS_Lights in the scene tab) then in the Surfaces tab selecting all the surfaces that end in the word "Bulb" (there are 12 of them) and setting the Ambient Color to fully white, putting the diffuse map into the Ambient Color map and setting Ambient Strength to 100% (or preferably higher - this means overriding the parameters to remove limits).

To be honest you might be better off buying this: https://www.daz3d.com/carnival-pack-i-iray-addon - it has improved materials for Iray including a setting to light the lamps. It's in today's PC+ item sale (20% off one item, 40% off two, 60% off 3) but it is more expensive than the original set.

If you really want to do it yourself then select the bulbs (as described above) then change the shader to the basic Iray Emissive (you can find it in the Shader tab under the "Presets" heading then Shaders - Iray - Emissives). Once you've applied that, go back into the "Edit" header, scroll down to find Emission Color and set the map and color as I described above (the Iray Emissive shader removes all the maps but the name of the map you want is ccrs_bulb.jpg from the drop-down list) then set the Luminance higher - it defaults to 5000 cd/m^2, maybe start by adding a zero to make it 50000 and see how it looks). Note that the lights will all appear straight white in the viewport but the colour should return when you render.

MelanieL

Oh and I should mention that the brighter you make the lights the less colourful they become - 50,000 cd/m^2 comes out fairly red and white, but 500,000 cd/m^2 comes out more like yellow and bright white.

SpottedKitty

MelanieL said:

Oh and I should mention that the brighter you make the lights the less colourful they become - 50,000 cd/m^2 comes out fairly red and white, but 500,000 cd/m^2 comes out more like yellow and bright white.

Remember that there's more than one way to control the colours of glowy stuff in Iray.

• Base Color, whether you use a texture map or the colour settings;
• Emission Color, which can also take a texture map just like Base Color;
• Emission Temperature, which can get a bit complicated as it will add a colour cast to the light. Normal white sunlight is 5000-6000, different types of light bulb are more like 2500-4000 and will add a reddish-yellow tint;
• Luminance, as you've found out, will "wash out" the emitted colour towards white as you ramp up the value.

scorpio

SpottedKitty said:

MelanieL said:

...

• Luminance, as you've found out, will "wash out" the emitted colour towards white as you ramp up the value.

If you put a texture map in the Luminance channel this can help the washed out look.

Fishtales

I did an Iray render using the Emission channel for the lights. I have attached a preset of it here. Download it and save it. Open up the Base then Carousel and select Lights. Go to the Surface Tab and make sure all the bulbs are selected. Go to where you saved my file and double click it to add it to the lights. Change the colours as you see fit for each bulb either going from bulb to bulb and changing the Emission Colour or set it to white and use the Diffuse Map for the lights in the Emission Colour map. Let me know if it works 

You can see it in use here.

Click on image for full size.

MelanieL

scorpio said:

SpottedKitty said:

MelanieL said:

...

• Luminance, as you've found out, will "wash out" the emitted colour towards white as you ramp up the value.

If you put a texture map in the Luminance channel this can help the washed out look.

Wow, thanks for that info - I hadn't even noticed there was a slot for a map there too! (Must clean my glasses!)

jukingeo

Fishtales said:

I did an Iray render using the Emission channel for the lights. I have attached a preset of it here. Download it and save it. Open up the Base then Carousel and select Lights. Go to the Surface Tab and make sure all the bulbs are selected. Go to where you saved my file and double click it to add it to the lights. Change the colours as you see fit for each bulb either going from bulb to bulb and changing the Emission Colour or set it to white and use the Diffuse Map for the lights in the Emission Colour map. Let me know if it works 

You can see it in use here.

Click on image for full size.

In what directory does that file go into?  I definitely want to try that out.

Thanks all and Merry Christmas!!

Fishtales

jukingeo said:

Fishtales said:

In what directory does that file go into?  I definitely want to try that out.

Thanks all and Merry Christmas!!

It goes into the Shader Presets directory.

I've attached the thumbnail to go with it.

SpottedKitty

jukingeo said:

In what directory does that file go into?  I definitely want to try that out.

Keep in mind that, for the vast majority of saved scenes, there's no such thing as "One True And Unique Folder™ that it must be located in". Put it somewhere you know you'll find it again — in this case, it's a materials setting for the Carnival Carousel, so you can put it in the same (or a related) folder with other Carousel materials settings.

It all depends on how you think of your content, whether as "things for the Carousel" or (as Fishtales said above) as "Shader Presets" or even as "Lighting Presets". What makes sense to you might not to someone else.

jukingeo

Fishtales said:

jukingeo said:

Fishtales said:

In what directory does that file go into?  I definitely want to try that out.

Thanks all and Merry Christmas!!

It goes into the Shader Presets directory.

I've attached the thumbnail to go with it.

Could you tell me the full and exact path to that directory?  I must have put it in the wrong place as I saw a preset shader directory, but the file isn't showing up in the materials section.  I have Daz version 4.10.  In fact it is best if you could tell me step by step as to what I am to do with that file.  I am VERY new to Daz Studio and I don't want to mess something up by putting it in the wrong place.

SpottedKitty said:

jukingeo said:

In what directory does that file go into?  I definitely want to try that out.

Keep in mind that, for the vast majority of saved scenes, there's no such thing as "One True And Unique Folder™ that it must be located in". Put it somewhere you know you'll find it again — in this case, it's a materials setting for the Carnival Carousel, so you can put it in the same (or a related) folder with other Carousel materials settings.

It all depends on how you think of your content, whether as "things for the Carousel" or (as Fishtales said above) as "Shader Presets" or even as "Lighting Presets". What makes sense to you might not to someone else.

Yeah, I tried that, I tried to navigate the directory structure of Daz Studio, which is extremely huge, btw.  Stuff is also not put all in one area on Windows either.  So as I said to Fishtales above, I am going to need to know exactly where to put that file and what to do with it as what I have done so far is obviously wrong because it isn't working.

Thank you,

Geo

Hope everyone had a good holiday!

 

Fishtales

The file wont show up until you add the thumbnail to the folder where the file is. If you open the folder in Windows Explorer and go to the Shader Preset folder you will see the preset and then drag the thumbnail in beside it. Open Studio and it should now be visible.

Joe Cotter

The answer that kind of got lost in the discussion is the Iray add-on. You can get it very inexpensively during a sale. It is a quick and good solution. The other answers here are best if one wants to learn how to do this with any product they have.

jukingeo

Fishtales said:

The file wont show up until you add the thumbnail to the folder where the file is. If you open the folder in Windows Explorer and go to the Shader Preset folder you will see the preset and then drag the thumbnail in beside it. Open Studio and it should now be visible.

HA!!!  I finally got it!!

After I pretty much almost gave up on trying to find where I put the file, it was under My Docments within Daz.  So I just navigated down to My Presets and then the shaders folder and there was the icon and file!  So after finally finding it, I loaded up my carousel scene.  I selected the lights and then made sure all the bulbs were selected and then clicked on the icon.   WHAM!!  All the lights lit up!

(See Attached)

I can't thank you enough for creating this!  It does make a world of difference that the carousel is now lit.   So not only I, but Miranda also thanks you! ...Who's Miranda?  She's the pretty curly haired lady in the picture that is running the carousel.  She was a bit upset with me that I couldn't get the lights on her carousel working.  She's happy now!

Now, of course, I have some more questions (if you don't mind).

*I noticed that both the bulbs AND the sockets are glowing.  Can that be changed to just the bulbs?

*While I like the brightness of the bulbs themselves, I would like to know if I could adjust the ambient light they throw off as that still seems a bit dark.

*I remember you saying make sure all the bulbs are selected.  Now what happens if I deselect a few, would that be a way to simulate blown out bulbs?

That's all.

Again, thank you!

Geo

Fishtales

If you go to the scene tab you can drill down through the hierarchy and select only the bulbs. It is then possible to select them all and change the luminance for them; the colour, even make each one different; or switch individual ones off, change the Emission colour to black. 

Fishtales

I've posted a video of the Carousel animated. I have also attached the aniBlock zip file there.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4275646/#Comment_4275646

jukingeo

Fishtales said:

If you go to the scene tab you can drill down through the hierarchy and select only the bulbs. It is then possible to select them all and change the luminance for them; the colour, even make each one different; or switch individual ones off, change the Emission colour to black. 

Ok, thanks, I will check that out.

 

Fishtales said:

I've posted a video of the Carousel animated. I have also attached the aniBlock zip file there.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4275646/#Comment_4275646

Thats great!  I would like to do that eventually, but I am still far off from animating.  However, I have noticed that you went with the original red and white bulbs AND it is only the bulbs that glow and not the sockets.  So that would be one thing I would change so this way only the bulbs light up, but I think I will keep them all white.  On many of the old antique carousels that is all they used were white bulbs.  Well, they were actually clear so you saw the natural glow of the bulb.  Don't pin it on me, but I don't know exactly when they invented colored bulbs, but the first ones were clear as well and that 'milky' diffused look (like a Christmas bulb) didn't come out until much later.

Anyway, once I find my way around Daz more and get better with stills, I will eventually get into animations as well.

Thanx,

Geo

 

kwannie

I just wanted to ask in the same genre of the topic. Does any notice a significant increase in render time whe using emmissive channels in a scene like this for animation?

jukingeo

kwannie said:

I just wanted to ask in the same genre of the topic. Does any notice a significant increase in render time whe using emmissive channels in a scene like this for animation?

I am not sure about that, but I have noticed that anything with large structures and indoor environments seems to render a long time.  Outdoor settings seem to render pretty quickly.  That shot above with the girl sitting in the ticket booth and the carousel (lit up) in the background took close to an hour to fully render (see a few posts above).  Granted, I am not using a separate GPU.  I am using an I7 machine with the on board graphics.  So rendering in general takes a while.   But many outdoor scenes I have seen render times under a half hour, some even 15 to 20 minutes.  So the difference is significant depending on what details you have in the scene.   Despite being outdoors, I had a funny feeling that the carousel would take a while to render.   Also I have to add this bit of observation, it seems with the Iray rendering, the carousel and surrounduings fully rendered FIRST.  The woman was last to completely render.

So for me I would be curious to know how much less the rendering time would be with a 1080ti GPU.