Opinions sought on how to represent a string of lights efficiently

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Hi, I have a project where I want to represent several strings of illuminated lights. There is no need for close up geometry, it's just the effect of a row of small white lights that I want. One way would be to create invididual light sources, but I'm considering instead using a single plane with a b/w texture of a row of dots, which I can control with a single emmissive setting. Not sure which would be most efficient in terms of render speed/quality.?

Fishtales

Have you looked at these?

https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-string-lights-

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Fishtales said:

Have you looked at these?

https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-string-lights-

Yes thanks, I have the 'dforce string lights and the 'dforce strings and string lights'', and the 'strings' which also has a lights option. Bought over time for Xmas effects, so I know i can represent the lights, but the scene I have in mind is a 'night club' with hundreds of lights ( If you've seen the film 'Exotica' it's that sort of effect I'm after ).

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This is one corner of the environment, with suitably obscured dancer.

Griffin Avid

I would try pulling them from another set.

Backyard sanctuary is $1.99

https://www.daz3d.com/backyard-sanctuary

Others that I came across with styring lights. Maybe you already own one of these.

https://www.daz3d.com/vivenza

https://www.daz3d.com/avil-balcony

https://www.daz3d.com/xi-beach-club

https://www.daz3d.com/simple-outdoor-patio-lounge

 

 

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Thanks, I have the backyard sanctuary so I'll take a look at that, the others will have to wait since over $20 each is a lot if I'm just evaluating one element. Meanwhile I tried several planes with dots, and the result is promising.

chris-2599934

A plane with dots is likely to be quickest for render time, and fine for use in the background.

If you want something with actual geometry, maybe a single sphere primitive and a lot of instances of it. Position them manually where you want them, or use the sticky chain plugin if you have it. His demo shows him using it on primitives, and I don't see why it shouldn't work on instances.

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chris-2599934 said:

A plane with dots is likely to be quickest for render time, and fine for use in the background.

If you want something with actual geometry, maybe a single sphere primitive and a lot of instances of it. Position them manually where you want them, or use the sticky chain plugin if you have it. His demo shows him using it on primitives, and I don't see why it shouldn't work on instances.

Thanks Chris,

The plane seems to be the best solution in this case, and after adding about 20 I'm not seeing a significant icrease in render time.

I'm never sure with intances, what resources they save . I know geometry in the scene is saved, but presumably the instances are expanded into 'real geometry' in the GPU for rendering? Or am is mistaken?

chris-2599934

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I'm never sure with intances, what resources they save . I know geometry in the scene is saved, but presumably the instances are expanded into 'real geometry' in the GPU for rendering? Or am is mistaken?

If you set Instancing Optimization to "Memory" in the redering options (which is the only thing you should ever set it to), it saves... erm... memory. That means the GPU works out the geometry once, and puts it into the scene however many times. In theory that's a bit slower than the "speed" setting - where it does what you say and turns it into real geometry, but in reality the extra memory consumption often makes the render MUCH slower if it has a lot of geometry to deal with.

The main benefit of instances in this case, though, is what you said about wanting to manage the emission properties in one place - you'd have one sphere to act as the bulb of your hanging light, and instance it however many times you need it. Changing the emission properties of the bulb sphere will make the same change across all the instances. I've used this technique in large indoor scenes where I want to control the lighting on a room-by-room basis. All the lightbulbs in a room are instances of a single bulb for that room - I can turn them on and off by flipping the visibility of the master bulb.

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chris-2599934 said:

background said:

I'm never sure with intances, what resources they save . I know geometry in the scene is saved, but presumably the instances are expanded into 'real geometry' in the GPU for rendering? Or am is mistaken?

If you set Instancing Optimization to "Memory" in the redering options (which is the only thing you should ever set it to), it saves... erm... memory. That means the GPU works out the geometry once, and puts it into the scene however many times. In theory that's a bit slower than the "speed" setting - where it does what you say and turns it into real geometry, but in reality the extra memory consumption often makes the render MUCH slower if it has a lot of geometry to deal with.

The main benefit of instances in this case, though, is what you said about wanting to manage the emission properties in one place - you'd have one sphere to act as the bulb of your hanging light, and instance it however many times you need it. Changing the emission properties of the bulb sphere will make the same change across all the instances. I've used this technique in large indoor scenes where I want to control the lighting on a room-by-room basis. All the lightbulbs in a room are instances of a single bulb for that room - I can turn them on and off by flipping the visibility of the master bulb.

Thanks Chris, that helps a lot. Yes I can see the advantage of having a single setting for a set of similar lights, and the memory/speed is something I need to write down.