Is there ANY way to make an Iray searchlight?
dynagirlsdaddy_c70e7535d2
Posts: 294
Hey all. Got a problem I need help with. I've been trying to set up a scene for a Godzilla fancomic I'm doing, It's Godzilla attacking a Nuclear power plant. The military has searchlights on him (night scene), and he's firing his heat ray at some unseen aircraft. The problem is, I CANNOT produce a searchlight beam effect that properly lights up just the areas the light is hitting. It either does nothing, and the environmental light is all there is, or it's blasting light like the sun is sitting right in front of him. Is there a way to create a searchlight emission that does what I need?
Here's the best render I've gotten so far, after three days straight of fighting with this. The overall lighting isfine though a bt brighter than without the searchlight, but even though it's pointed right at Godzilla, it's just not lighting him. Using a spotlight with iray settings, and it's directly in front of Godzilla, just offscreen.
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Would something like this work? https://www.daz3d.com/expanded-godrays-iray
I use it to create moonlight in areas, or 'beams' of light, particularly light and haze cast through windows. You can adjust the opacity of the godrays as well as the brightness of the spotlight and the haze itself.
I'll try to upload a pic I did quite a few months ago that sort of shows this...
edit: to add that the godrays do slow down a render a bit, but most of my projects never fit on a GPU anyway unless I break the scene down and render separately, compositing in Photoshop later.
The trick is that you don't actually see a searchlight beam, you see the dust and atmospheric elements that happen to get illuminated by the beam. Getting the right exposure on the searchlight is pretty tricky if you're using any other lights in the scene as, in reality, a searchlight is 100s of times brighter than any other light you'll see at night but you only see the parts that are being reflected. Historically, the best way to deal with this and make it work to the eye is to do two passes, once with the full image lit normally and then a second "smoke room" pass with only the seachlight on with a much thicker atmosphere, then combine the two in post. Sickleyield has a good tutorial on the subject of capturing the atmospheric ray effect itself on her page over at deviant art. https://sickleyield.deviantart.com/journal/Tutorial-Creating-Dust-And-Atmosphere-in-Iray-522291773
I have that, But I need the light to actually light up Godzilla where it hits him. I don't think the Godray props are emissive. At least when I've used them I've never noticed that they are. I had thought of just removing it altogether, brightening the environmental lighting up, then redarkening the render in PS and fake the searchlight with erasers or something... But I'd really like to have a realistic beam of light hitting him in scene. Maybe I'll give the Godrays props a shot later tonight. If it works I shall report back.
Something like this?
Yes! I would really like if the beam were somewhat visible, but I could always fake that in PS. I tried spheres with Real Lights shaders, flat planes with the same applied, ect, and nothing has done that.
This might be closer: https://www.daz3d.com/epic-props-godrays-volumetric-light-for-iray
Yeah, I have that. Haven't tried it with this scene, but I will. Like I said a couple comments up, the times I've on other renders didn't seem to emit light, but maybe I'm doing something wrong. I'm gonna try them and report back. Thanks! :)
OK, here's an example using a cylinder primitive. I guess you could create a primitive with the form you want and then use that instead. I've used an emissive plane primitive right in front of the dragon's head to create the light, it does light up the surroundings a bit but maybe that can be fixed by using a different form like a concave plane or something.
That might work. Gonna go and try the Godrays props as an experiment first, cos it seems that I may have not been using them right, though I never tried them on this particular scene. If that doesn't work I am gonna try what you suggest, as that does come close to the look I want, which would be similar to this:
Sorry I missed your post! That may end up being what I have to do. I'll check out that tutorial. Thanks much!
I would pair it with a strong light....
Tinkering with it now. It'd help if there were an easy way to read the frikking instructions for it...
Playing a bit more with it, trying to create some more realism. Using a cone instead of a cylinder here, plus adding an extra plane light behind the dragon, to light up the wall. Not sure how to create the shadow from the dragon though except for postwork.
Well, probably many ways to do this using the tools suggested or just playing with the lights etc..
The cone is working much better, I kinda figured it would. I am trying the Godrays right now, so far not able to get the damn thing to work. I can't get the fx and other materials to work. They load onto the prop, but it renders as a lit white prop. I can see the fx and such are loaded onto it when I look in the Surfaces tab though. O.o confused.
Yeah, I can't get the Godrays prop to F#^%$^ work. It loads the dust, fx and everything I select, but renders out as just a glowing white prop. Gonna try something else.
Well the one you can create in DS is difficult to adjust, not enough control options IMO. I'd probably create a morphable one in a 3D modeler to make it easier to work with.
I have Hexagon, but I am not good with it. Worst comes to worst, I'll just render the damn thing with no spotlight at all, and the environment lights brightened some, then darken it and make a searchlight beam in PS. I'm kinda on a schedule, as I am way behind on starting this project, and I need to get this stuff moving. I haven't even started the script, though I have the story worked out.
Trying something... Outside the box. I took a cone and applied all the Godray textures and settings to it after making it a Real Lighting prop. Then made it transluscent. Rendering now. If the results work, will post.
You can achieve good result with just spotlights, in this scene I used AtmoCam and 5 spotlights. If yu don't have AtmoCam you can follow SickleYield's tutorial.
I've tried spotlights, and they don't do anything. I followed a tutorial on making them usable in Iray, follwed the directions exactly, and nothing. I am gonna try SickleYield's tutorial if my current idea fails however. Thanks much!
Trying the Sickleyield tutorial. Fingers crossed. Not getting my hopes up though.
First attempt was solid black. Reworked the SSS settings. Trying again. Still not getting my hopes up.
Not gonna work. Between his heat ray, and all the lights and lit windows on the buildings the atmospshere cube is reflecting all that rather than the spotlight. This is really ticking me off.
I've found you have to use huge numbers to make "god rays" show up.
If you have AtmoCam, or a product with an "atmosphere" (Terradome I think, some Stonemason sets), you can get a beam. Remember that the beam of light is lighting up particles in the beam - so the more particles the better. You get more particles by Density (if there is such a control on your particular Atmosphere prop), AND by putting more atmosphere between you and the camera. Back the camera up, then adjust the frame width to get the scene itself back to wh where you'd like it.
Use huge numbers on your spotlight. Narrow the focus.
If you're getting to much bleed over from other light sources, render out only your spots, then only your buildings, then only the heat ray. Combine in post, if you know how to use masking, if not, its a great way to learn. I had exactly that problem in this scene; https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/225416 Beams, light flooding, the works.
Hope this helps.
I parented a cone to a torch and used volume to get this effect. I believe I also used Bloom to get the glow at the light. I also tried an oval sphere over that to get the effect in the second image.
That type of Godrays works best if there's not much other light in the room. But if you are getting solid black, then maybe the light source wasn't strong enough, or you camera is positioned in an object, like a wall?
atmocam works brilliantly for this. This spotlight in my image has a wider angle, but you can always adjust it.
If all else fails, you could always create a cone primitive, set it to a real low opacity and make it emissive
Already tried. Nothing. It's too bright, and still won't show up on Godzilla. He's still like a shadow.
It's an exterior shot, and the camera is not contacting anything. The problem is that for whatever reson Godzilla's skin with any spotlights shining on him looks solid black. With just the lighting in the buildings and environment he looks fine. but any light directly shining on him makes his skin look solid black.