Electric Image Animation System 7 Tutorials
Lighting / Glow
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Subtitles of the Movie (Electric Image Animation System 7 / Lighting / Glow)
Each type of Info Window has its own set of tabs and Lights are no different. These tabs all describe how the light shines, where it is, what kind of shadows it casts, if any, and special effects like light rays and glows. I promise to show you how to make the light itself visible. You can do this by adding a Glow to your light. Different Light Types give you different results and with some Light Types it's impossible to create a Glow. You cannot have a Glow on a Camera Light, a Parallel Light, nor in the Ambient Light. These lights either have no source and only direction or neither source nor direction. So, let's start with a Radial Light. In its Info Window, click the Glow tab. The first thing we want to click is the Enable Glow checkbox, and on the left let's click on the Show Glow Radius. Next, we need to set the colors of the Glow effect. Outside and Inside Colors create a Gradient. The Inside Color, by default, is closest to the bulb and the Outside Color is furthest away. Their distances are set by these two Radius fields below. Again, the distance is in World Units, another case for having the Rulers turned On in your scene. Let's set the Outside Color to blue; just click on the Color Swatch and EI's Color Picker appears. Here's a good blue. Click OK. We'll leave the Inside Color set to white. Now I want the Glow effect to look like a bright bulb so I want the Inner Radius set to 5 and the Outer Radius pretty close, say 50. See the Wire Sphere in the World Views? That's the Glow Radius. Let's make a Snapshot, and now we have a visible light source. The Factor field, again, sculpts the falloff. In this case at the Glow's edge. The higher the value the more feathered it gets. The Intensity field is the brightness of our Glow effect, so we'll set the Factor to 2, and the Intensity to 3. Let's make a Snapshot. Now that's a bright bulb. Notice the specular reflection on the checkerboard floor is the same in both our renders, even though the bulb looks brighter in the last one we made. This is because the specular reflection is a material property, not a real reflection of the light. We'll see that when we get to the Texture lessons. Let's change the Light Type to Tube. There's our two boxes indicating the length of the Tube Light and the oval Y around it is its Glow Radius. Another Snapshot, and now we have an arc light, or light saber, or a laser blast. Now let's change the light to a Spot. Now I want the beam to be obvious so I know that the Outer Radius is much too small. Let's change that to 700. Snapshot. There's our beam but it's way too intense. Let's knock down the Intensity value back to 1. There. If it looks like your Glow is too dense, then enable Volume Falloff in the Glow tab, then go to the Properties tab and enter a value into the Volume Dropoff. Let's enter 350 and render a Snapshot. The illumination is the same but now the visible beam is more transparent. Setting Volume Dropoff is often helpful when you're looking through Glows to the surface you're lighting and that surface has gotten over exposed, or is losing detail in the wash of the light. Setting a Volume Dropoff is an effective way to back off the entire effect of the Glow without having to change any of the light's other attributes. If you have multiple glowing lights then you may want to enable Glow Blend. This will help prevent the Glows from adding up, or blowing out their colors toward white. Let's take another look at the light's Info Window and look at Glow's neighbor, Fog. The Fog tab's attributes are another way to get your light to glow, the only difference is how the Glow effect is applied in the scene. With Fog the effect is blended into the scene with Opacity. With Glow the effect is adding brightness to the scene. Here are two renders that show the difference. The top image is glow applied to a Spotlight with the Glow effect. The Bottom is the same scene, but using the Fog effect. Prior value and the Intensity field will make the Fog effect denser or more opaque. Because we want our light to look like a visible light beam, creating the effect with the Glow tab is preferred.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Electric Image Animation System 7 |
| Author: | Scott Simmons |
| SKU: | 33996 |
| ISBN: | 1-935320-45-9 |
| Release Date: | 2009-06-01 |
| Duration: | 8 hrs / 102 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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