accurate lightbulb predictions

[eoghan]

I have a client who wants to predict the effects a set of lights will have on their building at night. They have all the lightbulb info etc. so i was wondering is there a way to input this accurately into cinema or do you need another program for this?

[Frosty]

Cant be done in C4D as far as I'm aware. Not sure the scientific representation you are looking for can be done in any package except maybe Lightscape.

[edub]

isn't this what ies data is for?

 

not that Cinema supports it (yet..), but other software do, right?

 

is it not accurate enough to do this?

[Frosty]

Yes, that is what ies is for, however, I think that the users control over the engine will allow you to distort the end result....artistic license we like to call it. Lightscape had a feature which allowed a light map output similar to this:

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_con_3pres.gif

I'm sure Ernest will know more about this - I've never used Lightscape.

[AJLynn]

You can do this in Max/Viz using IES or Photometric lights and "pseudocolor" exposure control - it basically does the same thing that Lightscape feature does. I don't remember whether you have to do a radiosity solution to use it, but that's what I've done and it works pretty well. The trick is to adjust the settings so that the information it gives you is useful - a lot of the time what you get is pure red or blue and you need to redefine the range of values it's using.