Fluro Lighting in MR

[Macer]

Hi Guys,

 

Once again I find myself seeking help from this vast wealth of knowledge!

 

I am trying to model a scene of a school assembley area (indoors) that is lit by two rows of fluro strip lighting. There are 14 fittings, each with 2 x 5ft bulbs. I also want to allow day light to enter the space through curtain walling panels.

 

I work on exteriors mainly using the MR daylight system, but I have limited experience of creating internal renders. I have a reasonable solution using daylight only but I am unsure how to introduce the strip lighting. I couldn't find a rectangular area light in MR and also thought that I may be able to use a light material applied to the fiting, but once again don't know how to do this in MR?

 

I have been reading through posts and tutorials etc, but as yet have not come accross anything useful. This has got me really puzzled. I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions.

 

Thanks

 

Mark.

[AJLynn]

This is probably not the efficient way to do it, but if I have a scene that's already lit by daylight and I just want to add strip lights, I make some geometry for the buld or the lens and add a mental ray material with a Glow(lume) or Output shader, depending on how it's used, in the Surface slot, change its swatches to white and crank up the output value (somewhere over 100). FG will get some lighting from it and you'll see the glowing.

[Macer]

Thanks for your help Andrew.

 

I've got it working quite well with you advice. I still have so much to learn about shaders and materials! I have played it safe so far and stuck mainly with MR's A&D materials. I really should get stuck into some shader tutorials!

 

Thanks again for you input.

[AJLynn]

Most of the time, using the A&D shaders is the right thing to do - use the mental ray material when you want some kind of special effect.