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Placing Lights


ddocg
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Can someone explain to me the basics of lighting. I draw in Autocad and was wondering if i need to represent a physical light fitting, which would be used by max. I have drawn fluorescent light tubes underneath a glass floor. At final render the light is not represented. If anyone can point me in the direction of some tutorials this would be greatly appreciated.

 

David.

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Hi David,

 

Just in case this isn't obvious (and sometimes I forget), make sure your flo. tube geometry doesn't cast shadows (in Object Properties, both in General and Radiosity tabs). Okay. Then you'll want your tubes to glow. Create a material that has Self-illumination enabled and has Ambient and Diffuse set to pure white.

 

For the light itself, I'd use one of the photometric presets for 4-ft flo. Another option would be to use a Radiosity Override material and jack the luminance scale way up. It depends on the look you're after, but I think shadows from a self-emitter can't be raytraced, so they won't be sharp.

 

Any idea what happened to your previous thread about Lighting?

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Good morning Fran and thanks for the reply, I will try your advice later on today as i have been a little busy with drawings for work. My posts have been moved into 3DS Max forum by the moderator, so i will start posting in here from now on, again thank you for your help with Max.

 

David.

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Hi Fran, I have tried your advice and i am seeing some changes to my light though unfortunately it is not right. First, when you said about using a photometric preset, I am lost as to where i would find this preset light.

 

After following your advice about switching off cast shadows in object properties for both general and advanced lighting tabs and preparing a self illuminating colour with ambient and diffuse set to pure white and then applying this to my tube i then selected a free area light and selected the tube, in the perspective viewport i can see the light reflecting on the wall and i can see it change when i make alterations in the modify tab this is all great, my problem is when i render the perspective viewport the finished result shows just a plain white tube, I am obviously missing a setting somewhere and hopefully you can advise on this.

 

David.

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