Realistic spotlight/bulb techniques

[Kevin Maher]

I've in the past been replicating my spotlight "bulb" with a basic self illuminated disc, which is okay when the bulb is sat back into the light fitting somewhat. However, when the bulb is towards the front of the light fitting, it looks pretty flat (obviously).

 

Recently I've been adding flares in post, but its generally hit and miss as to how good it looks with the rest of the image.

 

I've not been that keen to model bulbs "as are" for fear of rendertime tax on the scene. My line of work typically requires 200-300 spotlights per scene.

 

Would you lovely people care to share possible techniques for getting decent looking light bulbs in your spotlights?

[Chris MacDonald]

IES lights

[Kevin Maher]

Thanks Chris. I use IES photometric data in my luminaries - I'm asking about the look of the actual halogen bulb, not the spread of light.

Unless I'm missing something here?!

[Chris MacDonald]

Ahhh ok I see what you're getting at. I don't think there's any other way to do it than model them, really. Of course you could do it in varying degrees of detail... You could simply create a sphere and assign it a glass material and put your light inside it, or alternatively you could model an actual bulb, with filament and make the filament the emitter - though I have done this myself (see image) and the rendertimes are astronomical...