Advice on best way to show hidden lighting?

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  • I am trying to show 'channel' lighting that is hidden behind a picture rail - technically it's a strip of LEDs at about 12mm spacing, but I don't want to fill my model with hundreds of lights.


    My 'standard' trick of just making a hidden surface emissive doesn't seem to work in Enscape (And if it's turned up too high the light bleeds through the model surfaces.)


    Is there any trick to produce a consistent light over a length? Could a custom IES profile spot be shone horizontally? Any ideas?

  • Yea; I would do that for finger-grips in a kitchen and I do similar for the under-unit lighting in a kitchen... however this is a picture-rail at 2.2m in a 2.8m tall room; I suppose I could make bands of progressively less emissive texture going up the wall, but that seems a bit excessive.


    Just a thought: if I could apply a transparency mask that made 0% luminosity at black and 100% at white I could just make a simple wall mask. (<- wishlist request)

  • Just a thought: if I could apply a transparency mask that made 0% luminosity at black and 100% at white I could just make a simple wall mask. (<- wishlist request)

    Are you looking for a texture controlled emitter? At Rhino it works. Attached a quick test on the curtain - now it is a LED curtain. :)


  • Unfortunately that works on the following formula:

    - transparent 50-100% (Black) = off

    - solid 0-49% (White) = on


    Which can produce some cool effects like the above and I have used it in the image below to get an OK representation*, but it's grainy and not as smooth as it would be using a grey-scale to control the intensity. (...Or if I could get the emissive material to give the same effects.)


    * (Created a gradient at a large scale, converted it to B&W and shrinking it for use as a transparency image on an emissive surface)

  • but it's grainy and not as smooth as it would be using a grey-scale to control the intensity.

    Right, I very missed a grey scale control too. Last I ask for the answer was that in real world this isn't available. But from the artist view it is needed and useful. It's not always easy to satisfy the developer. ;)

  • If I understand you observations correctly: the greyscale mask works for emissive surfaces but leads to grainyness. Is that what you mean? So if the noise would be less then it would be ok?

  • Currently there is no greyscale mask - only a b&w one: the image above used a greyscale gradient, then converted it to B&W (in a paint program), then used this as an emissive mask. Since the gradient is formed by using less and less "pixels" as it gets darker, but each pixel still gives out 100% light. This is a work around that will always have noise because of the way it works. (I made the mesh big so that I could shrink it within enscape to lessen the noise)

    However if there was a greyscale mask then the brightest 'white' would emit 100% of the light, a 50% grey would emit 50% of the light and a black would emit 0% light. This would produce a seamless, no-noise fade and allow for some cool effects... but it would still be a work-around solution.