Im still using C3, havent gotten my money out of it to justify the upgrade..lol..but... Im just playing around and I want to create a uniform beam of light, a laser, to be reflected off of a spinning nibbly-bit... i cant figure out how to do it..ive got a spotlight and reduced the half-angle as far as it will go, but the light still flares out... is there a way to do it that im missing?

You need to use anything glows and a tube.

BTW I am still using C3. ;-) I won't benefit anything with C4 because of poor modeling rooms. No symmeterical in vertex room. I asked for it many times.

Message edited on: 07/26/2005 13:41

Here's an image I created using what GWeb says. (minus the editorial... ;)

And here's the file I used to create it. (You'll need to change the .txt extention to .car, but it should work fine.)

minus the editorial tell me what it is? :/

Here's another example essentially using the same principle. -Kix

Im wanting a 'real' beam of light tho. The plan is to have a rotating object and I want the light to reflect off of it as it spins...like light reflecting off of a mirror... the plan is to have several of the lights reflected off during the animation...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2014637

You can have it applied as any object in hierarchy editor for jointing and in property under modifier to apply behaviors for spinning. If you want to map the light, iI suggest that you use glow and aura to be able to get it applied with texture map for varity of lights and volumetrics. The link to my thread that used this method http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2014637

the method you used looks like its for a static picture...or is what you did part of a clip of some sort? im trying to do some animation.. getting the pieces i want to spin isnt a problem..the lights themselves are stationary... basically the effect i want would be if you had a mirror or glass block or disco ball spinning at one end of the room and set up a laser aimed at it... as the piece spins the light will reflect and refract off of it at specific points. the only problem im having is getting a uniform beam of light..it always flares out...

I have beeen there. It is not in C3 and i dont think it is in C4 either. What you were asking is optical lab 3D application. Carrara dont support it yet. So you would need to do some work arounds like any of us do. What work around I would do is use gel effect with a blub.

theoretically, it just seems like if they gave a touch more control over the spotlight it would work fine... just something to keep it from flaring at the end...

Attached Link: http://www.joeashear.com/carrara/laser.mov

I decided to take a whack at this problem. The link above goes to my solution. If you want a beam of light to bounce off a mirror and illuminate whatever it hits, there's no practical way to do it with a regular light source. The caustics system could theoritically do it, but to get the level of precision you need it would probably take years to render the thing. In my solution the beams of light are just long thin rods. Each one has a glow color and a halo, and an Anything Glows object assigned to it. The reflected beam (the one that moves) is a child of the mirror object, so it pivots relative to the surface of the mirror, but at a different rate (it wouldn't make sense for it to always be pointing straight out of the mirror - it needs to vary depending on the angle of the mirror. The animation has just two keyframes, one at the halfway point and one at the end. The result isn't perfect - for one thing, the reflected laser beam would be visible if you were to peek behind the wall. Also, that beam should really be hidden when the mirror is facing toward the side, as in the first frame. But this works as a general proof-of-principle. The scene itself is at: http://www.joeashear.com/carrara/laser.car.zip - Joe

dang..you really did take a whack at it...lol.. thanks... yeah..i had the idea you had, but it wasnt really anything so complicated i was looking for... id remembered playing with it before and having light reflect off of a surface when the 'reflect' value was up and using 3d shadows..i think... all i was doing was playing the other day and was trying to do something, somewhat, simple and had just thought the idea might be an interesting and fun thing to play with... i was hoping it may be a simple solution i was overlooking involving the spotlight...lol.. apparently my thought was wrong...would have been nice though... thanks for working on a solution...what you came up with is really awesome...

I am not sitting in front of my copy of C3 (or C4, for that matter), so I can't try this out. But, here's a thought. First off, do the volumetric clouds reflect light? I haven't played with them at all, so I don't know. But, if they do reflect light, then you could possibly set up a distant light pointing in the direction of your laser beam. Place an object with a small hole in it so the distant light shines through the hole, hitting your mirror ball (or whatever it is you're wanting to hit). If, in fact, the volumetric clouds do reflect light, then, they'd reflect the beam of light from the hole to the mirror ball, and the light would bounce off the mirror ball and fling all around the dance floor. (Like how I've gone from your post to a dance club? It's a side-effect of living in San Francisco!) Anyway, that might well work. Otherwise, there was a thread a while ago about streaming sunlight through stained glass, and the solution to get nearly parallel light rays was to put the spotlight with the light cone about a million miles away. (Well, I seem to remember it was about 2,000 "units" away, but a little hyperbole never hurt anyone....) And Joe -- that's an awesome workaround. Very nicely done. - Dex

Nothing can reflect the light in C3 or C4. You can only see surfaces through the reflector mirror. Transparency light and caustic are avialable in C3 and C4. If Eovia decides to add light reflect function, they might need to make new light beam laser with all other lights. They also might need to make new 3D light well as prism lab for next version. I have asked them to make it.

Somewhat incorrect. To an extent caustics DO reflect light. Just not in a physically accurate way. It would be nice, but for the sake of render speed, and the fact I rarely would see myself use it, its not something I'd personally push for.

Global Illumination have the photon function we need for light reflection and laser beam. They did not snap the photon function with the reflection in texture room. If they did we would get true GI with light reflection effect.