Im trying to fake moonlight shining through a window on a wall. The window isnt visible in the scene, so I made a trans-map to use as a light gel and mapped it to a plane. The problem is, I cant get the light to shine through it properly. The spotlight either shines through completely, forming a circle of light on the wall, or doesnt shine through at all. The trans-map appears to be working correctly as far as actually having a transparent area. Im totally lost on this one. Does anybody have any ideas what I may be doing wrong, or perhaps another way to fake the effect? Thanks, Rich

hmmm.... how about a point light? Make the spread on the spotlight larger. Turn off highlights and reflections on your wall and/or give it a lower diffuse setting? I'm not sure what to say that would work, but I would mess around with the highlights, reflections, and especially the diffuse/ambient settings on the wall material first, once I was sure I had my spotlight shining they way it seems it ought to be.

This is what I'm working with. At this low light level, it seems as though is should be easy. The transmap on the lantern works fine (first dang thing I've modeled that looks halfway decent!) I think using a point light would throw of the lighting, but then again, nothing else has worked. Mapped material on the wall, Difuse at 60, Ambient at 40, no reflectivity. Rich

Hi Rich, when I did something similar I had the same problem. The way I solved it was to use a very large cube as the wall -- off-camera -- and then use boolean-subtracted cubes to form the windowpanes. Then a point light for the light source. The wall just needs to be large. The windowpane cubes can be grouped together to make them easy to move around the wall to the place you want them. The light will shine through in the proper shape then. Hope this makes sense okay. :)

Agree with Varian on this one, give the light what it asks for, something to shine through. "Large" wall, off camera, with a few holes in it, pointlight (powersetting 300+) well out of the way. Added curtains (transp. 40-50) to show that works fine too. Sometimes a few pointlights together work a lot better for a single light effect.

I very rarely use the spotlights, but I'm always using point lights. Call me strange, but I've gotten into this habit of turning down materials' abilities of reflecting light when too many point lights washes out a scene with too much light.

Hey Hein, I like the added touch of the curtains! Very cool! :)

That definatly makes sense. I'll give it a whirl. Thanks everyone, Rich

Of course, Vue 4 is supposed to be able to render more realistic light gels :) I CAN'T STAND WAITING ANY LONGER!!!! Laurie

:: upending a bucket of cold water over Laurie's head :: :-)

Arrghh!! Phew!!! Thanks Varian...I'm feeling better now ;) Laurie