mrsparky opened this issue on Apr 03, 2012 · 112 posts
seachnasaigh posted Tue, 24 April 2012 at 3:01 AM
The separate piece organization looks right. But the shape of the aurae concern me. Are the aura meshes just symbolic, showing that they are a separate prop? The double edge blend node method for making an aura will perform terribly on those rectangular shapes. The cones would do well.
Look at the wireframes of these demo test shapes, and then look at the aura render. Notice the effect that shape has on the aura appearance, and note that the aura will always be smaller than the mesh, because the outer edges disappear.
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The second edge blend node makes areas of the mesh which are nearly orthogonal (as seen from the camera's perspective) fade out; on a sphere, this means the center will be transparent, and the sphere becomes visible as you look toward the outline edges.
The first edge blend node, daisy-chained into the second, makes areas which are highly oblique to the camera disappear. On the sphere, that means that the outer edges go transparent.
What's left? The areas which will show most strongly will be those which are halfway between - where the angle of the camera's view to that point on the surface is about 45 degrees.
So, the visible portion is a halo, with soft edges. Both the center and the perimeter of the sphere fade to transparent. The great benefit of this is that you don't see the shape of the mesh, and that it automatically adapts as you change viewing angle.
What you want for your circular ceiling light shafts is a cone (as you have). For the rectangular lights, the aura must match the rectangular shape right where it begins (at the light), but then soften the shape as you extrude outward to an oval cone. The easiest way to do this would be to create an ellipse near the floor. Note the number of sides. Now cut the edges of the rectangle (up near the ceiling) so its perimeter has the same number of edges. Select all the perimeter edges of both ellipse and rectangle, and bridge.
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Here is such an aura; rectangle at ceiling, ellipse at floor:
If that doesn't make sense, send me the ceiling & floor, and I'll whip them up.
Ideally, a static prop will have four pieces:
Parent the VisLts, aurae, and emitters to the main prop.
Every moving part which has a light, such as your sliding door, will consist of the same four-prop arrangement.
Poser 12, in feet.
OSes: Win7Prox64, Win7Ultx64
Silo Pro 2.5.6 64bit, Vue Infinite 2014.7, Genetica 4.0 Studio, UV Mapper Pro, UV Layout Pro, PhotoImpact X3, GIF Animator 5