Michaelab opened this issue on May 26, 2012 · 20 posts
seachnasaigh posted Tue, 29 May 2012 at 7:55 AM
P8 (and PP2010) geometry arrangement:
In addition to the original gem -which will be the main visible prop- you'll scale down a second gem just enough (try 99.975%) that it disappears inside the original. This smaller copy will be the IDL emitter.
A third gem will be scaled up about 250% so that it is well outside the original gem. This larger copy will be the aura.
You now have the original gem, plus an emitter copy just slightly smaller hidden inside, and an aura copy way outside.
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Thus, for P8,
Parent both the emitter and the aura to the original gem.
P8 object properties and materials:
Since all three pieces glow, un-tick the casts shadows box for all three props. This is critical for the original gem (middle gem), else it will block the emitter's light. The visible original gem (middle gem) must also have the visible in raytracing box un-ticked, as shown in this screenshot:
As for materials, the visible gem (middle gem) should have a mild ambient value (less than one), and must be opaque so as to hide the emitter concealed within. So, no transparency! This is indeed a disappointment for something like a gem, but it is necessary if using mesh (the emitter or "inner gem") for light. An alternative is to leave the main gem (middle gem) transparent and use a point light inside, in which case the main gem (middle gem) can also be visible in raytracing. This is the material I used for my main gem (middle gem), but a simple color with sparkly highlights would be just as good.
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The hidden emitter (inner gem) should be the same color as the main gem, but perhaps desaturated somewhat. Crank up the ambient value; Poser seems to max out at about 32 (numbers larger than 32 do not seem to have greater effect). Larger emitter props may use much lesser ambient values, but we are restricted to the surface area of an object (inner gem) which can be hidden inside the original gem (middle gem), so we need lots of ambient. You can ignore the alternate diffuse and alternate specular which I inadvertently left here.
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The outer gem -the faintly visible glowing aura- will use a double edge blend node setup. In the material room, right-click on a blank area, and when the menu pops up, select new node - math - edge blend. The first edge blend node fades away the center of the aura, leaving the original gem (middle gem) nicely visible. The second edge blend node fades away the outer edges of the aura so that no hard boundary of the geometry is visible. This method works wonderfully on rounded shapes; it sucks like a Hoover on angular shapes. For angular shapes, I'd use a regular masked transparency.
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Poser 12, in feet.
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