Spotlight Gel question...

tyoung71_a1bb2d3374

Ok, I am thoroughly discouraged...

Basically what Im trying to do is set up a figure in a scene with a single spotlight and using a gel on the spotlight project an image ive done on to said figure.

I got the figure set up, got the light set up, i've created several .png and .avi files to project, but i only get like a small piece of the image to project.

The actual image map is showing in the small preview window at 1168x720

I've adjusted the spotlight distance. Ive adjusted the falloff, I've adjusted brightness. I've tried adjusting the scale of the spotlight itself. Tweaked all the settings, but I still get only a small part of the image.

I've gone through the manual and trainings vids without much luck.

I just can't quite figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm using Carrara 8.5 Pro.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thank You

- Todd

PhilW

You didn't mention if you tried reducing the Half Angle? The default is set for a very wide spotlight beam, so it is likely that only a small part of the beam / image is in your field of view. If you reduce this, it should focus more of the image into your scene (I usually set up lights mainly from the top view, I think it helps envisage what is going on). Also give it a little angular falloff to feather the edges.

wetcircuit

Shader Gel plugin might help you:
http://www.digitalcarversguild.com/plugin.php?ProductId=12

tyoung71_a1bb2d3374

@Phil - yeah i tried that, still the same small center part...

@Holly - thanks i saw that, but wasn't sure it'd make any difference

PhilW

That's odd then - can you share an image of what you are getting vs the gel map, that may help. You don't have an alpha in your map?

tyoung71_a1bb2d3374

OK,, here's a few screenshots...

#1 - in the upper right shows the .avi I'm using for this one. I did screen captures of visualizations of music off of WMP, No, no alpha.

#2 - A quick render showing the settings and what it looks like on the figure currently. Ive tried adjusting all the settings and just cant get it to work properly.

#3 - Here's a shot with it just projecting on the wall.

#4 - another shot at the wall with half angle set to 90 degrees. Set at 0 its just black.

If i do the 'tile seamlessly and turn the numbers up i see a bunch of the images, but that's not what I'm wanting. I've tried just .png files, but get the same results.

Thanks for looking.

Some images removed by moderator

mjc1016

Those screenshots aren't going to last very long...redo them with some clothing on the model...

tyoung71_a1bb2d3374

The second two are the only important ones showing that gel isn't really showing up.

I thought maybe it was the size of the map so i tried something smaller at 640x427, but still the same results.

evilproducer

Try a square. If you need the wide aspect, then make your canvas big enough to hold the image you want projected centered in the middle. Make the borders pure black. Think of it like letter boxing.

Here's an example I posted with an explanation:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/31940/P135/#485389

PhilW

Thanks for sharing your images - I'm assuming that figSpot is the one that we can see producing a soft edged light on the vertical plane? That is odd because on your settings the edge falloff is set to zero, so the edges should be hard. So because you are only seeing part of the image, and you are not seeing the edge of the spotlight, it looks like something is blocking the light. Do you have soft shadows turned on, and at what setting? Is there anything in the way that could be blocking the edges of the light?

Have you tried setting up a separate test scene with just a plane and a spotlight and playing to see the results? This may help get to the bottom of it without other things influencing the results.

tbwoq

I get the same results if I change the plane to a black shader. Try a different shader for the plane(?).

tyoung71_a1bb2d3374

@Phil - I set up a new scene and now everything works as expected. Should have tried that to begin with....sigh...

Thank you everybody for your fresh eyes and ideas.

Now I can move forward with the project.

thank you!

- Todd

evilproducer

todd71 said:

@Phil - I set up a new scene and now everything works as expected. Should have tried that to begin with....sigh...

Thank you everybody for your fresh eyes and ideas.

Now I can move forward with the project.

thank you!

- Todd

Sometimes it is a good idea to just start fresh, or at least delete the troublesome component and start fresh with that. As an example, I just had a scene I was working on as a base scene which was broad daylight. I used a Sunlight which is tied to the RSE (Realistic Sky Editor), and a sunlight lens flare.

I wanted a night scene for the same scene, so I Saved As with a new name, changed the sunlight to a moonlight and removed the lens flare. I then went to the RSE and set it to night and to display the moon. I did a couple test renders with the moon's disk in frame and kept getting the damned lens flare. I would check every light in the scene and there would be no lens flare, yet everytime I would render it, the flare would be applied. I finally deleted the light and stuck a new one in. Problem solved. It was bizarre. I must have checked that light ten times.

PhilW

Glad you got it sorted! I find setting up a separate scene is often a useful technique to isolate a particular item, get it the way you want it and then import into your main scene.

tbwoq

When I saw the screenshots of the plane with a black shader I thought, a pure black(RGB 0,0,0) shader component equals no rendered surface light. The screenshots are probably showing only the highlight channel being rendered from the spotlight gel.