Help with VM and lights

That Other Persona

Two questions.

1) In the Vertex modeler, how can I change the rotation point of a plane; it always seems to be in the middle? For example, I want to make a working door with a morph control, but must have missed something somewhere.... (or a space scooter with legs that drop down, or... or...)

2) The bigger question: how to make a good table lamp like the ones in the store for Daz? I want a light and a shade that if possible adjust from same slide controller. How to get the shade to work right? (I am still a basic user and have a hard time grasping the shader tree)

I have finally created a decent street light with a bulb inside the body and a glass area set to translucency. I have to add glow if I want it to really show up and be noticeable that the light is on. Again, it would be awesome to have a single control for this.

Would I need Fenric's remote control plugin for this?

Thanks in advance.

Headwax

1) In the Vertex modeler, how can I change the rotation point of a plane; it always seems to be in the middle? For example, I want to make a working door with a morph control, but must have missed something somewhere…. (or a space scooter with legs that drop down, or… or…)

dunno sorry :) what you can do is select the edges of the plane you need as a pivot point then max out the soft select wnd that will, if you are lucky, selevct the rest of the plane,m but th epivot point will be around the edge you selected

That Other Persona

head wax said:

dunno sorry :) what you can do is select the edges of the plane you need as a pivot point then max out the soft select wnd that will, if you are lucky, selevct the rest of the plane,m but th epivot point will be around the edge you selected

Just tried that... creates some funky motion! The door doesn't open in an arc, but it scales along a straight line. Any way to change that?

Straight line motion is easy, so a sliding door can be made.

Headwax

hi are you using the arc rotate tool?
see pic 1) is unrotated 2) is rotated around the selected edges, the selected edges being the red ones - ie your door hinge

That Other Persona

Yes, the rotate tool. It looks fine in the VM... Go out into the assemble room and that is where it looks funny.

Headwax

hmm best to post a pic of the funny looking thing? looks fine at this end :)

have you got your hotpoint set correctly in the assembly room
via top right of screen go to Motion>transform then obj >hotpoint (or vice versa)

rock livrette

here's a tutorial from Mike Moir:
http://carraracafe.com/tutorials/modeling-at-an-angle-rotate-numerically/

in essence it is:
have your morph area selected - make an additional click at a vertex that should become your pivot point by holding strg+alt - voila - you can rotate your selection around that point

But!:
This alone wouldn't work to animate e.g. a door. The hinges are not the problem here, it is the automated animation that tends to deform the door. It is always looking for the shortest way for all the vertex to travel, it is not looking for the "perfect bow" you think of.

That Other Persona

That is what I am seeing. It is moving in a straight line, thus deforming the door.

Thanks for the link. Will take a look.

rock livrette

As for the light, take a look at this:
http://carraracafe.com/tutorials/alternatives-to-create-more-realistic-direct-lights/ from Phil Wilkes

Make your bulb a glowing object, then turn the render to global illumination - don't forget to turn light through transparency on.
This might work for your purpose - depending on the scene.

evilproducer

There are ways to do this without Indirect Light as well.

You could add an effect to the light source, such as the 3D Light Sphere under the light's Effects tab. I don't think it is there for shape lights or Anything Glows, but it works for spotlights and bulb lights.

You're on the right track with translucency. Are you also using transparency? This video of the ship, the Cygnus, from the movie, The Black Hole, internally lit. The "glass" panels in the superstructure use translucency but no transparency. A color in the translucency channel in the shader also works to color the light.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-sNje4k0o

I also used a similar method on my Holiday Light set I give away at ShareCG. The "bulbs" are vertex objects replicated along the cord. There are two shading domains for the "bulbs". One is the socket and it is opaque. The other is the "bulb" and it uses the same color in the color channel and the translucency channel. There is a Carrara bulb light (I think D|S calls it a point light) within the bulb. Its color is white. The translucent shader gives the emitted light its color.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/73481/view/5/3D-Model/Carrara-rigged-Holiday-Light-String

rock livrette

Opening the door:

if morphing doesn't work, bones do. . . . . at least in this example.
Make shure all the weight is substracted from the wall for bone 1 and 2

DesertDude

Another approach for the door:

Duplicate your model, name it "door" and the original "room". Select the "door" and go to the Vertex Modeler. Carrara will ask if you want to "Create a new master" or "Edit the master" - choose "Create a new master". Select all the geometry except the door and delete it. Now select your "room", go to VM, select the door, and delete it. Back in the assembly room group them together. Select your new isolated "door" and move the hot point to where you want it to pivot and now you can use standard rotation controls.

tbwoq

1.) In the Model room, pressing Cmd/Ctrl+Alt on a vertex will turn the vertex yellow. Any selections can now rotate/pivot from that yellow vertex(this is undocumented in the manuals). However, since morph translations are straight lines only, as pointed out in above replies, you can't morph rotate objects without distortion.

2.)For mechanical moving/rotating parts, using constraints, IK chains or modifers are much easier to setup and animate than morphs. Translating/morphing parts, like the store table lamps, including light intensity, keyframable shaders etc. would probably work best using an Animation group and NLA clips.

There is also Puppeteer(C8) in which you can directly control posing/morphing of most objects with the mouse movements during an animation(though light intensity can not be controlled with puppeteer). Fenrics remote control(ERC) would also add a great deal of flexability and mechanics to animations.

On a side note. Using light objects placed into other objects for lighting works well most of the time, but Carrara does not have true light dispersion. So some shadows and combined colors/shaders may not mix or look realistic to the scene.

evilproducer

tbwoq said:

...On a side note. Using light objects placed into other objects for lighting works well most of the time, but Carrara does not have true light dispersion. So some shadows and combined colors/shaders may not mix or look realistic to the scene.

So true. You can use a red, green and a blue spotlight at the exact same intensity and in the exact same spot, pointing in the exact same direction and get a white light, which can then be split apart into its component colors if you enable Caustics in the Render Room, but shining those lights through a lens using Caustics and refraction will still not break the light apart with physical accuracy. I call it artistic license. ;-)

tbwoq

Yes, no prism/rainbow effects. Even the caustics look wrong no matter how the lights are setup(or at least compared to other programs). Also have to take in to account how the lighting reacts to reversed polygons in some objects. In my testing and weeks of experiments, its just easier using the regular lights outside of objects to fake most lighting situations. Unless you want to go the LuxRender route, which I'm currently learning. :)

evilproducer

Inaccurate though it is, it still tickles me that I can create a white light out of red, blue and green, and then it can be broken into red, blue and green caustic light effects.

That Other Persona

Thanks for all the replies, everyone.

Looks like the door isn't as straight-forward in the VM as I was hoping. Back to just moving it in the assemble room. No problem there. I also grabbed Fenric's ERC and will see what I can do with that.

Regarding lights, thankfully I am not going for realistic looks so whatever I can make that looks decent will do!

This weekend I hope to work on the lamp shade... the light inside is working fine but I'm still not sure what to do wit the lamp shade.