Re: PhotoWorks, Lights, and Assemblies

Ok. Thanks Rob.

I was thinking about setting up several assembly files with a table, lights, backdrops, etc. to serve as a "studio" for my parts to be put into photoworks. What do you find to be the most useful approach?

Also, I'm having a bit of trouble with using some of the HDR images as a spherical ceiling... the lighting bit works fine, but the actual image is "patterned" around the sphere, and not stretched like it should be.

Setting up the "studio" as you describe can work well, especially if your rendering the same types of products time after time.

Applying images to a sphere environment can be a challenge. If you use the preview window and have the sphere visible you will be able to see "real-time" how your image is being mapped around the sphere and how changes affect the mapping.

If you use the "spherical environment" option in the scene manager under the foreground/background tab and browse to an HDR image file, PW will map (stretch) the image around the sphere for you. I like to use this option sometimes because I find it easier and faster. You don't have any control over the image though like you would using a Spherical room environment.

Yes, it does appear to "wrap" the image around the sphere, but not in the correct way. The sphere has vast "black" spaces where the circular HDR image was simply bent around a smaller part of the sphere... not stretched out over the whole thing. Does that make sense?

I can't figure out where this is controlled from (how it's wrapped to the spherical top part of the room)... I've tried the "textures page", but it only changes the orientation of the image - doesn't fix the problem.

I know it can be done - I've seen others do it. Ugh.

Here's what I'm talking about:

When its important to map a 'spherical environment' under background a certain way, I drop a model sphere into my assembly, apply a 1.0 mirrored procedural to it (and as you know you have to change the color of the material to 'black' to get full mirror) and do renderings to screen. Then I adjust the background source image in Pshop using the 'offset' filter to adjust the image rotation while keeping the wrapping intact. The other spherical environments, where you can adjust mapping without entering PShop, are a disaster (the ones with north and south poles) and have appeared to be abandoned by SWx. If you complain, they point you to the spherical environments in background. BTW - its been a while, but as I recall the seam in the image of a spherical environment applied to the background is front and center, so it is especially important to use the 'offset' filter in Pshop to be sure your wrapping is righteous - any mismatch, and it will be right there in the rendering. Dumb decision on SWx part (I imagine it would have been just as easy to put the seam in the back where it would not tend to effect renderings), but its what we have to live with. Caveat

- I have not checked this lately, and perhaps they have corrected this poor decision. Ed

Private to Rob - nice seeing you again at World!

The problem is still exists ED. It would be nice if they could get this worked out.

FYE, While I don't use it much PW studio does have an image that wraps perfectly around a sphere and produces a nice reflection on a sphere. You have to use a "studio" environment for this to work. I'll send you a file showing this.

Got it Rob - thanks!

I'll play around with it tonight and post whatever I find out.

You've got the real experts helping you, and I'm only an extremely casual user of PW, but I thought I read in this group that you could set up parts themselves to act as light sources. If you wanted to show a fluorescent light bulb, say, you could make a cylinder and then give it the right material properties so that it would put light on the rest of the parts. Was I dreaming?

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

You can set a material for a part to have a "Constant" Illumination, which means that it's rendered at the same color/brightness regardless of the surrounding conditions. Essentially, yes, it means you can model up a part to act as an indirect light, but it won't "emit" enough light to act like a spotlight or anything.

Rob helped me out with the whole "spherical wrapping" issue for the environments, and I ran a few tests. Things look a LOT better now. However, I don't think the wrapped image is acting like a light-emitting source (what an HDR image is supposed to do), which is kind of a bummer. Means I have to set up multiple lights to properly illuminate the scene.

So, I can use an HDR for the walls and get great lighting, but incorrect reflections (mirroed image is warped), or I can use a flat image for the walls and use multiple lights for a good rendering.

The answer is out there somewhere, just haven't quite found it yet.

Thanks everyone!