Ambient Lighting

illuminatispy

I'm looking for a way to do an ambient lighting effect over a whole dungeon map. I'm looking for just enough to make the walls and floor of the whole dungeon barely visible while preserving most of the shadows. Somewhere on this forum a long time ago there was a post about how to create an overhead office lighting effect and I think the key to what I want to do is in that thread.

I've attached a copy of what I'm working on.
I still want dark spaces I just don't want them pitch black. I want just a hint of light all around.

Terraformer_Author

Here's some forum links that might help:


http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=3531&page=1#Item_0

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1826

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=496

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=3531

Just some links that I found that might be helpful hopefully...

Joachim de Ravenbel

Right-click the Sheets icon and select Global Sun (or type SUNINFO). In the center of the popup you have a Shadow - transparency parameter. Set it to anything higher than 0 (50 or 75 for example) and the darkest shadows won't be full black anymore.

I also wrote an article about CC3 and light. You can check it here if you want.

illuminatispy

Thank you both! That was exactly what I needed.

Do any of you remember a post on this forum about creating a lighting effect which looks like overhead florescent lighting?

Terraformer_Author

More links:

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=2736

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=3536

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=3588

OldGuy

Posted By: Joachim de RavenbelRight-click the Sheets icon and select Global Sun (or type SUNINFO). In the center of the popup you have aShadow - transparencyparameter. Set it to anything higher than 0 (50 or 75 for example) and the darkest shadows won't be full black anymore.

I also wrote an article about CC3 and light. You can check ithereif you want.

That is a fantastic write-up on lighting!

jslayton

That is indeed an excellent discussion on the lighting system, JdR.

The lighting system actually works in a non-obvious way: the setup filters create a height field from the height value and the non-transparent pixels on the sheet; the finalize filter uses that height field and the light positions to generate the shaded color map. That shaded color map then gets blended onto the drawing as it has accumulated to that point, allows for the partial transparency effect.

It would be interesting to consider a filter extension that would allow for the intermediate height field to be saved as an image. Allowing for a min/max/exponent operation on the non-infinite shadow lengths might allow for non-flat tops on things (min + a distance field scaled as (max - min), then exponent for profile) might also be an interesting extension... OK, I need to get more sleep, spending time considering highly limited usage scenarios that would probably get used two or three times in the life of the program.

It's also possible to have multiple setup/finalize sets in the same drawing, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that.

Joachim de Ravenbel

Posted By: illuminatispyThank you both! That was exactly what I needed.

Do any of you remember a post on this forum about creating a lighting effect which looks like overhead florescent lighting?

You're welcome. No idea about fluorescent lighting but I'd try to put colored (light-blue for example) light-sources in a row if you mean neon tube like lighting.

Posted By: OldGuyThat is a fantastic write-up on lighting!

Posted By: jslaytonThat is indeed an excellent discussion on the lighting system, JdR.

Thanks sirs!

illuminatispy

With your help I was able to get the effect I wanted.

I added a transparency effect to the same sheet the wall shadow finalize was on and set it to 70%.

Joachim that PDF tutorial is great. I got a lot from a quick read. I will read it in greater detail before starting my next map. Thank you.

Joachim de Ravenbel

Posted By: illuminatispyThank you

You're welcome

Unless you have some specific aim, having part of a map full black looks useless... I usually end up masking those areas with white, either with a MASK sheet in CC3 or just using a wide white brush in GIMP or PhotoFiltre. If you aren't printing in doesn't matter though...

illuminatispy

I don't want the shadows on the finished map to be completely opaque. I still want to see details in areas where shadow falls creating more of a poor lighting effect than a total darkness effect. Reading your PDF has given me an idea on how to selectively create areas of total darkness if I want to.

It's clear that lighting takes up a lot of render time when the effect is applied. I was initially adding several very dim lights to get a very poor version of what the transparency overly did, it was uneven and took forever to render. I knew there had to be a better way.

It seems easier to selectively cast darker shadows than to selectively create lighter shadows.