-
creating realistic car lights in C4D
Hello everybody,
I trying to find a way to create realistic car lights for a chase scene project (police car chase) that I am currently involved with. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to achieve that with the current light options that are available in C4D (or maybe I am missing something such as a technique like proper settings for example) I also tried a IES profile light set up that comes close due to the fact that car lights in general are fragmented while projecting on the ground for example but I am having trouble with this due to the light source from the headlight itself not illuminating correctly.I have also scoured the net for a tutorial on this and unfortunately there aren’t many out there that talks about properly creating realistic car lights. If someone here can share their experience or technique in achieving this objective I would greatly appreciate it.
Many Thanks
J -
3 Replies
-
There is a post about this on this forum. I was part of the thread if that helps narrow the search.
The trick is to make the headlamp geometry not visible to the light that shoots into the world. (make sure to exclude the geometry in the project tab of the light). Then add a light or a glow effect that makes the headlight len s light up properly for you. That light should have all other geometry in the scene excluded except the lens geometry.
Often you will need a spot light to throw the light in a beam and a point light with a fall off to light up what’s near the light.
Don’t rely too much on the GI. Get the lighting right first then you either render really fast without GI or render with GI and everything looks even better.
Some 3D lights start at a infinitely small point so often they need to be placed behind the light fixture so the cone has some diameter as it exits the lens. Just exclude the fixture geomtry in the lights project tab. -
Do you think you could provide a sample file to see more in detail how you achieve this? I am using an older version of C4D (R13) you mention “point light” I have “Area Light, Spot light, Target light, Omni light, Infinite light, sun light and IES as my available light options.
My entire scene is heavily reliant on GI so I am not entirely clear on what you are referencing in terms of excluding GI if of course you are referring to using a tag to achieve this.Thanks
-
An Omni light to light up the car headlight reflector, lens and whats immediately around the light fixture and a spot light to shine on what you want to light up down the road and to create the beam(if you want to see that).
The spot lite should have the car parts excluded from the lights project tab.The problem with GI is that everyone hits that button first before learning how to light things. Try turning GI off in the render settings and get your basic lighting down. Then you can turn it back on for that extra kiss of realism. The great things about lighting things properly and rendering vs using GI to render, is the render times are sooooo much faster.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up