lighting behind an object

[Alex Dow]

Hi Robert,

Yes you can make the flares stay visible by selecting the flare pose and in the “Animation Controls” panel uncheck “Disappears Behind Objects”.

Sincerely,
Alex Dow
Customer Service | Zaxwerks Inc.

[Brent Willett]

Hi Robert.

Alex is right. But unchecking the “Disappears Behind Objects” makes the flares render in front of the objects. This is useful in some cases, but I’m guessing that’s not what you’re looking for.

You can use a cone to get kind of the look you’re asking about. What I might recommend doing is to duplicate your light. Keep the first one exactly the way you have it, but on the second on, turn off “Casts Light” in the Object Controls window. This will keep the light from making your scene too bright, but you can still turn on a cone and the cone will be visible. So, turn on a cone and adjust the Spot Angle to be pretty wide, and also set the Brightness up pretty high. This will give you a pretty nice glow behind your objects. It’s not a perfect solution in all cases. But it works pretty well a lot of the time.

I’m with you, though. I wish there was another check box to have flares stay visible behind objects. That way you could get the cool bursts and rays from the flares shining out from behind your objects.

Brent

[Robert Mcgowan]

Hi brent and Alex, many thanks for the input –
Brent I tries your suggested work around, however, maybe I’m missing something, adding a duplicated track does not seem to effect the scene when the light is completely obscured by an object.
I did try several options in the lighting setup but to no avail. Maybe again i’m doing something wrong
Yes, your right this should definitely be built into the next version as it would give that additional realism effect.

Freelance Cameraman and Editor based in London
see: https://www.camera-operator-london.co.uk

[Brent Willett]

Hi Robert.

Here is a link to a super simple setup of what I was talking about. The flare still goes away behind the text, but there is still a glow from the light cone. And you can play around with different cone materials or the cone length or the spot angle to get different looks.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6085437/Light%20Glow%20Sample.zip

Brent