Lighting Effect Problem

[Brian Jones]

The light should be set to Volumetric (Visible Light) and you have to set the pyrocluster material(s) to Cast Shadows in the Shadow tab of the material.

[Justin Puda]

Brian,

I have cast shadows turned on for the pyrocluster, however, what I am getting is more of a fog with a glow. I am trying to achieve the effect of a light shooting through the clouds with rays, and the rays would illuminate the fog like dust. My light is turned to Volumetric with shadow maps (soft).

Justin

[Brian Jones]

You want the beams visible only where the fog is? If that is true, turn off the volumetric visibility in the light (or turn the brightness way down) and turn on Use Illumination in the Illumination tab of the Pyrocluster material.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

I think you’re after the “God rays” effect. Here’s a working example: https://www.3danvil.com/tutorials/Pyro_GodRays.c4d

The pyrocluster material’s volume and density settings are important. They have to be sufficiently low to allow enough light to penetrate so you can see the effect. In the above example I also used the “darken opacity” effect (shadow tab) along with ray angle illumination (illumination tab). The diffuse illumination model gives a more cloud-like appearance.

You might also try setting the light to inverse volumetric instead of volumetric to accentuate the light rays.

[Justin Puda]

Adam & Brian,

Thank you so much for your help.

Adam, the file you gave me is exactly the look I want. What is controlling the pyrocluster? I’m afraid I’m a bit of a noob to thinking particles, still trying to understand how they work. Do I need to add an emitter to the thinking particle in order to make it continuously emit the smoke/fog? Basically, I’m trying to make a animation of a light and fog, which I will connect to a sound effector.

Justin

[Adam Trachtenberg]

The Matrix object (part of MoGraph) is generating the thinking particles. You assign pyrocluster by placing the mterial on the particle geometry object.

For a moving fog I would go with the matrix object with a bigger grid — and apply a random effector to it. Set the random effector to noise mode (effector tab) and it will impart motion to the cloud. You could even apply a couple of them with different noise settings for a more complex effect.

[Justin Puda]

Adam,

Thank you so much for your help. I’m going to mess around with applying the different random effectors now. Is there any way to change the settings of the thinking particles, like the speed and distance?

Justin

[Justin Puda]

Ok, so i have my random effector set up and connected to my sound effector using xpresso. The only problem I’m having is that the thinking particles aren’t continuously emitting. They emit for the first 90 frames and than dissolve away. I need them to be continuously emitting around the light, and than have the light and particles react to a voice over. Any suggestions? Do I have to connect a Thinking Particles node in Xpresso? Thank you so much for all your guys help!! you guys rule!