Slight 3ds max lighting trouble

[jtbo]

See, light goes trough shell of fire place, me not happy


Two omni lights inside fireplace to give better impression of lit fire, they are advanced raytraced type, attenuation set to start at fireplace shell and to stop 0,5 meters from light source, so it barely touches the wall behind. Objects have cast shadows enabled.

It really should not go trough fire place, but somehow it still does

[MJ]

Does the fireplace have faces on the inside, or does it just have outward faces (possibly with show back face turned on) as I don't think back faces block light...

I haven't touched Max for months so I'm rather rusty, but I have a good tut somewhere with all the types of lights and shadow stuff - but I can't find it

Try lighting something like that (Background not modelled by me)

[jtbo]

Does the fireplace have faces on the inside, or does it just have outward faces (possibly with show back face turned on) as I don't think they block light.

It has faces towards 'fire' at inner part and faces away from fire which forms outer shell of fireplace, I think light should be blocked quite well with this arrangement, but it just does not

[MJ]

Woops, you got there before the edit

So the object should cast shadows, the lights should cast shadows... Try changing shadow type from ray traced to one of the other options...

I'll look for the tut tomorrow, I need some sleep. Oh and thanks for making me want to open Max, I've not felt like it for weeks

[jtbo]

Woops, you got there before the edit

So the object should cast shadows, the lights should cast shadows... Try changing shadow type from ray traced to one of the other options...

Me is very fast

I have tested them all, well, radiosity I get bored with as after 45mins it had not come up with a solution, but those normal lights. Maybe only solution is to add some stuff between inner and outer shell, few box objects, they should block light in theory.

However I had little trouble before too with winter scene that had cabin in it, cabin was made from logs and where logs crossed light got trough them making bright spot into shadow area.

Can't remember what it was needed to fix problem there, well never got around to finish that scene as I had not enough time, so it is sometimes many months that I can't use max and then I try to remember what button did what



I know the feeling, but also when one gets max open there is very small chance of getting good long sleep so better take some sleep before

[jtbo]

There was no help from adding box, light goes trough it.

Only way seem to be to limit range of light.

It works perfectly normal if I make scene with few boxes and light high above, maybe it has trouble work in small spaces, he has claustrophobia ?

[MJ]

Have you made the fire to real world scale?

You could send me a copy of the file if you like and I can have a look.

[jtbo]

Have you made the fire to real world scale?

You could send me a copy of the file if you like and I can have a look.

It is more or less to scale, I'm using 1mm units so 1mm = 1 unit, often MAX likes to make then hundred meters long objects or such

I send some awfully large attachments to your mail, if you don't have better to do, sure you can take a look, it is probably something very simple

[jtbo]

Thanks MJ, I did take off that far attenuation and turned on that inverse square, it looks lot better, not good, but better, I need to work lot more to make it look good

[jtbo]

I have come to conclusion, light object itself is too large and can't fit inside of fireplace.

I did make some tests and it clearly shows that light grows bigger when it is brighter and it is quite large in diameter at 1.0, perhaps 1.0 is radius, who knows.

Weird, imo.

edit: Damn automatic exposure control, it made light to shadow and shadow to light, disabled that and it started to listen my orders once again