OTOY Forums

Hi all, I feel silly now asking this, but what is the correct way to get color into a material so that lights behave as they should?

I have a logo that I set up using a Glossy material and set the colour to 99% black. Obviously for scenes with a basic texture environment there are no issues, but if I want the scene pitch black apart from lights, this doesn't work, as the diffuse colour is absorbing the lights unless I set them to nuclear power levels.

I have looked through the help and chances are I am missing the obvious, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Ritchie

Hi Ritchie,
could you share some screenshot of what you have and want to obtain?
Have you tried to play with the index value of the black glossy material?
What about the Camera Imager node, Response curve, gamma and exposition?
ciao beppe

Hi Beppe, thank you again for answering what must be a really simple question.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f4k2zyahwi4pv ... p.c4d?dl=0 is my base setup that I am using, so not sure if that would be of any use?

Anyway, below is the kind of look I am getting when using nothing more than a default texture environment and the Diffuse to 1% black (got it the wrong way around last time). This is the look I am going for. I am basically doing a series of animations for my band that will play on TV screens where we perform, so also wanting to do things like stage lights moving, but the lights are having to be too powerful based upon the way I had initially set it up.
Above shows with the diffuse as near black with power at 3,300!
Above shows with the power down to 50 and with the diffuse roughly mid-grey
Above shows with the power down to 10 and diffuse at near white.

I would like to be able to set up a material that works where the environment power is at either 0 and only affected by the lights or at 1.0 I am noticing a lot of noise also, and the right side of the image shows the PT setting I am currently using.

Again, all help is gratefully received.

Ritchie

Is the idea that the letters remain black when the lights shine on them?

Hiya, yes, that is basically the idea, and that image looks awesome! After doing some lights animation, then I want to fade the lights down and fade up the environment, so its finding something that works in both situations, which I am guessing yours would.

Ritchie

Check this simple scene how animating lights by mograph

Thank Ahmet, its not the animation I am struggling with, it is how to make a black glossy logo work with the lights and not absorb all of the energy so that I have to boost the power massively, like what Niestudio managed to achieve. I guess I could always fake it by using a Mix material on the logo, then as the light transitions to the Environment, I animate it from one to the other, but I'm sure I am just missing a trick.

The other thing I guess is also the noise element and dealing with that. The renders do seem very noisy, but I guess that is another topic.

Honestly, I didn't change too much, probably more camera settings than anything.
Since the file you posted was stripped down, it's hard to say what might be happening in the one you posted screenshots from.
If you want to post that or PM it, I can try to compare to see where the problem is.

Here is the one I posted the screenshot from.

Here is the file. I have copied in your lights too, and I'm seeing that one issue is in the floor that I am using. I just want something to give reflections locally then blend in with the Environment to fake the infinite floor type look. You are using the diffuse materials, and when I use that it does help my lighting and I can get closer to where I want to be, but to be honest, I have set the lights by going down what is essentially the wrong path anyway! It would be cool to get more of the wash over the colours like on the ones where I amended the colour to greyscale, but happy to do a fudge on that if needed.

Thank you for this by the way, I do appreciate the help.

Ritchie

I dont have your spot light textures, so I can't test exactly, but this technique would give you a localized reflection
Use the transform shader in the mix material to move and scale as needed