Emitters as lights

[gsfcreator]

I'm trying to figure out how lights works within the octane poser.

when I create a light, and than use the python script - it creates a prop that acts as a light emitter ('light'). thing is, its not exactly light. check this one out (attached). the lamp at the ceiling have a light i created in poser for it (within firefly it behaves as light should, and pour light through the lamp's glass). look what happens with the emitter...it creates a strange ring of light on the lamp itself, but not throwing light through the glass...

[wimvdb]

Make the lampshade (the glass) a white diffuse material, then set the transmission color to white.
It looks like the lampshade is blocking the light (if it were (partially) transparent or a specular material (glass) it would not be blocked. But making it a diffuse material with transmission at white will probably look good. If needed you can also add an emission to it with white.

[gsfcreator]

Make the lampshade (the glass) a white diffuse material, then set the transmission color to white.
It looks like the lampshade is blocking the light (if it were (partially) transparent or a specular material (glass) it would not be blocked. But making it a diffuse material with transmission at white will probably look good. If needed you can also add an emission to it with white.

this should be done on poser or within the octane render? if the later, can you explain exactly how/where I do it?

thanks!

[wimvdb]

Change the lampshade to the following (you can turn off the poser light (power at 0 in plugin)

I will be gone for the day, so can't answer anymore questions until tomorrow

[gsfcreator]

thanks, man! that fixed the light shade issue

now I'm trying to figure out reflections on the floor. I have two lights in this scene - a daylight + the ceiling point light:

those are the floor specs...I don't get what I'm doing wrong:

[wimvdb]

roughness defines how sharp the reflection is, the IOR the direction.
I adjusted it a little you see how you get reflections on the floor.

You can also use material from liveDB. Often these materials look better (in my opinion). If the scale of the textures is incorrect, you can use the scale textures in the material properties (in the section below where you select the material type).

Her is how it looks with one of the liveDB materials applied.

[gsfcreator]

thank you!

what on earth is the live DB? :O I see it when I Right-click on a material, but the option is greyed-out for me...

[wimvdb]

Right click on a material.
Then select liveDB from the dropdown list (it will only work in a material)

[gsfcreator]

thanks! great to know of that option!

how can I reset the material to what it was originally, if i try out some liveDB?

also, I've noticed that the change also tweaks the options in the material (can't tweak the it the same way that you showed in order to create reflections):

[wimvdb]

To get the original material back, right click on the material and choose Reconvert from Poser.
You can also reconvert all the materials of a prop, in this case right click the prop and choose Reconvert material(s) for this figure/prop

The LiveDB materials can be tweaked as well, but many of them are a bit more complex.
There are two special nodes you have to understand: Material Mix and Mix.
Mix is simple, it is like a blender node in Poser - it will split a texture or color in 2 textures or colors and a mask or value. With this you can mix 2 textures depending on a mask or value. Example - you have a mask (black spot on a white background), Now with the mix you can set the white part to blue and the black part to red with the mix node. In your screen shot the mix is used to vary the specular value.

Material mix is essentially the same except it does not work on a single node but on the entire material. It also uses a mask or value and 2 materials. With it you can for example turn one part into glass and the other into wood.

There are many node types you can use, each with different properties. Easiest thing to do is to load a box and try out the different materials in LiveDB on the box to see what they do and play with the properties of the material. Most of them are relatively simple and are of the material mix type. A simple way to get shininess on a surface is to use the original material in the first node, a specular material in the second node and set the value anywhere between 0 and 1. Changing this value will add more or less shininess to the material.