Thingfishs is having a B.A.T Downunder (wanna take a look)

[cogeo]

Or use the good old ( ) Maxis windows. I think they would be very acceptable (and much easier to implement).

[gottago]

Or use the good old ( ) Maxis windows. I think they would be very acceptable (and much easier to implement).

Here are all the Maxis night windows--which would you recommend?

[cogeo]

I didn't make any suggestion about the texture selection (btw I think both the beige and the blue ones would look OK - there are extra sets available on the STEX too). By "Maxis windows" I just meant the method (of using those "nitewindow.." objects. Some BATters regard this method as too simplistic or outdated. They suggest using a semi-transparent texture instead. But this requires adding something inside the building too (to look through the semi-transparent glass). I think this method is useful only for large glass buildings. If the windows are small, the player will hardly see anything inside the building though.

So I didn't want to suggest a texture here, just wanted to let thingfishs be aware of the option.

[thingfishs]

Okay, well a couple of days battling with nightlighting later this is what I've come up with. Thank you gottago & cogeo for your responses. (btw with those four maxis textures what's the thinking with that last red one?)

I wasn't happy with the maxis mode on the cellar door but it worked great for the smaller windows along the top of the main building's roof (I used blue). I have played around with a lot of lights and got myself quite tangled up at times. When things got too bright around the tanks (which it might still be) it took a while to find the culprit sources. Most of the year the winery is pretty dark at night but in vintage it is, in my brother's words, lit up like a christmas tree. More so than it is in my version. I just found that when levels were increased beyond this point that pure white was the result.

Does anyone have any advice on achieving a more consistent evenly lit effect over a complicated area like the tanks whilst maintaining some detail? Any other thoughts with any of this?

Also something odd has happened to the roof texture of the entrance building (the tiny one joining the small and big buildings) This occurred when I "booleaned" out a cavity in it.
The other thing that stands out to me is the colour of the light, it seems too white. Many of these lights are actually a very light yellow but it's not coming through, should I just increase it? Is there a more appropriate colour to use?


     


     

[puresim]

I think that looks really beautiful. Maybe the white is a bit strong on the tanks and on the main building where it's facing the tanks, but the overall effect works for me.

[gottago]

Boolean subtraction will occasionally ruin a piece of geometry and make it unusable like that. Either recreate the piece and try it again or build the roof and the hole out of 2 rectangular splines, attach multi and then extrude (preferable, but more time-consuming).

As for the lights around the tanks, the intensity is too high and the highlights are burning out white, this is why the yellow tint isn't showing up. Drop it down and play with falloff. Also, there's a checkbox for inverse square which mimics the inverse square rule for the intensity of light from its source point which you should use--this is why you are getting undiminished pure white light all the way to the bottom of the slim shed  linking the 2 main buildings.

[cogeo]

Well, it's quite common to say "good for a first try", however this one is not good enough, I'm afraid:

- First of all, as other members said, the lighting in general is too bright. Only commercial properties and industrial installations (in places) are lit like this. You have to reduce intensity, and I mean a lot.
- Another thing I don't like is the transition between lit and unlit is too steep. Maybe increase the difference between hotspot and falloff.
- Apparently you have used spot lights, and this looks quite strange, as your BAT lacks light sources, so the light appears to come from nowhere (esp on the tanks). I made a set of warehouses in the past, and I had to BAT a special "floodlight" prop for this (to achieve a more realistic-looking result). But spotlights may not be the most appropriate choice in this case. Try omnilights, and of course set attenuation and/or decay to the proper values.
- Omnilights are better for "general" and "ambient" lighting; I use these the most. Here are some examples (I wouldn't call this a "tutorial"). However yor winery is supposed to be out in the fields, so there wouldn't be "ambient" lighting there. But you can limit this to smaller parts of your BAT (from lights supposed to be inside the lot).
- The small windows on the roof barely look lit. Have you reduced the Intensity in the BAT tab? Otherwise this may be due to colour (the metal is somehow "bluish" too, so there's no enough contrast). Maybe try the beige texture (or another one, dl-ed from the STEX).
- Check the "Cast Shadows" check-box for all of your lights (default:off!), if you haven't already.

I'll recur to the... tanks thing again. There's something that doesn't look very good, the cap looks much brighter (like made of a different material). If this was not intentional, it may be caused by the way the "speculars" work. It's curved, and thus reflects more light. If you have applied the same meterial to both the cap and the periphery, try making a copy of the material, and apply the copy to the cap, then modify the copy (reduce speculars if it's Blinn, increase if Metal) so that you get a more balanced look. I have also attached a modified version of gottago's texture (reduced size, sharpened, increased brightness a little). Try it once more please.

[dobdriver]

Hey cogeo he's got full cutoffs on his non existent spotlights, so it's 95% down and only 5% wasted up, instead of the usual 65% down and 35% wasted up not including reflection. Which means one can use 40% less wattage for the same amount of downlight, though I might add things forgot to change the 500w mercurys for 250w. This also means you pay less to the electricity company and you help to preserve the night sky for your children. Have you been to Hong Kong? Why one struggles to even see Venus and that's -4.4 magnitude and nothing else but an orange glow.

Nice going things.

take it easy
dobdriver

[thingfishs]

Thanks puresim, gottago, cogeo & Dobs

A few things: There are light sources in the BAT, I have circled them in the photo below. This is as they are in RL, up on 4 metre high poles above the tanks. As for being too light this is still much darker than the winery actually is in vintage time (which is the time of year I've decided to recreate) As I said the onset of pure white made me tone things down but I'm still aiming for more light, but just not so intense. However I do not have them aimed properly, hopefully this photo will explain things.


(EDIT: just to clarify, these arrows show the setup in RL not as I have them in game. In game I setup the target spots facing downwards but a phone call today to my brother taught me the correct layout. With that in mind are spots or omnis what I want here? I gather if it's omnis I would have to create some kind of shield to make them directional but as these lights are up in the sky there doesn't seem to be anywhere to hide such a shield...?)

Here the lights above the tanks are circled with arrows denoting their direction. The pole circled in green has two high watt regular lights facing towards and away from the winery. The poles circled in red have one high watt halogen lamp each facing down the gangway. Trust me when these are all on in Feb-April the overall effect is far more lit up then I have here.

cogeo:

of course set attenuation and/or decay to the proper values.]

Huh? There is no of course for me, I've never done any of this before and haven't yet used attenuation or decay settings. Thanks for the modified texture, I will give it a go. In all photos I have of the tanks the cap is much brighter than the sides (due to reflection) so the current effect works for me. In regards to the maxis lit windows yeah I reduced the intensity but too far. These windows are only lit by lights below in the building and certainly aren't as bright as a regular lit window but are brighter than I have them.

[gottago]

Hi thingfishs,

It would help a lot to know what kind of lights you're using around the tanks. I agree with cogeo that omnis would probably be best here.

(If you're using spots, you'll also have to set the shapes and angles of the lightcones, and falloff and hotspot variables.)

You have three important parameters to deal with (as cogeo noted, always check "cast shadows"; "exclude" doesn't work in gmax). First is the multiplier, which is intensity, the most basic variable. The second is obviously the rgb values which color the light.

The third is actually two different variables, found in the "attenuation parameters" rollout, where you can fine-tune how far the light reaches and how intense it is over distance. "Near and far attenuation" are pretty self-explanatory: they allow you to control the intensity of light over a set number of meters--the defaults are set extremely high--no near attenuation (aka "falloff') will occur until 40 meters (!) Far attenuation won't begin until 80m, and the light won't fully dissipate until 200m.

The other major variable there is 'Decay." It allows you to mimic the real physics of light, giving you a falloff that drops using the inverse square law of light, or a simple linear falloff (inverse). The "start" variable there just sets the distance away from the light when decay begins.

As I understand the relationship between near/far attenuation and decay, you can't use both--but surely someone here will correct me if I'm wrong. If you're using n/f attenuation then click the "use' check boxes beneath them. To use decay, you choose which you want in the drop-down menu and leave the "use" boxes unchecked. If you use both, apparently weird things happen.

Essentially "Decay" is a kind of autopilot that sets the light to act as it would in RL; using "near and far attenuation" allows you to customize lighting effects that may be more what you want but that are not "natural." You can make things really intensely lit for a certain distance, then rapidly falloff, for example.

Thing is, there really aren't any hard and fast rules or formulas for choosing to use near/far attenuation or decay, or what values to use with them, and how high/low to set intensity. It's all trial and error, tweaking and previewing. Obviously, though, you can start with deciding how far the light should reach. I'll mention again the white strip of light at the bottom of the slim transitional shed linking the 2 main buildings. This area should be faintly lit at best, not burned out white as it is now. It indicates that your far attenuation (if you're using that method) or your decay start values/distances are set far too high. Find out what distance it is from your nearest light source and set the end of your far attenuation to be a few meters beyond it, and reign in near attenuation accordingly. That way, it will be subtly lit, but not blasted with light. (if you're using decay, there's no way to figure this out other than by trial and error).

The other basic variable to begin with is intensity--set it to cast bright light near its source but not burn out detail. Then you can tweak near and far attenuation to get the effects you want (handy if you want bright illumination over some distance), or go with decay and let falloff be "natural."

Also, there's no reason not to "cheat" and add disembodied fill lights to get the effects you're after, if things aren't working as you want them just by using lights in their correct positions.

[thingfishs]

Thanks a lot gottago for a detailed overview of attenuation & decay.

I anticipate a similar response this time but I really need all the advice I can get. It seems to be brighter in game than in gmax as well. I am slowly figuring out how they work but I still don't get the result I'm expecting in preview renders more often than I do. If it will be helpful I can post shots of my gmax setup, I could also post the main building so someone can have a look at my setup and see what could be improved. cogeo I have applied the new texture to the sides and tops of the tanks in the front two rows while leaving the back two. I also tried the beige texture which looks a lot better, as well as turning it up.

     


(EDIT: and a daytime shot to show the tanks comparison, there's not too much in it, the new texture is slightly darker.)

[gottago]

Well first thing it looks like the intensity multiplier of the lights around the tanks is still set way too high, though the front row less so than behind. Did you check them all and see if any are seriously out of whack re: basic parameters, or decay and attenuaton both on? How many are there around the tanks in total? It may be that part of the reason you're still getting that burn-to-white is from having too many concentrated in a small area.

Also, you never clarified what lights you're using--are they all omnis, or a mix, and if so, which are where? This is important to know.

The wash of light on the far end of the large shed opposite the tanks looks very convincing. That is really the effect you should aim for around the tanks.

Also the omni inside the slim transition shed is too bright, the glass there is very big and doesn't have detail and right now the bright light calls too much attention to that. You'd probably be better off swapping out the plain beige Maxis night window texture and trying something like the more busy/abstracted Maxis "glass" texture found in gampacks/BAT/textures. Set the transparency to +/- 40% and see what that does.

As for the tweaked tank texture, I can't say it's an improvement, it just darkened them a bit. If you feel like trying yet another round there, I'd try pushing up contrast and luminosity of the texture by about 15% each, and cropping off about 15-20% from the left side, so that the highlight becomes proportionally bigger (only for the texture on the cylindrical part of the tanks). Hopefully then you might get some interesting highlights to show up.

[thingfishs]

As requested here is an overview of my setup. Blue are omnis, red are target spots and the green ones are target spots with short ranges designed to try and illuminate the "light sources". Hopefully their direction and z placement can be ascertained from the pictures.

 

[gottago]

Well that's quite a knot of light! I don't know how you built it, but the first thing that comes to mind is that you might want to try rebuilding it with a layered approach: remove the spots and start first with the omnis, so you can get the base lighting down first, then add a spot at a time so you can see what it's doing in isolation, tweak it til it looks good, then add the next. Also, you can hide lights and run renders to try and isolate what's causing problems.

The first thing is that the 4 omnis beneath and around the open sheds look all right, from what I can make out; in fact the 2 at 1.0 might go up a bit. But they're being overpowered by the glaring spots. (The three lights on the floor are curious--are they omnis, and what are they there for?)

The main culprits look to be the target spots, but remove the green ones first to see what the red ones are really doing. The ones at 1.4 & 1.5 look harmless enough, but something's got to be off with the settings of the one at .5, which looks to be the only one pointing at the big wall, unless the other one at 1.0 at top right is also pointing there--it's hard to tell what's going on there. In any event, check that the attenuation parameters make sense for all the spots pointing in that direction (this holds true of all the red spots), and also open up the spotlight parameters rollout and check the box "show cone." This will give you a graphic representation of the light cone and the reach of the hotspot, and using that, you can better tweak the hotspot and falloff values in that rollout. The wall should be within the falloff arc, but not in the hotspot. Do the same for all the red spots, adjusting them as necessary to light up only what you want brightly lit in hotspot, and changing falloff so the light tapers off well. Then you can get a better handle on what base multiplier to set without burnout.


In general, it looks like the over-exposure is being caused by your target spots--not tweaking the above parameters correctly.  As you can see, they can be very harsh when they're so near foreground objects and you want them to cast light to distant ones. Good luck with it; figuring out lighting and getting good results the first time out is not easy by any means.

[thingfishs]

Okay here's phase three. I am slowly getting a feel for the lights but it's taking a while. I went through turning each light off one at a time and back on again when it wasn't the one, until I had been through them all and still hadn't found it. Finally I realised it was the combination of the two spots facing the building and an omni right at the back that was causing the white out. 
I am still going for an overall lit effect but one in which you can still see detail. I'm certainly getting closer... The front two rows of tanks are too lit up on the sides but they are a lot easier to fix then the main area.

(EDIT: the tanks are also sporting their new textures, + 15 brightness/contrast and cropped as suggested by gottago, (as well as +30 specular) and I think (with maybe a bit of rotating) that the desired effect has been achieved. Also the small joining building is using maxis nite windows not an omni))

 

 



I have also added red grapes and blades to the crusher pit. When I took this shot I realised my worker prop, who from the front view is standing on the gangway in front of the vinematics (the horizontal "tanks"), from this view is floating in mid air. How come and is there a way around it?

(2 more days and I have broadband again, hooray!, you don't want to know how long it took to post this )

[WC_EEND]

beleive when I tell you when I can imagine how long i took.

I like the new tank lighting. It looks much better now.

[jmyers2043]

I like the lighting.

Regarding the worker. Is this your prop or someone else? Is it perfectly centered along the X and Y? You may have to import or merge a worker into the tank model to keep him/her where you want.

[thingfishs]

Thanks WC_EEND & jmyers , it's a relief to finally be winning the light battle.

I just thought I'd add, in response to jmyers, that it's not my prop, it's from a JES prop pack if I remember correctly. So I gather I have to import that prop somehow into gmax, how is this done? Can you not have props raised above the ground (within reason) without such occurring? I still don't get what's happening.

[gottago]

Looking way better--both lights and tanks. 

Only two things still need your attention--light leaks. (These are nearly as much fun to hunt down and correct as over-exposure  )

The pair of tanks that come off the right edge of the front row are too strongly lit, and there's a sliver of pure white on their bases. On the elevation pic of your gmax setup, you had three lights set on the floor plane--are these in that area? If they are, they are probably causing this.

Also, the gravel is glowing immediately behind the back wall, which is not stopping the light. Simplest way to stop this is to check that the bottom of the wall is set partly inside the ground slab. If the ground slab is a plane, go to max zoom and make sure they're touching each other. If this doesn't stop the leak, convert the plane to a very thin box that has enough thickness so that you can set the bottom of the wall inside it. Sometimes that won't work either, and if it's still happening, add a simple box inside the wall and set its base inside the ground slab/box as well.

Re: the flying prop man, it could be he wasn't fully centered when the prop was exported, so he may shift placement slightly when rotating viewpoints. But it looks more like you set him too high on the z axis in the LE and didn't check his placement in all rotations. Most likely though, when you place him at the correct height, he'll partly vanish into your LODs. You can't merge a prop into a model so you can either find or make a worker, or forgo him there and put some other worker props on the ground outside your model.

[thingfishs]

Okay well we're nearly home. Thanks for your suggestions there gottago, I tried with mixed success but I've got to say my energy for this is starting to run out. I spent quite a while hunting for the source of that sliver of light, eventually concluding again that it was a combination of several lights (maybe I'm generally using too many lights...). I have reduced it and will just have to assume (in game) that there's a small gap there letting a shaft of light through. As for the gravel I extended the wall below ground and I think it may have helped a little I guess I'll have one more go at that one. The sign out front lights up now too.

Thanks to jmyers I now have a real man up on the gangway.

I have also decided as a last touch to open up the doors of the winery itself, it's hard to make much out with the trees and angle but there's some pallets of Shottesbrooke in there. I have also toned down the lighting on the front two tanks in general, as well as raising the light in the cellar door a bit. Just to be clear with that one the cellar door is the hub of activity during the day but is closed and shut down of an evening. So the effect I wanted to achieve there was of the lights being off but the light from the small joining building filtering through. I've sort of achieved it and it's good enough for now.

Short of any minor revisions that may be suggested I think I'm about done (excepting the timed prop and reward stuff). But if you see anything that needs correcting please let me know. (I haven't come this far not to iron out what I can)