Simulating a lamp shade

Started by Brian Townsend, November 19, 2010, 12:10:42 PM

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Brian Townsend

Hi everyone, there was a question posted under 'materials and textures' regarding simulating a lamp shade and I thought it would be useful to re-post it here. Sorry, I know my lamp is ugly but it illustrates the point ;).

First, assign an emissive material to a sphere inside the lamp shade.  Choose a desaturated warm orange/yellow to simulate lamp lighting.  Ensure 'detailed indirect illumination' is enabled under the 'realtime' tab.  If you want the light to affect the ground plane as well, turn on 'ground indirect illumination'.

Then assign your fabric texture (www.cgtextures.com is an amazing free resource) and set the material type on the lamp shade to 'advanced'.

Next, increase 'specular transmission' to a very dark gray to add a subtle level of transparency.

Then, increase 'roughness transmission' pretty generously which will add roughness to the interior of the geometry and simulate light scattering. This will diffuse the direct light source.  To increase the affect of light scattering across the shade increase 'diffuse transmission' and set it to a dark version of the color you set for your emissive material.

You can apply bloom under 'realtime' to add a subtle glow around the light as well.

When it comes to rendering, I suggest using 'realtime render' to get the best results with the emissive.

Here is a screenshot and example scene for reference (texture provided by www.cgtextures.com).

Hope this helps, please let us know if you have further questions.

Brian

plbb

Quote from: Brian Townsend on November 19, 2010, 12:10:42 PM
Hi everyone, there was a question posted under 'materials and textures' regarding simulating a lamp shade and I thought it would be useful to re-post it here. Sorry, I know my lamp is ugly but it illustrates the point ;).

First, assign an emissive material to a sphere inside the lamp shade.  Choose a desaturated warm orange/yellow to simulate lamp lighting.  Ensure 'detailed indirect illumination' is enabled under the 'realtime' tab.  If you want the light to affect the ground plane as well, turn on 'ground indirect illumination'.

Then assign your fabric texture (www.cgtextures.com is an amazing free resource) and set the material type on the lamp shade to 'advanced'.

Next, increase 'specular transmission' to a very dark gray to add a subtle level of transparency.

Then, increase 'roughness transmission' pretty generously which will add roughness to the interior of the geometry and simulate light scattering. This will diffuse the direct light source.  To increase the affect of light scattering across the shade increase 'diffuse transmission' and set it to a dark version of the color you set for your emissive material.

You can apply bloom under 'realtime' to add a subtle glow around the light as well.

When it comes to rendering, I suggest using 'realtime render' to get the best results with the emissive.

Here is a screenshot and example scene for reference (texture provided by www.cgtextures.com).

Hope this helps, please let us know if you have further questions.

Brian


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