Emissive Labels?

[NormanHadley]

I wonder if anyone can help. I'm trying to create an image with an emissive label. I want to set a sheet of glass (either flat on a table or propped up at an angle) and trap a glowing 2D image inside. Is this possible?

I can do it with simple, blocky shapes (see attached) created in my CAD package but I really want something more sophisticated. I think the route might be to use a partly transparent PNG file as a label but I could do with a bit of help...

[guest84672]

Increase the intensity of the label, or apply as a texture.

[NormanHadley]

Thanks Thomas, but I must be doing something wrong. This is the least-worst result I've achieved so far - it looks more like a washed-out, overexposed photograph than a glow of trapped light. Any thoughts? I've attached the .bip file.

[caden2010]

Hi Norman,

I have had a quick look at your bip and added a couple of labels onto the emissive material. I adjusted the intensity of the labels to get the best render. This is also dependant upon the lighting within your environment. I also changed the emissive material paramaters unchecking both 'Visible to the eye' or 'Visible in reflections'. I have attached both the revised bip and a quick render.

Hope this helps.

[JeffM]

Here are a couple of examples I just put together. One is just a trimmed out image floating in the glass, the other I was going for a more transparent glowing look by rendering out my camera image with the xray material first, then creating transparency by softly selecting the white of the image in photoshop (I set the background to a bright green so that I could key it out).

I made my glass plane with some thickness, then also brought in a single surface plane and moved it to be inside the glass. I then just applied the labels to that inner plane, set the plane to emissive and disabled "visible to eye" and "visible in reflections", this makes the plane disappear, but the label stays. The transparency of the label allows it to have the nice edges rather than a white border.




And here's the bips and textures: http://www.keyshot.com/images/JeffM/GlassPlaneExamples.zip

[NormanHadley]

Thanks a million, caden & Jeff. I'll get cracking with those techniques.

[bendruce]

Thanks for the tips guys.
Having the floating plane with the label on that is a great idea.
Love the look of the white outlines of the camera in the glass panel BTW.

[NormanHadley]

I'd forgotten all about this question. What I didn't say at the time was that I wanted to develop a cover for a book of short stories. In the title story, a female crystallographer discovers a method for retrieving stored memories from glass - in her case of stargazing with her dad. I should probably take another swing at it now I've got Keyshot 4.

[guest84672]

Looks very cool!

[Morten Kristensen]

Nicely done, Norman.