"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:

Looks like you have pretty much fixed the issue then, I think you could improve
the lighting by using light_fading and area lights though see attached all I
changed is the light_source to be:

#declare Bulb =
light_source {<0, 3.5, 0> rgb <1, 1, 1>*1
 looks_like {
  Round_Cone2( <0, -2.4, 0>, 0.95, <0, 0.7, 0>, 1.80, 1 )
  texture {LightBulb_Glass}
  double_illuminate
  //light_source {<0, 3.5, 0> rgb <1, 1, 1>*0.4}
  scale 0.8
  }
                                  area_light
                                  <-0.5, 0, -0.5> <0.5 0, 0.5> // lights spread
out across this distance (x * z)
                                  4, 4                // total number of lights
in grid (4x*4z = 16 lights)
                                  area_illumination on
                                  adaptive 0          // 0,1,2,3...
                                  jitter              // adds random softening
of light
                                  circular            // make the shape of the
light circular
                                  orient              // orient light
                                  fade_distance 50
                                  fade_power 2
}

Rendered with radiosity on using the basic settings from the insert menu.

have you also thought about using media to make a glow effect where the bulb is,
will slow things down a bit but is a nice effect.

Sean

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Attachments:
Download 'lightbulb2.png' (401 KB)

Preview of image 'lightbulb2.png'

"s.day" <s.d### [at] uelacuk> wrote:
> have you also thought about using media to make a glow effect where the bulb is,
> will slow things down a bit but is a nice effect.

Yes, I might look into that, though given my struggle with a simple light
source, I'm gonna wait until after I finish crafting the rest of the scene
before I pop open another can of hairy media worms...

I tried the area lights, and they look really nice - though 4x4 was too much I
thought, in terms of render time and shadow-removal.  Goldilocks seems to like
3x3.  :)

I did the following render at 1751 x 1347, (3 times the pixels of 1024x768) no
aa to be able get some detail and zoom in on certain areas of interest.
So now I have the bulbs, the area lights, a decorative border to the hardwood
floor, a true 3D carpet which is parse-time hog (40 sec rather than 15 - I know,
I know - weep for me), and some (not enough) minor fixes.
One of my poplars decided to peek in and give the scene a bit of Art Nouveau
flavor...

I have some more items to craft, textures to add or fix, details to ponder, and
scene elements to pull into perceivable view.
All of the furniture is surely going to take me a few pots of coffee to
decorate.
Sean - could you school me on how to add all of that decoration?

I'm also having a mental block on all of TOK's copious examples of linearly
progressing along a spline.  Crayons and sock puppets, please.

Overall, it looks good to ME, but I haven't yet decided to play with the
radiosity settings, or know why I would.  Maybe I'll see what I can get let this
chug on over the weekend.

http://postimg.org/image/dj3r5v5np/

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> "Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
>
> Looks like you have pretty much fixed the issue then, I think you could improve
> the lighting by using light_fading and area lights though see attached all I
> changed is the light_source to be:
>
> #declare Bulb =
> light_source {<0, 3.5, 0> rgb <1, 1, 1>*1
>   looks_like {
>    Round_Cone2( <0, -2.4, 0>, 0.95, <0, 0.7, 0>, 1.80, 1 )
>    texture {LightBulb_Glass}
>    double_illuminate
>    //light_source {<0, 3.5, 0> rgb <1, 1, 1>*0.4}
>    scale 0.8
>    }
>                                    area_light
>                                    <-0.5, 0, -0.5> <0.5 0, 0.5> // lights spread
> out across this distance (x * z)
>                                    4, 4                // total number of lights
> in grid (4x*4z = 16 lights)
>                                    area_illumination on
>                                    adaptive 0          // 0,1,2,3...
>                                    jitter              // adds random softening
> of light
>                                    circular            // make the shape of the
> light circular
>                                    orient              // orient light
>                                    fade_distance 50
>                                    fade_power 2
> }
>
> Rendered with radiosity on using the basic settings from the insert menu.
>
> have you also thought about using media to make a glow effect where the bulb is,
> will slow things down a bit but is a nice effect.
>
> Sean
>

A small advice on using fading lights:
It's usualy recomended to set fade_distance to the width of the 
area_light and adjust the intensity of the light as needed.
In your case, the area_light is 0.5 unit whide, you adjust as follow:

light_source {<0, 3.5, 0> rgb <1, 1, 1>*100*100
  area_light 0.5*x 0.5*y
  5 5 // prefer to use 5, 9, 17, 33, 65, ...
  adaptive 0
  circular orient
  fade_power 2
  fade_distance 1
}

If you use a 33 by 33 array for the area_light, with adaptive 0, it's 
not realy slower than 4 by4 and may not require the use of jitter.

Using a small area_light jittered array with antialiasing can slow you 
down as the noise caused by the jittering will force antialiasing in 
area where it's not otherwise needed.

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Here's my final entry for the contest.
(I'm up against a lot of very talented competition!  :)  )

I rendered it at 1751 x 1347 with 2-pass radiosity, first with "simple" textures
and at 640 x 480 no aa, then at the large size with real textures and aa 0.3.

The larger size seems to make the fit-to-screen image look MUCH better in my
experience.

I am a bit concerned that the image need to be so small to weigh-in under 350
kB, and the jpg format seems to give it a bit of indistinctness as compared to
the original png.  I used Paint.NET  to format my image to jpg.

*** Does anyone have any suggestions for maximizing the image size while keeping
it under 350 kB?

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Attachments:
Download 'final_copy.jpg' (257 KB)

Preview of image 'final_copy.jpg'

On 10-12-2014 21:44, Bald Eagle wrote:
> Here's my final entry for the contest.
> (I'm up against a lot of very talented competition!  :)  )
>
> I rendered it at 1751 x 1347 with 2-pass radiosity, first with "simple" textures
> and at 640 x 480 no aa, then at the large size with real textures and aa 0.3.
>
> The larger size seems to make the fit-to-screen image look MUCH better in my
> experience.
>
> I am a bit concerned that the image need to be so small to weigh-in under 350
> kB, and the jpg format seems to give it a bit of indistinctness as compared to
> the original png.  I used Paint.NET  to format my image to jpg.
>
> *** Does anyone have any suggestions for maximizing the image size while keeping
> it under 350 kB?

I am not an expert on this but I always use Yve's IC for conversion. 
Sometimes I have to reduce the size a little bit - 70 or 80 percent - 
but that is all and most times without any visible loss. I don't know 
about Paint.NET but you should give IC a try as it is the best 
application around (and free).

Good work indeed. You have come a long way from the first wips and I was 
a bit worried at first but I like this very much. Well done!

Thomas

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:

> I am not an expert on this but I always use Yve's IC for conversion.

I look it up.  I fiddled some, and got IrfanView to get a jpg under the
requisite file size.  Much happier now.

> Good work indeed. You have come a long way from the first wips and I was
> a bit worried at first but I like this very much. Well done!
>
> Thomas

Thanks, Thomas.
I was worried too, since I did a lot of things "the hard way" - hopefully I'll
learn more efficient ways to construct complex scene elements with less time &
effort.

Yes, the first wips sort of amount to no more than napkin scribbles...  :O
I'm surprised that I got so far, but also have gained the "eyes" to see how much
farther I could go.

Thanks for all of the assistance and encouragement along the way!  :)

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