Neon Signs - how can I add lights for night scenes on text or signs for neon effect?
launok
Posts: 793
While I was scrolling through Sketchup Warehouse I have downloaded some nice neon signs, some with textures and some without. This is then when the idea pops up of neon in Bryce 7.
I have a nice little text program which works very well in Bryce, Elefont by Armanisoft. I have quite a collection of dingbats too. I was now wondering how one can turn them into neon signs and how one can do this in Bryce!? Any ideas?
Post edited by launok on
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I think there is a David Brinnen tutorial on this. If I had to do something like this, I would make the letters of coloured glass and put lights inside that only effect the letters (or have a very limited range). But, I never really tried, so not sure. Maybe negative textures might work as well (there are strange things one can do in Bryce!).
Elefont is cool, I have it for years. With Ambience, the letters can be made glowing. You can also light them with a square parallel light in front of the text. The light can be scaled. Then include only the text object.
I did
but you might be wise to take Horo's advice on usng Elefont as the process in Wings can be a bit fiddly.
For a glowing effect you could do something like this
but it is quite an advanced strategy.
Drachenlord has something similar as his Daz3d avatar.
I can think of at least three different ways to do it. I think the best method is the one David suggested. But that involves True Ambience and some of its more advanced features. Using TA would produce the effect you want legitimately because ot treats the surfaces of the letters as actual light sources. But I can think of two other means of faking it, with results being similar enough.
So I'd say that step 1 is to build the models. Step 2, decide if you want to render the scene with standard mode or with Premium mode for True Ambience. The workflow is very different for the two different rendering styles so you'll need to know in advance what strategy you want to use.
Once modeled, you could use the Instance Lab to paint radials directly onto the geometry of the letters. You can exclude the letters themselves from being influenced by the radials; thus causing the letters to appear to radiate light outward. That is assuming you are using ambinece on the letters themselves to brighten them. Another option is to model the letters, and then to use a light Dome that had been told to Include only the letters you desire to make glow. Place a coule of soft shadow light sources in the general area of the lettering, and it will look close enough to the letter actually glowing.
There are probably even more options, like anisotropy and specular lighting tricks. Bryce provides a rather open landscape for brute force thinking and implementation. Bryce can and will do most anything, even if it isnt elegant, it is possible and often fun to figure out and pull off.
Horo, David and Rashad,
Thank you for all the advise and input.
Rashad, I am a novice and will give the options you give a try and play with it. I am one of those persons who do not give up easily and with trial and error keep going. Like I have the other day with the help in forums to add blowing dust also in scenes, etc. I am also now downloading videos regarding lighting, IBL, and all I can to better my skills in Bryce.
Launok – This is something I did a long time ago using David’s How to setup multiple Glowing objects tutorial using the Elefont program for the text. What I found each letter had to be treated separately when applying the effect. You will understand what I mean when you watch David’s video.
Thank you for the suggestion. Just last night I went through the videos and found and downloaded this one too! I will most definitely watching it.
Launok - here is another I found. No glow but still fun to do.
mermaid010 - have pm'd you last night.
David Brinnen - I am trying to follow your video as suggested by mermaid010 above (setting up multiple glowing objects) as she has used this for single letters which worked for her, waiting for her reply to a pm. But I think you should be able to help me as I am really stuck.
I have downloaded a letter which is part of a logo of Marlboro to test it out by giving it a glow your video way, only for single object in this case. mermaid010's worked, so should mine but then I am a novice. 
David, the only way for me to follow video is by watching, listening, pausing and writing each and every step down in strict order. In the very beginning you mention a setting must be set wide, which setting is this? This is the part where I have to take atmosphere off. From there onwards I go straight to Sky Lab (first time using this lol) setting it up exactly your way, then onto render options follow your settings. On returning to the object (M) is the area where I am completely stuck!! On your video a menu pops up showing group 1, inner 5, select all, deselect all, invert all. How do I get this menu to show? I know this sound really stupid now, but I can't get such a menu to pop up.
. I have tried rest by going to object attributes where you change name to Background, from there to Edit, Random Replicate, mine to 1. I have also set up a colour with family group as on your video. Even your step when object is ungrouped, there should be another menu with group 1, background, outer 5 but this menu is not showing up either. I think I am missing something somewhere! I thought your video should work for a single object, thus I have not done it completely your way for the multiple objects. I am not sure if this is the area where my problem seems to be - after the sky lab and render options part or even before that!?
Horo mentioned something of the Bryce painter which I am not quite following, even downloaded a pdf he wrote. I thought that would be easier. I have also downloaded neon videos by you but haven't tried them out yet as I am not well versed with Bryce as you warn about them.
Thanks for all your help, advice and support which is highly appreciated
Regards,
Laura
Laura- I replied to your Pm. As you can see my second image did not get much of a glow. Are you referring to the video David link? I'll check it out later and come back on this and I also post some screenshots for you. I did these tutorials a while ago and don't have the .br files anymore.
Mary, thank you I got your pm but no screenshots showing with pm, unless you are still going to send them later? Thank you anyway!
Laura, I did not include the screenshot will post them here later
Ctrl + Right click = the menu I think you are looking for...
If you get stuck with the process, feel free to post me the file and I will have a go at fixing it for you.
Cheers,
David.
As easy and simple as that, thank you David!
Will give the tut another try.
Laura - Here are some screenshots for you to answer some of your questions, regarding the other issues I need to watch the videos again. Since you are just starting to use the Sky Lab, I advise you to watch/download David and Horo's videos on Lighting and the Sky, IBL etc. Horo has some awesome pdf's on this site regarding these topics. I'm busy this weekend so I will only have a chance to watch the videos on Monday.
Hope these screenshots help you.
Thank you, will try it out. Enjoy your weekend.
Have you got any reference images for the effect your are trying to achive? Posting a couple of those might help determine which would be the best approach to take in terms of createing the glow effect.
Hi David, it was just an idea of trying something new such as neon in night scenes. I love to make street scenes with shops, etc. One of my renders have a neon sign on top of a roof but it will look great for turning it into a night scene too. Attached are just a few examples of real life neon images. I have many great fonts and dingbats which one can use in say a nice advertisement board, etc. The Marlboro neon sign is a model from Sketchup Warehouse which I have imported into Bryce. The fonts/dings I can import via Elefont tool into Bryce.
But the tricky part is to add textures with a bright, glowing effect. You guys know these tricks!
Righto I've pondered this some and run some tests and so far the best results seem to come from doing a two handed process. First off create a neon glow effect using TA for your neon lights - this is laborious because it uses premium effect. Then after that you can use what you have created in your scene with just the addition of a few normal radial lights to add a bit of coloured light falling on nearby objects. So first is setup and that setup in use.
Edit. I just used some coloured tori for the test but any geometry would do in that place.
David, thank you for your testing and reply. I have downloaded your videos about True Ambience and lighting, etc.
Well if you get stuck or want to use this approach, then I can send you files and an explanation no problem.
David, I had a look at your 2 part video series regards HDRI and True Ambience but it will take time to learn these techniques as I have little experience with lighting, even for day light scenes, lol.
If you can send me the mentioned files/info it will be much appreciated.
Attached is a very quick render of a scene where I have turned my town scene into some night. I haven't used the sky lab on this yet. Placed simply a radial light in front of the neon sign but it's still a bit wide. The other belighted shop I forgot to take an extra light out which was part of day scene and not intended to have lights on, lol. This is just a test render and to complete it nicely I have to add more lights internally to buildings, etc. Had put a spot light in front of vehicle but not perfect either.
EDIT: The actual Bryce scene the neon sign had more glowing, jpg lost some effect.
Righto, here's a link to my dropbox and the files and an explanation. https://www.dropbox.com/s/s1cosizu8ziadn1/Glowingthings.zip?dl=0
See if you can get that OK and let me know when you have it and I'll delete it in due course.
David, thank you for this file - you can delete it.
I will go and have a look at this. 
Nice work so far on the scenario, Launok!
Launok – wow amazing work, a nice little town scene.
I experimented with lighting this morning. The 1st one is David’s Obscure Glow tutorial and the 2nd Super reflective neon effect. You can see from the render that the effect works on the mesh but not on the Elefont text.
David posted some cool examples. Hope they help you solve your problem.
mermaid010 - nice examples. Where did you get the tutorial for super reflective neon effect?
Maybe this one?
Yes that's the one.