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Hi
I know there's been plenty of threads about this topic but i can assure you i've sifted through all of them! I have a simple scene which is really pushing me to the end of my patience... it should have taken me an afternoon and it's already taken me a week.
I'm trying to create an 'opaque' white lightbox with neon tubes inside, so that the glow of the tubes can be seen through the glass, with the same quality of finish as a 'pearl' lightbulb; ie clear glass on the outside, and on the inside a thin film of smooth opaque white with no speckles, transluscent enough to roughly reveal the shape of the neon tubes. However I'd settle for any transluscent white-ish material that simply shows light coming through without noise.
I've built a light box containing the tubes made into mesh lights. The back face of the box is white, the front side my frosted glass material. The sides are black. I've tried every possible combination of glossy refractions, 2 sided materials, DMC settings, material subdivs, light subdivs- but each one gives me horrible noise around the shape of the neon tubes, or rediculous render times. At a frame size of 1024x576 i can get a really nice material, but as soon as i go up to 1080p the dreaded noise kicks in... And as it's an animation i can't really afford render times of much over 10 mins per frame.
I've tried interpolation on the glossies- it looks great on a some frames but when the light goes low it's really blotchy and un-useable. I've tried using a two sided material, but again it has noise around the shape of the tubes.
I really can't think of anything else... does anyone have any cheats for this? Perhaps i should be rendering elements and building it in the comp afterwards? Should i be using mesh lights or is this a mistake (is their fall-off too intense?- is this what causes the noise?) Am i taking it too literally trying to physically rebuild the light?
any help could keep my sanity intact!
thanks
I know there's been plenty of threads about this topic but i can assure you i've sifted through all of them! I have a simple scene which is really pushing me to the end of my patience... it should have taken me an afternoon and it's already taken me a week.
I'm trying to create an 'opaque' white lightbox with neon tubes inside, so that the glow of the tubes can be seen through the glass, with the same quality of finish as a 'pearl' lightbulb; ie clear glass on the outside, and on the inside a thin film of smooth opaque white with no speckles, transluscent enough to roughly reveal the shape of the neon tubes. However I'd settle for any transluscent white-ish material that simply shows light coming through without noise.
I've built a light box containing the tubes made into mesh lights. The back face of the box is white, the front side my frosted glass material. The sides are black. I've tried every possible combination of glossy refractions, 2 sided materials, DMC settings, material subdivs, light subdivs- but each one gives me horrible noise around the shape of the neon tubes, or rediculous render times. At a frame size of 1024x576 i can get a really nice material, but as soon as i go up to 1080p the dreaded noise kicks in... And as it's an animation i can't really afford render times of much over 10 mins per frame.
I've tried interpolation on the glossies- it looks great on a some frames but when the light goes low it's really blotchy and un-useable. I've tried using a two sided material, but again it has noise around the shape of the tubes.
I really can't think of anything else... does anyone have any cheats for this? Perhaps i should be rendering elements and building it in the comp afterwards? Should i be using mesh lights or is this a mistake (is their fall-off too intense?- is this what causes the noise?) Am i taking it too literally trying to physically rebuild the light?
any help could keep my sanity intact!
thanks
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