Backlight Sign????Help!

V-Ray for 3ds Max V-Ray for 3ds Max :: General
1

Anyone have suggestions on creating a backlight sign like this:

I have tried taking the back faces of the sign and jacking up the GI amount and giving it a self illumated material but it seems to fade too much and not hold the text well. Had some results taking a direct light and inverting a shadow map projector for it. But still do not really like the results.

Any suggestions, sure someone out there has done this before…
Probably something really easy, just missing the boat here…

Thanks in advance

2

Have you considered preparing a custom map for use in a projector light set up as a gobo?

3

thats probably the easiest way.. render it out ortho, colorize it in photoshop, blur the bejesus out of it, and use as a projector map…

the gi way can work, but its a pain because you need insanely high min/max to get rid of splotches

4

What about using a self-illuminating map on the wall material?

5

You could select the backfaces of that sign and assign them the VRaylight material in SubObject mode.

6

that would be my choice too..
or you could put a gradiant map from simple black color to green output map on your mash …

7

Take a look at this

http://www.cgarchitect.com/resources/tutorials/smoke3d/tutorial9.asp

Back to good’ old fakosity…
It is really easy this way.

8

cool :smile: …the simpler the better…that would be my way :slight_smile:

paul.

9

I would build it the way it’s most likely constructed in reality. Model the sign with a thickness like a container and make the inside white to reflect best. Make a loft or renderable spline like a neon tube just smaller than the border of the text and inside the concave section. The material on the tube should have Color checked in the Self-Illumination section an output map in the self-illumination slot with RGB level set to 10 or so and you can use the Color Map for controlling the color. Make sure the sign is away from the wall and the ambient/ skylight is very low. BTW, I think your reference image is a rendering :wink: Can anyone else see the area just before the “S” that looks similar to errors I remember from FR?

Here is a quick example with Medium Irrad Map settings some reflections on the wall material helped too but are not necessary.

--Jon