Underwater ligth beams

[Eric2575]

Played with several variables without much improvement. The overlapping beams build up and give an unnatural bright area. What can be done to make it look better?

[KenH]

I'd say you need to increase the softness of your volumetric lights. Also, try using multipass rendering.

[zandoriastudios]

The rendering looks very dark.... I think that you need an object to represent the actual bulb where the spotlight is coming from--make it 100% ambient with a glow.

 

Even underwater you are going to get some illumination from the light diffused in the water. try a skylight with a low light intensity to give some shape to the submarine.

[robcat2075]

As i look at his still image I see that the two lights overlap fairly well while they have the model (the Nautilus? cool!) behind them, but when they have only the camera background color behind them, the rearmost lightbeam takes on a very hard edge. I think this is a rendering problem.

 

The first thing I would try is to put one huge patch in the background and make it the same color as your camera background color. Then the light beams would be rendering over "a model" and maybe they would render as well as they do when they have the sub behind them. Rendering time may go up.

 

I had this problem in a previous version of A:M. I think at the time my solution was to render each light beam separately and composite the passes in After Effects. This would also solve the problem of the lightbeams making the plate seams show up behind them. After Effects may not be a practical solution for you, however.

 

And if neither of the above fixes it... I'm stumped.

 

BTW what's making the dark halo around everything?

[Eric2575]

Ken, I've played with softness in the volumetrics but am still getting the sharp contrast. Will try multipass.

 

Wiliam, the objects that the spotlights are supposed to be coming from are the two bigger green orbs on the side of the sub. Ambiance is set to 100 and glow is already turned on. I wish I could find a tut on making spotlights or even how to make a light glow through a window. There is actually another light source inside the sub that is supposed to shine through the bigger porthole between the two spots. For some reason, that is not working at all.

 

Robcat, yes it is the Nautilus. I'll post a small avi soon, check it out on WIP. I'll also try your idea with the background patch.

[KenH]

Don't forget the softness within the shadow options of the light.