recessed lights

[bighop]

I'm building my living room (well my house really) in AM. I want to see what it would be like to install recessed lights in my living room. The ceiling is just a grid.

 

I can build the cans, but they have depth. I want to place them in the ceiling and have the depth, but the grid cuts through the light. Do I have to make an open grid for each place I want to put a light?

 

**I started to make an example, but AM kept crashing. I'm on a mac... is vs 16 out of bata yet?

[Darkwing]

It's not out of a beta and picture would be really useful

[robcat2075]

I'm building my living room (well my house really) in AM. I want to see what it would be like to install recessed lights in my living room. The ceiling is just a grid.

 

I can build the cans, but they have depth. I want to place them in the ceiling and have the depth, but the grid cuts through the light. Do I have to make an open grid for each place I want to put a light?

 

**I started to make an example, but AM kept crashing. I'm on a mac... is vs 16 out of bata yet?

 

Cutting holes will be most straight forward. Typically modelers will create the holes first and then spline in the surface between them.

 

Alternatively , if the ceiling is a separate model from the rest of the room you could set it to Cast Shadows OFF and lights will behave as if it isn't there.

[bighop]

I thought about cutting holes. I was hoping there was a quick method so I can move the lights quickly.

[John Bigboote]

There is. Booleans!

[bighop]

Ok,

 

I added a bone to the recess light, and turned on boolean on. I also made a cylinder and did the same thing. This is the result, nothing. The ceiling is just a thick grid. It also has a bone, but the boolean is not turned on.

 

Any ideas? I was looking for a quick solution so I could try recess lights in different rooms and not have to build a special ceiling.

 

(I know the lights in the room are a little bright, but one thing at a time.

[Darkwing]

I hate to say it, but their really isn't so much a "quick" solution. Personally, I'd model the hole in the ceiling and put the light in there

[robcat2075]

Is the heirarchy of the Boolean bone to the bone for the ceiling correct? It matters.

[bighop]

Well.... Seeing how I don't know what that means...... no.

 

The recess light has the Boolean. The Ceiling just has a bone.

[robcat2075]

one has to be the child of the other. I don't remember which, but the TechRef will tell you.

 

Also, the ceiling will probably need to be an enclosed shape. i don't think a flat plane will do. The tech ref will mention that too.

[Darkwing]

I did this really fast and so it's a bit sloppy, but this only took me 10 minutes to model, texture, light and set up in the chor. I simply modeled the hole into the ceiling and then made another lathed object as the light and set it in the hole

 

 

light.mdl

[bighop]

Thanks for doing that. This might be the way I have to go.

[Darkwing]

The big thing for sake of ease is before you extrude the depth, have all the holes modeled first, that will save a bunch of trouble. Also, I'd make a new "grid" section for each place you'd put a hole, just so that the mesh isn't being stretched to much cause it does rely heavily on the 5 point patch

[pixelplucker]

Rather than booleans, make a cookie cutter or transparency hole, this will allow you to move them around.

I did a cheese factory that had the roof cut away, I first applied them and positioned them as "color" then when I was happy with the positioning I changed the channel properties.

 

Simple way and renders very fast and no chance of long splines causing artifacts.

[John Bigboote]

The ceiling grid needs to be a closed mass in order for the boolean to cut into it. So does the shape that makes the cut (the boolean)