Earlier in the topic we mentioned that textures play a key role in how your lighting affects your objects. This couldn’t be more true for a scene such as the one you’ve been working on here. This next small project will take your teacup scene to the final render by enhancing the entire look with a few simple surface changes.
1. Continuing the project you’ve been working on, open the Surface Editor.
2. In the Surface Name list, expand the Teacup listing. Select the Cup surface, and set the color to ivory (about R: 253 G: 255, B: 246).
3. Set Specularity to 20%, Glossiness to 40% and Reflection to 90%.
4. Change the Diffuse value to about 70%. Figure 4.31 shows the changes.
Figure 4.31 A few basic surface settings to the cup and you’re on your way to making the final scene.
5. Next, select the Environment tab within the Surface Editor, and set Reflection Options to Ray Tracing and Backdrop. Most likely, this is on by default.
6. In the Surface Name list, right-click on the Cup surface entry and choose Copy.
7. Select the Saucer surface listing, right-click and choose Paste. Now both surfaces have the same properties, and you’re still editing the surface attributes for both.
8. To make your teacup reflect its surroundings, you need to do three things. First, as you’ve done already, you give the surface a Reflection percentage greater than 0. You then tell the surface what to reflect, such as the environment. To have LightWave calculate the rays to reflect, open the Render Globals panel from
Layout’s Render tab, and check the Ray Trace Reflection option, found in the panel’s Render tab.
9. Save your scene, and also choose Save All Objects from the File menu to save the surface properties you’ve now applied. Press F9 and view the rendered changes (Figure 4.32).
Figure 4.32 By adding a bit of reflection and shine to the cup and saucer and activating Ray Traced Reflections, you ensure that the lighting in the environment looks even better now that the cup interacts with it.
By changing the surface values to a medium specularity for a shinier surface and adding reflections, you’ve now blended the cup with the environment. Everything in your world interacts with its environment. Sure, not everything is shiny and reflective, but from a desk, to a chair, to a bug on the wall, whatever you see is the result of the object interacting with the light that surrounds it.
There are a few more things you can do to dress up the scene further. First, let’s shine up the metallic trim on the cup and saucer.
10. Select the Cup_Gold_Rim surface in the Surface Name list. Holding down the Ctrl key, select the Saucer_Gold_Rim surface. In LightWave’s Surface Editor, you can edit multiple surfaces at the same time.
11. With the two surfaces selected, set the color to a warm yellowish-orange to create gold (roughly R: 226, G: 181, B: 004).
12. Set Diffuse to 50% but leave the luminosity setting at 0, which is normal for most surfaces. Higher Luminosity is typically used for lightbulbs, flames, and other things that glow.
13. Change Specularity to 50% and Glossiness to 35%; too much higher and you’d make this object too shiny, like glass. If you decide to burnish the trim a little more, you can always increase these values later.
14. Set Reflection to 50%. This might seem high, but polished metal, even a trim on a cup, should be highly reflective. This setting is also good for things like stainless-steel faucets and chrome auto trim.
15. On the Environment tab, make sure that Ray Tracing and Backdrop are set for Reflection Options.
16. From the File menu in Layout, choose Save All Objects. This will save the surface settings you’ve applied. Then, save the scene and press F9 to render the current frame (Figure 4.33).
Figure 4.33 With a metallic gold trim added to the cup’s surfaces, the shot is complete.
The reason the metallic surface works is because it’s reflecting its environment. The Environment setting is currently black, which you can change by going to the Windows drop-down menu and choosing Background Options. But what happens with the highly reflective surface is that it reflects a black backdrop, which blends with the color of the surface. The reflection also picks up the cup and ground nearby, as well as the light box (the large flat polygon off camera). These added elements create the illusion of a metallic surface. Nice, isn’t it? In the past, many artists would simply have the metallic surface reflect and image, but reflecting the environment is a bit more convincing.
From here, you can tweak, and perhaps add colored lighting as you like. Experiment with the information provided in this topic and see what variations you can come up with. One dramatic thing you can do is bring the intensity of the key light down, and increase the Fill and Radiosity settings. Have the key light only as an accent so that the light is primarily lit from behind.
The Next Step
The information in this topic can be applied to any type of scene you create in LightWave, from outdoor scenes, to sets, and even fantasy-type renders. It can be applied to any of the exercises and projects in this topic. These basic lighting setups and core functions apply to all of your LightWave work in one way or another, either in simple or complex form. Use the information here to branch out on your own and create different lighting environments. Use lights to your advantage—remember, there are no wires or electric bills to worry about when creating virtual lighting situations. You don’t need to worry about lightbulbs burning out either!
Experiment by adding more lights to your everyday scene or perhaps taking some away. Use negative lights, colored lights, dim lights, overly bright lights, and whatever else you can think of to make your models and animations look as good as they can. But what will make them stand out from the rest of the pack is your own creative input. Don’t worry about rules too much. Learn the basics, understand how the tools work, and try it out! If you think you’d like more light on a particular area of the scene, add it. Don’t ask people on Internet forums—just try it!
What adds even more interest to your scenes in the camera. LightWave v9′s camera tools are quite powerful, so turn the page to understand this updated feature set.
