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Creating Light Beams in 2018?

everlastproductions
Explorer

Creating Light Beams in 2018?

everlastproductions
Explorer
Explorer

Hello! I've had the opportunity to tool around with Maya 2018, and ran into a bit of an issue. How can I create light beams from spotlights without using an atmosphere volume hooked up in the render settings? I'm trying to replicate the look of concert/stage lighting, and the method I used in 2013 (linear decay, enable light fog in light attributes, enable decay regions and adjust) hasn't worked, even when I switched to quadratic per Arnold. The atmospheric volume gave all the lights beams, which isn't what I'm going for. Any advice?

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sean.heasley
Alumni
Alumni

Hi @everlastproductions

 

That type of lighting is often called God Rays. While this video shows Maya 2017 the workflow should work for you and help you achieve the stage lighting affect you're looking for!

 

 

 

Please let me know if this helps or if you need any more assistance!

 

 

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

 

 

 

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

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sean.heasley
Alumni
Alumni

Hi @everlastproductions

 

I'm just checking in again to see if you need more help with this. Did the suggestion I provided yesterday work for you?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

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everlastproductions
Explorer
Explorer

Thank you for the reply and follow up! This is the effect I'm looking for, but I mentioned this method in my original post; volume scattering is now atmospheric volume in 2018, and it gives all lights (except directional, I think) that same beam effect, which I'm trying to avoid. If possible, I want to be able to apply light fog to only select lights. 

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sean.heasley
Alumni
Alumni

Hi @everlastproductions

 

Ah ok in that case I would recommend using layer overrides in the render globals and put the lights you want all in one layer and the lights without in another layer.

 

Here's some documentation on AOVs from Solid Angle that should help as well!

 

 

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

 

 

 

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

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everlastproductions
Explorer
Explorer

I'm not entirely sure how to use the AOVs to get the result I'm looking for. When you say put the lights on different layers for with and without beams, how would I use to AOV to achieve this? Is the atmosphere an AOV I can enable and disable? I'm sorry, I'm just not very familiar with more complex rendering options; can you be more specific?

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sean.heasley
Alumni
Alumni
Accepted solution

Hi @everlastproductions

 

Actually I found an easier way than using AOVs.

 

You can simply navigate to the Visibility tab of a light and drag the Volume slider down to 0. This will allow the light to appear but it won't be affected by the scattering!

 

Please let me know if this helps or if you need any more assistance!

 

 

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

 

 

 

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

everlastproductions
Explorer
Explorer

This is perfect, thanks!