UberLight

[sbjones25]

Does anyone know of an uberLight shader that is vex. i'm trying to learn vex and create a custom light shader but there doesn't seem to be any information on how to do specific things.

my main thing that i want to do is control the drop of rate of the light and also turn the light's specular and diffuse contributions on/off.

anyone have any ideas or tutorials that ive missed out there. got my senior project coming up and i'm running behind schedule as it is.

any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

sbjones25

sjones29@student.scad.edu

[Mario Marengo]

got my senior project coming up and i'm running behind schedule as it is.

Hehe... won't your prof get a little suspicious if you hand in a vex version of Gritz's implementation?

So, what's the assignment? Is it meant to be an exercise in converting from RSL to VEX? Or are you supposed to show that you can write your own custom light shader (specifically in VEX because you already know RSL)?

I'll assume that you already know that the code to Larry Gritz's implementation in RSL is publicly available here.

If you get into trouble converting Larry's code, there are people here that will gladly help you out, so don't hesitate to ask about specific issues.

I can guarantee that you will learn tons about VEX if you attempt that conversion yourself -- I certainly did.

If, on the other hand, you just want to copy^H^H^H^Hstudy someone else's attempt, then, well, I'm sure you'll soon find out there is indeed one such hiding in these forums (someone is bound to mention it eventually, but I'll let you do your own search for "uberlight" )

Good luck!

[sbjones25]

Well it's my senior project so we can use any and all resources. my project isn't really about writing a vex shader or rsl shader. i've had a Renderman class and learned really only about shaders and ribs, but not lights, and that's really half the battle in CG. 5 Lighters to 3 Animators to 1 Modeler. that's the ratio at Sony for sure, and live action integration, lighting is extremely important. my project is a music video. i'm trying to get a light that can be useful in all situations. not just for lighting a character or scene, but both and in any type of lighting situation. a very universal light is what i'm looking for. that you VERY MUCH for the link. I owe you a drink or something. i don't really know how to convert RSL to VEX, but i can see TONS of similarities. i do have one more question if you have the time. Where do i start? if i were to take this code, how to i do this in VEX. i'm so clueless on this stuff. and really this is what scares the poop out of me about going into the industry. This is the stuff they don't teach you at school. By just taking a glance at this code, it looks really useful, and i think if i could convert from RSL to VEX, i would learn tons. just need to figure out how i'm going to go about doing that. Thank you for your help. let me know if you have any other suggestions. I'm desperate at this point!

THANKS!!!

STEPHEN

[Mario Marengo]

Well it's my senior project so we can use any and all resources. my project isn't really about writing a vex shader or rsl shader. i've had a Renderman class and learned really only about shaders and ribs, but not lights.

OK. Cool. I just wasn't sure if doing the conversion was the whole point of the assignment... it's hard to tell sometimes

Anyway, that large hint I tried to drop in my last sentence was about the fact that there already is a VEX conversion of Larry's RSL code here in the forums, and that if you searched for "uberlight", you'd quickly find the thread.

It's quite old, so some bits may not work in H9.5, but it will at least get you 98% of the way there... if not all the way (there haven't been *that* many major changes in VEX since then).

If some part of it doesn't compile, then give a shout and someone will take a look (Wolfwood? ).

Cheers.