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Lighting a fire with alpha image

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 6:17 pm
by NStocks
Hello,

I have a image of flames with transparent background to represent a fire and I'm trying to add life to it in terms of lighting.

The image doesn't render particularity well on its own, perhaps due to the (architectural, common) glass in front of it, but I'm also trying out lights to make the fire pit glow.

I have 8 small spot lights with a red colour set to 100 degree fall off and 100 degree spot light. These too are place behind the glass and directly underneath the image of flames.

Has anyone tried to create a similar effect with better success? Rendering with Easy 09 Interior.
fire 2.jpg
fire 2.jpg (813.29 KiB) Viewed 4769 times

Re: Lighting a fire with alpha image

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 6:18 pm
by NStocks
This is a very quick render of the result.
render fire.jpg
render fire.jpg (892.98 KiB) Viewed 4768 times

Re: Lighting a fire with alpha image

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 10:50 am
by Fletch
set .png with fire (.png must be perfectly transparent where there is no fire) to be a Light Emitting Material, set it to "fake" emitter for Easy 1-7 render settings, leave it normal for Easy 09 and 10 render settings.
Play with intensity/power of light emitter to result you want with your render setting and exposure setting.
I would use a very small box with the fire in it in a seperate SketchUp scene for test rendering/adjusting the settings to save time in your experimentation process.
Using point or spot lights to enhance the lighting effect of the fire is important, as you are doing. Point lights may be better in this case than spot lights.

Subject: How to fake fire flames
Subject: Animated GIF in SketchUp
Subject: Exterior Night shot
Subject: Issue with glass render
Subject: How to fake fire flames