In Reply to: Advice on making textures show up well? posted by Jerud Crandall on August 29, 2000 at 13:23:59:
Jerud,
I assume that you are making the movie in DW? I haven't had many problems with the lights in DW L&T. The movies I make, I make using Artlantis by Abvent. They have a quirky way of dealing with light but I am starting to figure it out.
In DW I haven't had any real problems with the lights like you describe. I generally provide a lot of lights. In a corridor, I might have a point light every 10 or 15 feet. The light is usually just a small 1 inch cube suspended around the height of the fixture. In a low ceiling I might actually drop the cube a little. Since the cubes are so small they usually don't show up in the rendering. These will also export to Artlantis as light sources if you use that program.
You can also set up layers with light sources in them at various parts of the building. So that you don't have to render all the lights at once to run a movie. I would set up layers for each zone and then turn on two zones at a time as you move through the building. Then you can turn off the zone behind you and turn on the one in front of you and pick up the rendering from there.
With regard to the brightness, I usually just turn down the lights as many times as I need to to get the right contrast level. I hadn't realized the problem you encountered with the ceiling reflections. I think that if you need highly accurate renderings, I would go to Artifice's RenderCity Online and use that tool for doing your still images. RenderCity is very powerful and realistic. It does take a little effort to figure out how to do it, but Mike Wheeler is an excellent tech support person that has a lot of insightful advice.
I'm afraid that doesn't help much with the light level problem you seem to be experiencing. Perhaps someone else out there has some experience with the lights in L&T.
Let me know if that changes anything or if you even understood my ramblings.
Larry