I’m facing a problem with the LX Beams.
I can not show the model (Dancer...) on the 3D screen.
I create the beam and adjust it to the center, although I tried to add many fixtures.
Marc
Show model (Help)
There are a number of factors that will determine what you see in the model window. Most of these are set by opening the model's controls in the drawer attached to the model window. (Click the blue "i" icon in the upper right to open the drawer)
First, you want to be sure that the "Model" check box is checked. The model, floor and background can all be shown or not shown.
The next thing to look at is the location of the model's coordinate system. You set this by clicking the "Next Click Sets Location" button and then switching to your plot and clicking on the point that you want to place the model. This will set the model's coordintes to 0,0,0 at that point on the beam plane (as set in the Inspector's beam tab).
If you haven't changed the camera settings, you should be looking right at the model at its 0,0 location. The camera settings are all in model coordinates. If you move the camera and look away from the model, you might not see it.
If you still don't see a beam illuminating the model, it is possible that you haven't assigned a color to the light. If no color has been assigned, LXBeams will look to the stroke or fill color of the light, depending on the preferences setting for automatically setting the light's color. (Found in the Preference's "Automatic" tab).
If the preference is set to fill color, LXBeams will use that color as the color of the beam. However, if only the stroke color is checked, that will be the color of the beam. Generally, the stroke will be black, giving you a black beam in that case. The solution is either to change the preference setting or assign the light an open color by entering either "n/c" or "o/w".
First, you want to be sure that the "Model" check box is checked. The model, floor and background can all be shown or not shown.
The next thing to look at is the location of the model's coordinate system. You set this by clicking the "Next Click Sets Location" button and then switching to your plot and clicking on the point that you want to place the model. This will set the model's coordintes to 0,0,0 at that point on the beam plane (as set in the Inspector's beam tab).
If you haven't changed the camera settings, you should be looking right at the model at its 0,0 location. The camera settings are all in model coordinates. If you move the camera and look away from the model, you might not see it.
If you still don't see a beam illuminating the model, it is possible that you haven't assigned a color to the light. If no color has been assigned, LXBeams will look to the stroke or fill color of the light, depending on the preferences setting for automatically setting the light's color. (Found in the Preference's "Automatic" tab).
If the preference is set to fill color, LXBeams will use that color as the color of the beam. However, if only the stroke color is checked, that will be the color of the beam. Generally, the stroke will be black, giving you a black beam in that case. The solution is either to change the preference setting or assign the light an open color by entering either "n/c" or "o/w".
Changing the model in Beams Model View
When I bring up the Model View: View-Beams-Show Model, I can see a figure, sometimes a dancer, sometimes a man, but I can't change the figure. All the options in the Model pull-out drawer are grayed out except for Sphere. How can I change the figures?
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Johan Söderberg
- Posts: 294
- Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:35 pm
- Contact:
The model window does behave somewhat different in LX Beams Version 4.1.0 (10102.1).
On Yosemite 10.10.3 (14D136)
There is this requirement of activation, which is new and pretty strange.
But there´s also something going on in the advanced settings.
Guess the problem is that Im not advanced
But if I choose not to use the document origin and then move the model by "the next click"-method. Strange things will happen...
And
Why can I not have the model window on a different screen than my plot?
I´ve finally got used to this apple thingy and actually start to like it. But in LX beams I can never put the model window on another "desktop" than the one that contains my plot. They will always end up in the same window, no matter what I do.
On Yosemite 10.10.3 (14D136)
There is this requirement of activation, which is new and pretty strange.
But there´s also something going on in the advanced settings.
Guess the problem is that Im not advanced
But if I choose not to use the document origin and then move the model by "the next click"-method. Strange things will happen...
And
Why can I not have the model window on a different screen than my plot?
I´ve finally got used to this apple thingy and actually start to like it. But in LX beams I can never put the model window on another "desktop" than the one that contains my plot. They will always end up in the same window, no matter what I do.
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Johan Söderberg
- Posts: 294
- Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:35 pm
- Contact:
And I had this other strange problem today...
Ive built a solid wall in 3d, its white, 6 meters high 4 meters wide. The thickness is 5 cm
When I put lamps on pipes behind it, lighting up another 3d object, my back wall, they shine through this first covering wall in a strange and pretty unpredictable way.
Ive built a solid wall in 3d, its white, 6 meters high 4 meters wide. The thickness is 5 cm
When I put lamps on pipes behind it, lighting up another 3d object, my back wall, they shine through this first covering wall in a strange and pretty unpredictable way.
The option to use the model location for the origin of the Model window's geometry was included for use when exporting. (The setting affects not only the model window, but exporting from the main window as well.) If you did select this option for some other reason, the model would offset by the distance shown and the origin of the model world will be set at the location show in the main tab. This might not produce expected results if the model window was used regularly in this mode. So now in the latest build, if you uncheck "Use Document Origin", in addition to the model location being used as the origin of the Model Window world, the model is always located at that origin.
The model window has always been floating to allow you to select and manipulate lights and see results without the model window moving behind other windows. But, although this may be the most commonly desired way for the Model window to work, there are times when you might prefer it to act like a regular window. This is now an option in the advanced settings.
There are some things about 3D rendering techniques that differ from real life. The type of shading used by LXBeams/OpenGL depends on a vector that extends from a surface called a normal. Normals that point away from a light source are ignored by the shader. This is normally not a problem because typically you are only interested in surfaces that are visible to the light/camera. It is possible to set surfaces to have 2 sides.
But, each surface that is rendered takes time. For the quickest rendering, surfaces created by 3D lines in LXBeams have only one side that reflects light. Setting all surfaces to two sides more than doubles the rendering time because to do shadows, for each surface, you have to compute every other surface for every light. So instead of doubling, the render time goes up by a function more like the square of the number of surfaces.
There are two likely explanations for your question. One is that the surface has only a single surface normal and thus, a light coming from behind will not cast a shadow. The other is that the type of rendering used by OpenGL does not account for light bouncing around a scene. It takes the quickest path which is to compute the color of a pixel based on the angle of light hitting the surface that pixel represents in 3D space projected on the camera's plane. To make a rendering look more realistic, colors produced for a shadowed pixel are not simply black, but a fraction of the color that the pixel would be if there were no shadowing object. The result looks realistic because in real life light bounces around off things. For instance, a light coming from behind an actor may bounce enough light off the floor that her face can still be seen. Raytracing is a type of 3D rendering that actually computes how light bounces around a scene. The type of shading done by OpenGL fakes this by simply reducing the light in a shadow by a set fraction (which is much quicker to compute).
The shadow factor in LXBeams 4.0 started as 0.5. The latest build has it set at 0.25. If there seems to be interest in controlling this, LXBeams could include the ability to switch between shaders that use different shadow factors which would make the shadows lighter or darker.
The model window has always been floating to allow you to select and manipulate lights and see results without the model window moving behind other windows. But, although this may be the most commonly desired way for the Model window to work, there are times when you might prefer it to act like a regular window. This is now an option in the advanced settings.
There are some things about 3D rendering techniques that differ from real life. The type of shading used by LXBeams/OpenGL depends on a vector that extends from a surface called a normal. Normals that point away from a light source are ignored by the shader. This is normally not a problem because typically you are only interested in surfaces that are visible to the light/camera. It is possible to set surfaces to have 2 sides.
But, each surface that is rendered takes time. For the quickest rendering, surfaces created by 3D lines in LXBeams have only one side that reflects light. Setting all surfaces to two sides more than doubles the rendering time because to do shadows, for each surface, you have to compute every other surface for every light. So instead of doubling, the render time goes up by a function more like the square of the number of surfaces.
There are two likely explanations for your question. One is that the surface has only a single surface normal and thus, a light coming from behind will not cast a shadow. The other is that the type of rendering used by OpenGL does not account for light bouncing around a scene. It takes the quickest path which is to compute the color of a pixel based on the angle of light hitting the surface that pixel represents in 3D space projected on the camera's plane. To make a rendering look more realistic, colors produced for a shadowed pixel are not simply black, but a fraction of the color that the pixel would be if there were no shadowing object. The result looks realistic because in real life light bounces around off things. For instance, a light coming from behind an actor may bounce enough light off the floor that her face can still be seen. Raytracing is a type of 3D rendering that actually computes how light bounces around a scene. The type of shading done by OpenGL fakes this by simply reducing the light in a shadow by a set fraction (which is much quicker to compute).
The shadow factor in LXBeams 4.0 started as 0.5. The latest build has it set at 0.25. If there seems to be interest in controlling this, LXBeams could include the ability to switch between shaders that use different shadow factors which would make the shadows lighter or darker.