LIGHT-BULB ARRAY

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    This bright idea was intended for audio. I wanted to be able to control the brightness of each bulb, and associate it with a certain tone or osscillator; but I got carried away making this single working bulb look cool with loads of lamps and halo light-sources
    As you can see, there is only a single model of a Bulb, which is simply repeated across the array; and each bulb is made up of...

MODELLING TECHNIQUES

    I suppose it's worth mentionning a couple of the modelling techniques for those learning Blender; such as the PROPORTIONAL EDIT mode when editing (which I used to elongate the sphere to form the main bulb shape).

ACTIVATING PROPORTIONAL-EDITING:

    To use this mode, you can either press 'O' whilst in EDIT mode - and watch for the highlighting of an orange doughnut in the 3D window's header - or manually click on the doughnut (Which is Grey whilst OFF) , and choose 'On', or 'Connected' from the subsiquent menu. (Middle-Mouse-Button (MMB) dragging on a window's header allows you to drag it to view anything that is being hidden off to one side).
    The 'Connected' setting is really useful when editing multi-mesh objects, (i.e. Single objects that are made up of, for example multiple cubes or spheres, or separate areas of mesh that are not connected by edges or faces), so the interpolated 'dragging' of many vertices won't affect those that are not part of the shape you are editing.

USING PROPORTIONAL-EDITING:

    Once PROPORTIONAL-EDITING is activated, it will influence any GRABBING ('G' Key), SCALING ('S' Key) or ROTATING ('R' Key) you do whilst in EDIT mode; and the effect should be immediately apparent.
    As you can see when moving a single vertex on your model - ('G' key whilst a vertex/some vertices are selected) - that the surrounding vertices are also influenced by this move, for instance, pulling a 'bulge' out of the side of a sphere. The effect of this edit will depend on the SIZE of the interpolated area (which is set by scrolling the MMB {Middle-Mouse-Button}) and also by the INTERPOLATION TYPE , (which is chosen using the 'FALL-OFF' menu next to the Orange cicrle menu you set to turn 'INTERP-EDIT' mode on - use 'SHIFT-O' to scroll through menu)
    Some interesting modes include the RANDOM Fall-Off - which is great for building Terrains out of sub-divided 'Planes', and the CONSTANT Fall-Off - which can be cool for making plateaus, or 'trying out' extrusions before you commit to one.

HALO-LIGHTING

    A major effect used in this scene is the lighting. I think there are about 4 lamps in the scene - most notably the HALO SPOT-LAMPS which are causing the visible light-beam effects.
    These lamps are easily set up - you simply add a Lamp (Press 'Space-Bar' while the mouse is over the 3D window, and choose 'LAMP' from the ADD menu; and the Lamp you choose will be created where your 3-D cursor is situated) - and consult the LAMP settings in the Material buttons (Press 'F5' with the LAMP selected)
    There are some obvious settings, such as RGB and ENERGY , which effect the colour and strength of the Lamp - and some more advanced settings which we'll avoid at the moment. The settings necessary for HALO lighting are only available to 'SPOT' Lamps. To change a Lamp-type, click the desired type in the PREVIEW section (usually on the left).     To envoke the HALO effect - there is a toggle in the Shadow and Spot section, called HALO, which you need to click to see the light-beams in your render. The important settings for this effect are:

  • HALO toggle
  • DISTANCE (Dist setting in Lamp section)
  • BUFFER-SHADOW (Buf.Shadow Toggle in Shadow and Spot section) - this allows the Spot-Light to cast buffered Shadows, and break the HALO-Beam
  • SPOT-SIZE - (SpotSi and SpotBl sliders in Shadow and Spot section) - sets the focuss and softness of the beam.
  • LIGHT-BEAM INTENSITY - (HaloInt slider in Shadow and Spot section) - sets how visibly strong the actual BEAM is (separate, but affected by the Lamp's ENERGY
  • SHADOW-SAMPLES - ('Samples' value in bottom of Shadow and Spot section) - sets the realistic softness of the shadows cast by the Lamp. A setting of 1 will give sharp, crisp shadows - great for certain looks/effects, while anything higher will give a dispersed shadow, starting off grainy and noisy, and approaching realism with values of 5/6 or more. A value of 16 is the highest available.
  • HALO-STEP VALUE - ('Halo Step' value in bottom of Shadow and Spot section) - sets the QUALITY of the 'breaking' of the Halo-Light-Beam. A value of ZERO is considered OFF - and values from 1 to 12 constitute the 12 quality levels from 1 = BEST to 12 = FASTEST.

    So, those are the most important settings to remember - but it's a good idea to try out some experiemnts with the other settings, to see if you find something you like. One last tip: If the START of your HALO LAMP is visible to the CAMERA, you may want to increase the ClipSta , CLIP-START setting, so that it doesn't eminate from a single sharp point. This is useful for using the HALO lamp with a model of a spot-light - but you have to make sure that your spotlight's bulb doesn't cast shadows, or you won't see the Lamp!
    An example of HALO SPOT-LIGHTS can be seen in my GLASS_HOOPS_DESTRUCTION renders.

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