Billboarding in Max

Bronco

Hey guys

I am trying to add light rays from a street lamp in a little scene im working on...something like the glow effect in this scene,only difference being mine should exspand more as a cone shape.

http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/483/483577/img_2798851.html?fromint=1 (thanks Mojo for the example piccy)

This brings me to 2 questions which i shall keep for future reference:-
1. How do you set a plane/light so it "billboards" with the camara in max?

2. How do you make the same effect as above using bog standard target spot lights?

Thanks in advance.

john

rooster

This might not be the best way to do it, but I guess I would try to use a pf source particle emitter, have it emit one particle that stays put. then you could use 'shape facing' for the geometry that will keep it pointing at the camera. As I say, don't know if thats the best way, but its how I would approach it.

oh or maybe just a lookat constraint? might get less control with that way, with shape facing I think you can set it to just be parallel with camera, if you can do that with lookat I'd love to know how

edit: i read the question again, not sure how well I answered, I don't know about getting a cone shape out of it. I'm guessing you want to avoid using volumetric lighting?

Eric Chadwick

1. Lookat constraint. Script here.
2. Projection map, plus volume light atmos effect.

Here's an example of #2 I made awhile back.
http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/images/volumelight_nebula.max


[edit: didn't mean to brush off rooster's ideas, I posted last night pretty late. There are many valid ways to skin this cat. Volume light may not be what you want. I did both ways for this Bladerunner scene, first a billboard in 3ds DOS, then a volume light when we switched to Max v1.]

Ryno

Any reason that you need to run a script for it? The lookat constraint is built into Max already.

Eric Chadwick

Yeah, should've explained. I had to emulate in-game behavior to render a scene once, where I had a bunch of grass billboards. The script helped me set them all at once to look at the camera.

I think there was an issue too with constraining them to rotate on a single axis, which the script solved. I'm a little sketchy on details, was a couple years ago.

But if you just have a couple billboards, might as well set them up one-by-one.

Bronco

thanks for the advise guys

just to let ya know,this time round I just used lighting effects in max to create my desired effects.

http://www.hedgeart.com/3d/binbags/binbag3.jpg

Thanks again all.

john


But ill see what i can do for my next major peice for sure with the billboarding techneque.

heres how my ittl scene turne dout btw.