Creating edge lit/lightbox coloured light...

[johnnyswedish]

Hi Corona Forum,

I am working on a wall unit with a multi coloured edge light. What is the best way to get the coloured light to really beam out far on a white wall? At the moment I am using a corona light material with a coloured gradient. If i increase the intensity too far the colours wash out. It does not reach out far enough on the wall and the Bloom does not seem to work. I have tried to play with the directionality which helps a bit but if you push it too far the glow on the wall looks better but the actual light edge starts to look dull. Any help much appreciated :-) Johnny S

[houska]

It seems to me that the effect of the coloured lights is outvoiced by the white lighting in the middle of the white wall. Can you try turning the white light off?

Also, are you trying to replicate an image that was photographed in real life or are you visualizing a project? I'm asking because it might as well be so that it's not physically possible to create such an effect with this configuration due to light colors mixing and the light intensity falloff towards the middle.

[Ealexander]

I have done effects like this in the past by creating duplicate geometry.  So you have a luminous material on the geometry that is visible and represents what we see.  Then duplicate that geometry and offset it slightly (by .01 for example).  This is given a similar material, but acts like the light source and is hidden from camera.  This way I can crank up the settings and saturation on the "light" but still control the visibly of the Lightbox separately.

[johnnyswedish]

THANK YOU GUYS! I will turn the white light down (makes sense with light clashing) and making a duplicate is genius. Never thought of this approach! I will post a result as soon as i can. :-)