Lighting basics / part 2

This time, we'll see how to make a glowing effect, how to apply chrome/glow effect to make cool effects.

How to make a glowing effect.
  1. paint your skin, the glowing effect will come after.
    the arm
    the torso
    the model
  2. now, put the light emiting surface (small light, fluorescent surface, whatever you want), (there is a lot of stretching in ogro as you can see on the pic bellow. that means you can't skin it effectively in 2D only)
    the skin
    on the model

  3. Analyse how the light is working. In red the areas that doesn't receive day light, in yellow the ones that does, and the blue arrows show the light emitted by our new source.

  4. you can notice I did put the emitting source below the shadowed areas, because the effect is much more visible if you apply the glowing effect on dark areas. Now that we know where to put the lighting effect, use a dark tone of the light color (here it's dark blue), and paint the shadowed areas. the lightest blue closer to the emitting source.
    the arm
    the torso
    on the model

  5. save your skin, open it in PSP, convert to 24 bit, soften the gradients, use the airbrush or the lighten tool to highlight the closest areas to the light and to make a very light blue effect on the parts close to the source but that are receiving day light. when you're happy, load quake2 palette, save your skin, go to NST hit F5. If you're not satisfied in3D, alter the skin where needed, and retrun to PSP as often as it's needed.
    the arm
    the torso
    on the model

    .
  6. Conclusion: the glowing effect can be compared to the chrome effect; place your glowing light source next to shadowed reas, the effect will look a lot better.Don't hesitate to darken a lot the shadows to enhance the glow.
    think that the light is coming from below this time, and that the cracks, rivets, etc... have to be painted "reversed"
playing with shadows colors/ chrome effect.
  1. this time, I'll use id's models skins to show you how to add richness to your skin. look closely at these images.

the material is grey, ok, but it looks cool, why?
Excepted the great lighting, there is a light glowing effect, like if the ground was emitting brown light (that's true, the ground is brown on this damn planet). See, all the shadows are brown (shadows on the butt of the tank, on the torso of the gunner, on the shoulder pad), but a dark brown, it's very subtle, but very efficient. you can also notice all the small brown pixels on the gunner's torso or tank's belt ,that add to the gritty/dust aspect of the metal and make it looking cool, not boring, and amazing (well, I know a lot of people bored of seeing everything brown in quake2, it's all a matter of taste!).

 

©F-X Delmotte 1999