[Archived - Creator0] How do you add lighting in imvu like what you see in the viewport shading in blender?

Posted by “Creator0” on February 14, 2023.

thank you so much for the help sir @jazzKat​ 

Posted by “jazzKat” on February 13, 2023.

Ah right, that's the old legacy tutorial that's not wholly compatible with the Toolkit - don't know why it's not opening for you though as it seems to be working okay now. But yes, all you need to do is make sure the light is parented to the furniture Root node and that should export without issue.

P.S. that's another tute on the 'to-do (update)' list.

Posted by “Creator0” on February 13, 2023.

I had this error for 2 weeks when I was trying to open this part of your tutorial

Adding Lights (Blender) – IMVU Create

@jazzKat​ 

For now the error is gone but sometimes it still comes back sadly

Posted by “jazzKat” on February 12, 2023.

What error message did you get? (screencap it if you can). With that said you should be able to open any example file that's available in any version of Blender from 2.83 up.

And yes, if it looks like a mesh has shadows and is not just shaded, it could be those are textured with images that have been Baked (https://www.katsbits.com/codex/bake-lightmaps/).

Posted by “Creator0” on February 09, 2023.

Hello, sorry for the late reply I just finished my classes.

@jazzKat​ hello sir katsbits, before I say anything, I just want to thank you for your helpful videos. It was really helpful for me who started from scratch :) .

What I wanted to create was actually a furniture item. You had a separate tutorial in imvu create/blender for that one but unfortunately when we (me and my friends) try to open it there would be an error stopping us from opening it. That is why we are having a hard time in the lighting.

But after reading all your messages and actually looking at the textures for items that contain lights in the shop I actually noticed they are using textures and not light nodes.

@Drosselmeyer​ and @MightySe7en​  Thank you for the information both of you provided. It was actually a good thing I asked here. I will try to find another way (maybe I will just use textures for it) if ever I cannot do it using the lights.

Posted by “MightySe7en” on February 09, 2023.

ok after messing with a bunch of settings, using a point light, it will always ignore all meshes and just shine everywhere. You can try aiming a spotlight straight down and see if you can get close to the effect you are looking for. We are working hard to try to get lights to look as good as possible so the future may be bright, but currently, lighting is a really tough thing to deal with beyond some basics

Posted by “MightySe7en” on February 09, 2023.

Hi @Creator0​ !

Sadly the lighting in studio will never look the same as it does in blender. I will be experimenting more with this today and will reply again when I have more info.

Posted by “Drosselmeyer” on February 09, 2023.

I am adding @MightySe7en​ because he has been playing around with lights recently and may have more information, but I believe Omni lights have no falloff, meaning they shine 100% infinitely in all directions. So changing the sphere of the light will have no effect.

Posted by “jazzKat” on February 08, 2023.

it's not clear from the information what you're actually doing. Are you making a furniture item, a room or an accessory? The skeleton for each needs to be set up in a particular way otherwise item won't work correctly... and this might be why your item is doing (not) what it is. So, notwithstanding what @Drosselmeyer​ said above, use the furniture file for furniture, accessory file for accessories... or use the Toolkit.

Incidently, lights can't be 'contained' or 'limited' they way you seem to be wanting as they omnidirectional and essentially have an infinite fall-off; they'll illuminate anything close to the source and/or may be over powered by other lights as @Drosselmeyer​ mentioned above.

Posted by “Creator0” on February 08, 2023.

I had tried the first thing you suggested and it finally worked. But then the light keeps reflecting outside even when I closed the sphere. do you have any tips or ideas to keep them inside the sphere?

Posted by “Drosselmeyer” on February 08, 2023.

Hi @Creator0​, Lights are tricky :) I am noticing a few things from your screenshots that you will need to be aware of:

• If you want the interior of the the box to be lit, you will need to make sure that the face normals for the box are pointed inward so that they receive light. I almost always work with 'Backface Culling' turned on in the Blender viewport so you can see which way the faces are "facing". The option is under 'Viewport Shading' when 'Display in solid mode' is active.
• From your create mode screenshot I am noticing that your box is in a room(?). There looks to be another light in that room which is coming from the right side of the screen. For testing out your box lighting, I would make sure that you have room that you are sure has no lights in it so that you are only dealing with the light(s) you are interested in.
• The 'Ambient' color of the room will also drastically affect the ability to see the lights you are creating. I would suggest setting the Ambient color to something very dark such as 10, 10, 10.