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question on lighting filter


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Hello,

When I am on a lighting live filter layer and I ad a  new  light, I found that changing the parameters of the last light added changes the parameters of the previous lights. Is that possible to have every added light modulated indipendently from the previous ones? Also I found that at times when I change the specular light in a  light oif the spot type, what actually changes is the  specular light of another light in point mode. Sorry if I cannot explain it better.

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SRG
I love the Lighting filter, but I also think the lights should adjust a lot more independently. I've found that I need to apply a light and then close and reopen it to apply more, for the very reasons you've mentioned. It's a bit of a work around but it works well enough to get by, for now. I'd call it about 85% functional at the moment.

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Owenr
Truth being told, using the Lighting filter is a balancing act between all the available aspects, including color and the specular effects. The OP's complaint is that when  you have multiple light sources, they all change when you adjust only one of them, no matter which one you have selected. I've used the filter enough at this point to anticipate some of its quirks, but it can be a little challenging at first. My own methods include a combination of masking and separate multiple applications, to beat it into submission. 

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17 minutes ago, owenr said:

The majority of the controls are not for the lights; they are for the one surface that's being illuminated by all of the lights.

This confused me for a long time - changing the control layout and providing a couple of labels would make a big difference.   

AP, AD & APub user, running Win10

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1 hour ago, owenr said:

Yes, the Lighting filter is a great example of how not to design an interface.

To be fair about it, Photoshop's UI for its lighting effect is no better, & in some respects probably worse.

 

I doubt rearranging the layout or adding labels would help much -- if you are not already familiar with surface properties like specularity or diffusion, or more fundamentally with the difference between a light source & what it illuminates, it will be confusing no matter what. The only thing about the Affinity UI I think is really bad is the outline around the light type should include all the settings specific to the light source(s), something more like this:

5a8059c857c12_LightingUI.png.213fd8120da9c86bda5ea4752f9faaa0.png

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
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Basically, there are a whole lot of options being offered in a minimum amount of real estate. While the panel is perhaps a bit less than intuitive, it does contain the essential tools I would have asked for.... plus the unexpected and functional bump map feature (wishing it was duplicated in a freestanding form as well). I've already adjusted to the idiosyncrasies of the panel. If they managed to make the lights a bit more independent during adjustments, I'd take the panel as it stands.

 

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Bump maps work fine with paths (curves). I've been using software that allows application of both bump maps and reflections for a number of years. With years of 3d ray tracing and using vectors under my belt,  I'm not a novice on any level, except perhaps using AP UI. I certainly notice when things are not as they could/should be.

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OwenR
Scenario:
Automobile headlights
Place a point light with default setting over one headlamp.
two options exist for placing point light on second headlight... add or copy (since we're using default settings, either method is fair game)

Now make adjustments, diffuse, specular or shininess, to either light and you will see both iterations react to the adjustments.
The numeric listing on the menu basically allows selection for movement only. The lights remain related regardless of the number selected. To  break that relationship, it requires applying the current lights and then reopening the filter to apply more lights. One image used point lights on 6 different street lamps in a somewhat similar manner. That was where I finally figured out how to make multiple applications to gain a bit more control.

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Owen
We're obviously not communicating. I'm not mistaking anything. 25 years of creating "reality" in a Raytracing environment has been quite enough get a full and practical understanding of the subject. I'm quite aware of the relationships between light, surfaces and atmospherics. That is exactly what Raytracing is all about. 

My point in this thread is simply put...  if I have applied two identical lights to a scene, both of which are identified separately, I expect them to be independent and separately adjustable... period.

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31 minutes ago, Cedge said:

Scenario:
Automobile headlights
Place a point light with default setting over one headlamp.

You may think you are placing a light over one headlight, but what you are really doing is shining a light on a 2D image, part of which includes a headlight. That flat image is the only surface there is. It has just one specularity uniform over its entire surface, one shininess, & so on. The headlight is just part of the image surface, so it does not have any separate or independent surface properties.

 

The same would be true for an image that included 6 street lamps: they are not independent light sources in 3D space, they are all a part of the single surface of the one flat image that the lights of the lighting filter illuminates.

 

Think of it like taking a picture of a painting that is illuminated by one or more lights & the ambient light bouncing off other surfaces. No matter how you vary those lights, the painting has just one surface.

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Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Each new tool may require different ways of thinking about how we do things. Cedge may have used tools in the past that allowed him to place multiple light sources in one step, and pretend that they were illuminating different surfaces (or illuminating the same surface differently). But with a new tool, new methods must be used, and in this case that may mean that the lighting must be applied multiple times to achieve the effect that Cedge wants.

-- Walt
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1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

But with a new tool, new methods must be used, and in this case that may mean that the lighting must be applied multiple times to achieve the effect that Cedge wants.

That by itself won't work because there is just one image, one surface all those lights will illuminate. It is not a 3D surface (although a bump map can to a very limited extent simulate one), nor is it composed of flat objects at different z depths, a technique used to create so-called 2.5D animations.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Walt
You've pretty much put things into context. It's simply another way to utilize a tool. 2d graphics basically consist of making the viewer's eye see what you want it to see. The end results are all i care about.

I know the filter is not a projecting light source and that I'm playing footloose and fancy free with "reflections on surfaces" in an unconventional way to achieve an unconventional result. If swinging a cat around the room by its tail gets me to where I want to go, my poor tomcat isn't going to like it very much either. While i do a lot of typical photo post processing, I come from a long background of image creation, manipulation and composites along with other witchery that most people never try. In the end, I know how to accomplish the effects/results I'm after,  Its just a different cat skinning experience. I kinda like doing things a bit differently.

Here is an alternate reality, one I created using the filter in a way no one intended. This truck sits in a junk yard called Old Car City, in White, Georgia. (google it) I took this photo of a red truck around noon, well outside the golden hour. The truck hasn't been run in over 30 years. While initially exploring the powers of AP, this photo went through a number of  looks. It's been wrung out in various monochrome styles, sketch macros and various blend mode combinations that number into the thousands. Oh... you noticed it's a green truck sitting in the dark, now?  This version was created during some experimentation with the lighting filter, blend modes, a bit of masking and some successful brush creation. As stated above, it's unconventional, but right or wrong, it works almost perfectly for my needs. After all... reflected light is still light.  No.... all those years of playing with 3D doesn't make me an expert, but it does mean I know a few tricks.... even if only through osmosis.   Now... should I let owenR back out of his cell?

 

5a8094e140b6e_green-truck800px.jpg.3a291b5e58b0bc9ae055ffbf87279f7b.jpg

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