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question on lighting filter


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7 minutes ago, Cedge said:

RCR
As they say in Texas...All hat and no cattle.

What exactly is your problem with my last reply? You asked me to show you my stuff, so I took the time to create & post an Affinity format file from an ongoing project of mine anyone can download, experiment with, & decide for themselves if I know what I am talking about. If anyone has anything substantive to say about that, I would like to hear it, but I have no interest in trading meaningless insults with you or anybody else.

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RCR...
Go back read further. I admit the comment was premature and I offer you my sincere apology. When I'm off base, I'm not afraid to own it. After the first cup of coffee set in, I dug deeper into the file you sent. You're far too adamant that the adjustment is independent for it to be untrue and my eyes certainly aren't lying to me here. I think we've possibly cornered a bug. 

We can continue the difference without a distinction conversation at a later date.

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7 minutes ago, carl123 said:

@RC-R

In your example changing the Diffuse or Shininess affects the whole picture which would not be what you want when just adding lighting effects to the amber parking lights.

In the attached, reworked example, changing Diffuse or Shininess only affects the area you are trying to illuminate thus giving you greater control on the exact lighting effect you want to achieve for the parking lights.

(And by using separate lighting layers it also lets you control each parking light individually)

As I said, I intentionally made my example file as simple as possible. That was because I wanted to demonstrate as clearly as I could that the lights can be adjusted independently without affecting each other. The point of asking users to add the headlight glow effects was to show that some single layer filters also give users more control over what each light affects on the photo, which can avoid the need to tediously create & manage lots of individual filter layers, but only if one understands what each adjustable parameter in the filter affects.

 

Of course, there may be times when it is well worth the time & effort to create multiple filter layers & adjust them individually, but since that is not always true, it does not hurt to know how to do both.

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It would appear I've earned a place on RCR's ignore list, earned being the operative word. I looked at his light filter panels and it does appear he's using AP on a Mac, so it seems we were seeing different actions on screen, making both versions factual. Someone might let him know that it appears there is indeed a bug in AP- Win versions. His version is obviously true on AP- Mac. I suppose it wasn't a complete fiasco...I now know THE first question to ask when such a situation arises in the future. I will file a bug report, thus ending what is regretted encounter on my part. Who knows... I might even come to miss the crusty old sod.

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53 minutes ago, Cedge said:

You're far too adamant that the adjustment is independent for it to be untrue and my eyes certainly aren't lying to me here. I think we've possibly cornered a bug. 

The only thing I am adamant about is that the adjustments in the lights section of the filter (the part I outlined in green in this earlier post) for any numbered light are independent of the adjustments for any other numbered light. All the adjustments outside that outline affect the entire layer, including the effects of the numbered light(s).

 

I don't think this is a bug. It is completely consistent with what the Lighting effects help topic says the filter does, although that topic certainly could be clearer about it. However, it does correctly state that "different light source types can be used in combination, each being independently configured and positioned using on-screen handles" & it uses the words "refection" & "surface" in the description of settings that do not 'belong' to individual light sources.

 

For what little it is worth, it is also mostly consistent with Adobe's description of the Photoshop Lighting Effects Filter, give or take some mostly minor differences in the terminology, but it does follow a similar model regarding which adjustments affect the entire "set of lights."

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2 minutes ago, Cedge said:

It would appear I've earned a place on RCR's ignore list

Nope. It is just that contrary to how it might seem, I do not spend all my time posting to the Affinity forums. xD

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3 hours ago, Cedge said:

RCR...
Nicely done image. I'm sitting here making adjustments to your lighting layer number one.  Both turn signals are reacting when I adjust the secular, shininess or distance sliders. Any one of the three single sliders  dims the effect or makes it brighter, on both turn signals. You seem to strongly indicate it doesn't happen on your end , yet several people have now experienced this interconnected relationship, so its not just me. Heck, I'm doing it right now, using your file, on a healthy win 7 pro machine. I'm now wondering if there might be a Mac vs Windows component involved here.  Are you by chance on a mac?

Sorry I missed this post until now (too many browser tabs open, I guess) but yes, I am on a Mac (as my sig should show).

 

Anyway, the secular & shininess sliders should affect everything because they do not 'belong' to any light, but not the distance sliders (because they do belong to the numbered light in the section I outlined in green in that earlier post). If you are seeing any of the distance sliders affecting both signals in either of my filters that is definitely not something I see or would expect.

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RCR
Yes, if you combine spots and points, the spotlights are indeed ignored when the point lights are adjusted and vice versa. That was never the issue. Multiple point lights within a single adjustment layer, at least on AP win versions are, for whatever reason, coupled in some manner that makes all  instances in unison when any single point light is adjusted. The working solution is multiple applications, with the one light one layer being the most versatile method.If this isn't the case on a mac, then the windows version is not working in the same manner. I'd like mine to allow the independence, just  as you describe, but it simply isn't happening, not even with the files you shared.. It seems that both realities indeed exist within different environments. 

A test...
Take one light filter layer in your porsche file and adjust one point lights so that one is "dimmed" and the other isn't. if you can do it on a single adjustment layer, you've essentially proven the difference between versions.

Oddly enough our goals are rather similar, Neither of us want the user to encounter unwarranted confusion. I appreciate your penchant for proper technical terms and yes... I know a layer is a theoretical flat reflective surface. So is an artist's canvas. The end results on canvas depend on the artist's ability use all available tools to create the visual illusion he wishes the viewer to experience. It's great to know the the proper nomenclature for all of the tools, but its not required to make art. Any kid, with crayon in hand can create, even before knowing the names of his colors.

 

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6 minutes ago, Cedge said:

A test...
Take one light filter layer in your porsche file and adjust one point lights so that one is "dimmed" and the other isn't. if you can do it on a single adjustment layer, you've essentially proven the difference between versions.

If you mean changing the distance slider for point light 1 or point light 2 then yes, I can adjust their distances independently of each other & thus the brightness of the reflection each of them creates on the Background layer.

 

tl;dr version: they are totally independent of each other.

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17 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If you mean changing the distance slider for point light 1 or point light 2 then yes, I can adjust their distances independently of each other & thus the brightness of the reflection each of them creates on the Background layer.

 

 

It's exactly the same on the Windows version

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Bingo... one of the versions isn't working properly. I strongly suspect its a win version problem. There are images where I might want to enhance a very distant light source and work with one much closer. Their characteristics need to be very different, in specular, shininess or diffusion, in order to create an illusion of distance induced fall off and atmospherics.  If the two point lights are not independent, then I have to use the multiple application / layer trick to get there. So you do you currently have the ability to make independent adjustments to both in a single application. That would be ideal. As an aside...being able to engage and disengage same layer point  lights, so that both characteristics are selectively available could be very useful. Consider that none of this is particularly applicable to the average user who simply wants to use a single spotlight for mood enhancement.

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OK.... I'm leaving the thread at this point. I learned another couple of tricks to use to work around the filter limits and I'm now aware of what question to ask first, when things don't quite jibe. I'll drop in and make a bug report, just  so the back office guys can have a look. Let the Affinity team figure it out from here. I'm off to prepare my ride for a group drive into the wickedly twisted back roads of western NC.

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5 hours ago, Cedge said:

There are images where I might want to enhance a very distant light source and work with one much closer. Their characteristics need to be very different, in specular, shininess or diffusion, in order to create an illusion of distance induced fall off and atmospherics.

And with that we are right back to page one, where it has been explained multiple times that light sources do not have specular, shininess or diffusion characteristics, surfaces do. :o

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6 minutes ago, Cedge said:

And it's still a distinction without a difference, when its used as I use it. For me it's simply one more way to use a tool on canvas. Get over it.

The differences are very real. The properties of surfaces & light sources are distinctly different things, both in the physical world & in software that simulates them. Specularity, shininess, & diffusion describe different aspects of how incident light (or light rays, if you prefer) interacts with & is emitted from surfaces. This is true for light both reflected from & transmitted through surfaces.

 

Regardless of how you use it the differences are still there. For example, if you stack two lighting filters on one background layer, you are just treating the same surface as if it had two different sets of properties.

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My world is by no means tidy, but it is the real one. 

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@srg owenr and R C-R explained already very well what's the confusion about.

There isn't much to add, but I wanted to post this example from a 3d application to show you with a real example what specularity is about (and why it has nothing to do with the light settings):

 

01.thumb.jpg.e4a5ee4628145c671ffe24785543d8f0.jpg02.thumb.jpg.e5af4b49d773857e3f69249c2e5813f6.jpg03.thumb.jpg.5496ecf0a5c373c37fa7d44925af0d21.jpg

 

Alright, in the first image it seems there is no light. In the second one there's some and finally, in the third image, there's definitely more light.

Well, guess what? They all share the same light setup. In fact, I didn't change the light at all. What changes, though, is the property of the specular channel for the material used on the torus.

That's it.

Every object, in reality, has its own specular property.

You can read more about it on this page:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/reflection_highlight/reflection_highlight.htm

 

As @owenr rightly pointed out, in your second screenshot the specular is set to 0, therefore the surface doesn't react to the light. Granted, this is not a 3d application we're talking about, but it's a good thing the concept remains the same otherwise it would get really confusing.

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Nice demo @verysame 

I was I intrigued with this discussion and I've been playing about with the lighting filter to work out what all the fuss was. When changing the specular slider and shininess slider you are, in effect, matting/dulling the virtual surface when the value goes down or polishing the virtual surface when the value goes up, so the higher the value the shiner and/or more specular the surface becomes and the light is just the light and you are not controlling the lights brightness. The diffuse would be akin to a satiniser although the diffuse doesn't appear to do anything at all, neither does the Ambient slider as far as I can tell "so someone 's pulled the plug out on those". The distance just moves the light closer or farther away from the surface, although the effect of the light seems counter to what I would expect a light to do when moving it closer or farther away.

 

At the moment the light gets a smaller radius but it also fades like someone "and I know who it is" is turning a dimmer switch down but in the real world moving a light closer to a surface would make it brighter more intense over a smaller area. Moving the light away from a surface would spread the light and make it weaker, it would fade over a wider area and be less bright but its doesn't, it gets brighter. "Yes I've tried this with a small torch on my tablet and yes I'm that geeky" glare.gif

 

Where it says Texture: I think it should say Depth or Texture Depth. There also needs to be a Texture Scale option; with an Aspect ratio check box, even if it's just a percent slider -/+

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16 hours ago, firstdefence said:

The diffuse would be akin to a satiniser although the diffuse doesn't appear to do anything at all, neither does the Ambient slider as far as I can tell "so someone 's pulled the plug out on those".

Regarding Ambient, AP says it "Sets the level of uniform 'background' lighting," & PS says its Ambience adjustment "Diffuses the light as if it were combined with other light in a room, such as sunlight or fluorescent light." Neither is particularly informative but Wikipedia's explanation is much better:

Quote

An ambient light source represents an omni-directional, fixed-intensity and fixed-color light source that affects all objects in the scene equally. Upon rendering, all objects in the scene are brightened with the specified intensity and color. This type of light source is mainly used to provide the scene with a basic view of the different objects in it. This is the simplest type of lighting to implement and models how light can be scattered or reflected many times producing a uniform effect.

In 3D apps, ambient light can be used as an alternative to ray tracing to model the combined effects of all the light that bounces off walls & other surfaces outside the scene or camera view (even if these surfaces are not included in the model), thus reducing the computational load & render time.

 

Anyway, the Ambient slider does have an effect, but it could be washed out by the lights. In the attached Porche ambient.afphoto (998MB) there are two lighting filters that should show this very clearly because I have effectively turned off their single directional light source by setting their elevation to edge on (actually 1° because that is as low as it will go). The "100% ambient" one by itself has no effect (unless you set an ambient light color) because it is equivalent to the default fixed intensity 100% 'illumination' of the layer, but the "0% ambient" one is equivalent to 0% illumination so all you get is black.

 

I also included two other lighting filters with ambient set to zero to better demonstrate the effect of the Diffuse slider. Switching between enabling the "A:0 D:0 Sp:100 Sh:0" & the "A:0 D:100 Sp:100 Sh:0" ones should give you a better idea of what the AP help means when it says it "sets the level of diffused 'scattered' light reflected from the surface. Higher values reflect more light."

 

17 hours ago, firstdefence said:

The distance just moves the light closer or farther away from the surface, although the effect of the light seems counter to what I would expect a light to do when moving it closer or farther away.

Well, the AP help just says it "selects the light source distance from the page" but obviously it is not doing that in a way that simulates the falloff of real light sources with distance. Even if it did, the meaning of the adjustment range of 0 to 100% would still be puzzling because there is no indication of what distance that percentage based on. O.o

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Quote

In the attached Porche ambient.afphoto (998MB) <--- ?

Don't call it "Porche", otherwise Ferdinand Porsche will turn around in the grave.

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4 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Don't call it "Porche", otherwise Ferdinand Porsche will turn around in the grave.

No disrespect was intended for the man or the cars. It is just that my "Porche" files were derived from an animation project that included a large number of high resolution image files, all stored in the same project folder. I dropped the s in the file name so the Finder sort order would group the several low res, anonymized versions together so I would not accidentally confuse them with the others.

 

I guess that might cause yet another turn, but it is probably insignificant compared to how often he must be turning when someone mispronounces the car's name as "Porsh." >:(

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19 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I guess that might cause yet another turn, but it is probably insignificant compared to how often he must be turning when someone mispronounces the car's name as "Porsh." >:(

Well it's then probably like calling Toyotas rice bowls here, though in Germany the term rice bowls is more used casual slang for asian motorcycles.

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9 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Well it's then probably like calling Toyotas rice bowls here, though in Germany the term rice bowls is more used casual slang for asian motorcycles.

When I was in my youth some people in this part of the world referred to Japanese motorcycles as "rice grinders," particularly the ones with small, high revving engines. But even 50 years later I still hear people say "Porsh" ... including some who own one! That drives me crazy.

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