LED Tape Light


rlackore
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I became tired of positioning loads of lights to simulate LED tape light strips, so I created this symbol: LED Tape Light.calibz

 

The symbol is only 24" long - you need to use a row of several symbols to produce varying lengths. There are 96 lights per symbol at 5 lumens per light, for a total output of 240 lumens/foot. You can easily produce half the output (120 lumens/foot) by simply turning off every-other light. Adjusting the per-light lumen output is straight-forward but exceptionally tedious because the changes can't be made in the Adjust Lights dbx, you must modify each individual light (all 96 of them) within the symbol dbx. The symbols display reasonably well in both raytrace and physically based:

 

Raytrace, 240 lumens (48 lights) / foot

5b85b87e20b5f_ledraytrace48-240.thumb.jpg.7e97c9be7816e97efd0c5c4423544c78.jpg

 

Raytrace, 120 lumens (24 lights) / foot

5b85b87eb9de7_ledraytrace24-120.thumb.jpg.ac8aadfdddc305565349fc31e8077a7c.jpg

 

Physically based, 240 lumens (48 lights) / foot

5b85b87fd7c26_ledphysical48-240.thumb.jpg.c2e9468d3d1b0b70e6836dfe04008e0d.jpg

 

Physcially based, 120 lumens (24 lights) / foot

5b85b87f4b43d_ledphysical24-120.thumb.jpg.234126e2a18b4a2858f1805c10f3f625.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks for the symbol Robert!  

 

You mentioned that it was very tedious to change the light output since you had to modify every light individually, but if you expand the light in the Adjust Lights DBX (with the arrow on the left of it), you can then group-select any, or all, of the 96 lights and change their intensity at once. 

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3 hours ago, AlvarD said:

Thanks for the symbol Robert!  

 

You mentioned that it was very tedious to change the light output since you had to modify every light individually, but if you expand the light in the Adjust Lights DBX (with the arrow on the left of it), you can then group-select any, or all, of the 96 lights and change their intensity at once. 

 

I can't make that work. By selecting the Group row I can change Color, Used In, and Casts Shadows for all lights at once - but not Intensity. Maybe you know a trick I don't.

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44 minutes ago, rlackore said:

 

I can't make that work. By selecting the Group row I can change Color, Used In, and Casts Shadows for all lights at once - but not Intensity. Maybe you know a trick I don't.

 

Did you expand the row? Here's a pic showing the light expanded, and lights 1 thru 8 selected and changed to 9lm. 

 

image.thumb.png.ef793a4ed34c4b969ca89cfb629dbeca.png

 

-Alvar

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3 hours ago, AlvarD said:

 

Did you expand the row? Here's a pic showing the light expanded, and lights 1 thru 8 selected and changed to 9lm. 

 

image.thumb.png.ef793a4ed34c4b969ca89cfb629dbeca.png

 

-Alvar

 

I feel stupid. You know what I was missing? That Adjust button down in the lower left hand corner:

Capture.thumb.JPG.ae03a36a6331b535b181e704b7f4d7d5.JPG

 

This makes things so much easier. You know how much time I spent adjusting 96 lights? Thank you!

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  • 1 year later...

Not on my main system but might be worth checking either the Camera DBX or Adjust Lights DBX to make sure enough lights are assigned. If on Auto up the number of lights to say 100 or 200. You can also set the lights to use the default set and it will use all of the lights in the set that are turned on.

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Thanks KA, I have tried everything. Want to tuck the rope light behind the crown, down to .5 Lumens etc. upped the active lights. No problem with Graphics card etc. Had the same problem using rope lighting recessed in a vanity toe kick.

 

Will keep at it.

 

Thanks Pamela

 

 

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Just a side note before changing the lights position. When I opened up my camera in the provided plan and opened the adjust lights DBX the setting in there was 8 lights, this will restrict the number of lights used to 8 regardless of how many lights are turned on in the actual light fixtures DBX.

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On 3/7/2020 at 12:44 PM, TheKitchenAbode said:

Just a side note before changing the lights position. When I opened up my camera in the provided plan and opened the adjust lights DBX the setting in there was 8 lights, this will restrict the number of lights used to 8 regardless of how many lights are turned on in the actual light fixtures DBX.

 

Just in case you didn't find it this is what Graham is referring too ...set it up in your Template plan in Defaults and you won't need to adjust it in every new Plan. 

( 8 lights is an old hold over from previous versions of OpenGL which no longer is an issue in Chief.)

 

the other two pics are other Settings to try in your Template to make things look brighter in STD and PBR Views....

 

image.thumb.png.4690fb13580650f38c650561f8982b40.png 

 image.thumb.png.d95f92c8485eebb72418d3fdbd7a0afd.pngimage.thumb.png.37479cb1792cb46c58fe2086777403a9.png

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On 9/28/2018 at 9:48 AM, rlackore said:

 

I feel stupid. You know what I was missing? That Adjust button down in the lower left hand corner:

Capture.thumb.JPG.ae03a36a6331b535b181e704b7f4d7d5.JPG

 

This makes things so much easier. You know how much time I spent adjusting 96 lights? Thank you!

 

Not sure this works anymore in X12 - can someone else test , maybe I am doing it wrong now , as I thought this used to work ....

 

M.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/28/2018 at 3:13 PM, rlackore said:

I became tired of positioning loads of lights to simulate LED tape light strips, so I created this symbol: LED Tape Light.calibz

 

The symbol is only 24" long - you need to use a row of several symbols to produce varying lengths. There are 96 lights per symbol at 5 lumens per light, for a total output of 240 lumens/foot. You can easily produce half the output (120 lumens/foot) by simply turning off every-other light. Adjusting the per-light lumen output is straight-forward but exceptionally tedious because the changes can't be made in the Adjust Lights dbx, you must modify each individual light (all 96 of them) within the symbol dbx. The symbols display reasonably well in both raytrace and physically based:

 

Raytrace, 240 lumens (48 lights) / foot

5b85b87e20b5f_ledraytrace48-240.thumb.jpg.7e97c9be7816e97efd0c5c4423544c78.jpg

 

Raytrace, 120 lumens (24 lights) / foot

5b85b87eb9de7_ledraytrace24-120.thumb.jpg.ac8aadfdddc305565349fc31e8077a7c.jpg

 

Physically based, 240 lumens (48 lights) / foot

5b85b87fd7c26_ledphysical48-240.thumb.jpg.c2e9468d3d1b0b70e6836dfe04008e0d.jpg

 

Physcially based, 120 lumens (24 lights) / foot

5b85b87f4b43d_ledphysical24-120.thumb.jpg.234126e2a18b4a2858f1805c10f3f625.jpg

Robert, does this work for water colour render? I have had a hard time getting these lights to show up in wc.

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14 hours ago, dskogg said:

Robert, does this work for water colour render? I have had a hard time getting these lights to show up in wc.

 

No, they only appear in Physically Based render mode, or in a Raytrace.

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  • 2 months later...
On 3/7/2020 at 5:28 PM, PamelaT said:

How do you get the light strip to glow evenly. Same results with Rope lighting as well.

 

Thanks

LED Light Strip Test.jpg

I am getting precisely this effect when trying to add a rope light to a trey ceiling. I've upped the max number of lights from the previous default (I think it was set to 20), but it's still looking like this. Is it not possible to use the rope light to effectively simulate LED strip (tape)?

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