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IMPORTANT: To view the tutorial with larger images and screen shots please download the PDF or XPS files.
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This tutorial was written exclusively for The3dStudio.com by Rick Johnston of Dreamscape Studios (Member Link).
*** Build A Rotating Beacon in 3ds max ***
A rotating beacon can be used in building light houses, rotating beacons at airports, on hospitals with helipads, police, and fire trucks and other emergency and service vehicles, disco bar ceilings, warning signals and many other uses animation projects. The rotational speed of the beacon will require some research and practice to get it right. They are best used in night or twilight scenes but can be used in daylight scenes too. You may need to increase the intensity of the rotating lights when using it in daylight scenes.
The Rotating beacon will be mounted into a casing. For a lighthouse this is a very large unit some as much as 8 feet tall, while in a police light bar it would only be 3 inches tall. For the purpose of this tutorial I will use a police rotating light common in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The steps to building this light are:
Building the Base
Building the Cover
Building the Receptacles
Copying the receptacle and Lens
Building the Lens
Building the Rotating Base
Animating the Rotating Base
Material Editing
Lighting
Building this project depending on skill level will take generally between 1 and 3 hours.
Building the Base
First, build the base. It is a cylinder that is built with 32 segments around, 6 high and capped with 3 segments. This can be reduced to decrease the polygon count. I use this setting to make it smoother and get a more realistic appearance.
Edit the mesh of the base to appear something like this.
See Fig 1-0
Modify the base with the edit mesh rollout and use the vertices option. On the top of the base select the vertices of the 2nd outermost segment and scale them outward so that they are closer to the outer edge. Do this in the top view with the vertices selection (ignore back facing) on.
Now turn the ignore back facing off. Select the second from the bottom segment of vertices and move them down slightly so that they are no more than 1/6 of the height from the bottom of the base to the top.
Go to the top view and change it to the bottom view. Now follow the same procedure as you did with the top of the base and scale the vertices outward closer to the outside of the base. Then change the bottom view back to the top. Be sure to turn the ignore back facing off.
Now from the side view, select the third level (from the bottom) vertices around the sides. From the side view uniformly scale them down about 3%. Follow the same procedure for the fourth level of vertices and scale them down 6%. The fifth level, scale them down 9%. This will give the base a larger diameter at the bottom than the top. The top level of vertices should be scaled down about 12%. The end result is the base bottom has a greater diameter than its top and the sides slope inward just slightly. While scaling the vertices, be sure to use the uniform scaling tool properly. If you do not, the scaling may only act in 1 or 2 dimensions and create a really screwed up shape.
Change your selection tool to the polygon method and select the polygons shown in the illustration below. Do not select the outmost polygons on the top surfaces. Once selected, extrude negatively these top surfaces so that the surface is about 1/3 of the distance from the top to the bottom. This will recess the top of the base and give you a realistic looking base.
Using the face or polygon selection, place the surfaces on a different smoothing groups. See Illustration below
See Fig 1-1
See Fig 1-2
See Fig 1-3
It is best to turn off the ignore back facing, go to the front view and select the top surfaces and place them on a smoothing group. Use the inclusive multiple selection tool. Follow the same method for the bottom surfaces and place them on a different smoothing group.
The sides are already on smoothing group four so leave them. Now select the inside walls where you extruded the base top downward. Place these on a different group from the top. If you use the perspective view you can easily select the polygons one at a time and work your way around the object in the perspective view, selecting them. Be sure the ignore back facing is turned on. Once all are selected, place them on another smoothing group.
Once you have the base smoothing groups assigned it should look like this.
A material should be applied to the base. This material is up to you but it should be double sided.
Building the Cover
The next step is building a cover a cover. I used a tube because the tube has inside and outside surfaces and when glass materials are added it gives a more realistic reflection.
The Tube outside surfaces should match closely with the inside surfaces at the top of the base.
Once built the tube should look something like this.
See Fig 2-0
To make the top of the cover I used the edit mesh tool and scaled vertices together. I selected the interior top vertices and scaled them together and welded them. I then moved the top, outside surface vertices up just a bit and then scaled them together like I did for the inside. I welded the vertices once again in the center. Do not weld the inside and outside vertices together! Then I selected the vertices for the inside in the second highest level which are now at the outside and moved them up so that the inside surfaces of the top are not quite flat. These vertices should be slightly lower than the center vertices. The outside second level vertices now should be moved up to a position just above the inside second level vertices so that the outside surfaces of the top are parallel with the inside surfaces of the top.
Now going from top to bottom selecting each level of vertices, use the uniform scale tool to reduce the diameter slightly. The cover is just slightly conical in shape.
See Fig 2-1
I created a glass material using the max material editor. I also used a low opacity with this material, about .12 or 12 percent. In the color section of the material manager I set the ambient as dark gray almost black, the diffuse as light gray and the specular a bright white. I set the opacity to .12 and the specular level at 134, glossiness 41 and left soften at default.
The cover is designed to keep the rotating light covered and protected from rain so it should match up closely to the base. I built mine like the old Police car rotating lights. You can build the cover to any shape but your materials must be nearly transparent.
See fig 2-2
Building the receptacles
After building the base and the cover, I built the light receptacles. I used a cylinder and the mesh editor. Using the scaling tool selecting vertices, I created this shape which will hold the light lens and connect with the center mounting.
See fig 3-1
To create the shape I simply scaled the diameter of the vertices at the various levels along the cylinder and then extruded the top surface inward and beveled it several times as I went. This beveled and extruded surface will need to be recessed well inside. Once you have the shape created, rotate it to the orientation shown above and make sure that the pivot point is on the vertical centerline of the base.
Building the Lens
Now we need a lens for the light. Although the light will not be contained inside the lighting mount, the lens must be there to look realistic. Adding a bump map to this lens can also help the realistic appearance. For the purpose of this tutorial I am not covering making that bump map.
To make the lens, simply use a sphere. Remove the vertices on one side of the sphere (top or bottom) but leave the equator intact. Once this is done, used the scaling tool and edit the vertices to reduce the height. It should have a convex shape but a subtle one similar to an old car headlamp lens.
See Fig 3-2
Position the lens in the receptacle. It should be centered on the receptacle axis and just inside of the receptacles opening.
See Fig 3-3
Copying the receptacle and the Lens
Select and group the light receptacle and the lens. Check the pivot point is located on the vertical centerline of the base. If the local axis center point is not as shown below use the hierarchy rollout to move the pivot point to the location illustrated.
Using the rotate tool, rotate and copy the fixture and lens. You can make up to five copies if your receptacle is small enough. Remember that the angle of separation for these receptacles will determine the rhythm of the light effect. For two lights you should use 180 degrees, three 120 degrees, four at 90 degrees or five at 72 degrees. The model above was designed for one, two or three lights. Most of the police, fire, ambulance and warning lights have a maximum of two or three lights.
Once the copy is completed and you have the light receptacles arranged the way you want them, un-group them.
Building the Rotating Base
Now you need a center mount that will hold the receptacles and actually be the animated part of the rotating light. I used a cylinder again and edited the mesh vertices to create a shape much like I did with the light fixture. It does not require any extrusions and should be very simple to build.
See fig 3-6
Position the rotating base with its bottom center at the same level as the inside floor of the base and centered on the base.
Now link the light lenses to the receptacles and the receptacles to the rotating mount.
Animating the rotation of the lights
Use the key framer to animate the rotating base. Set the length of time of your animation as desired. I used 400 frames. Select the rotating base and the animation key framer and rotate the rotating mount about 500 degrees for every 100 frames. Turn animate off. Reset the key at 0.
See fig 4-0
Adding Materials
Now we need materials for the lenses and the mount and light fixtures. I used the max material manager and selected a new material. I set the colors to a good red with a specular level of 207, glossiness of 36 and soften .1. I set opacity at 80. You can use this material on both lenses or you can create a second material for the second lens. Note this will not affect the color of the light produced but only the color of the lens.
See Fig 5-1
Adding a different material to the second lens shown below:
See Fig 5-2
For the rotating base, receptacles I used a chrome material from the 3dsmax library. For the base I made a metal looking material similar to brushed aluminum.
Lighting the rotating light.
Add a directional spot light to the scene. It must be located on the outside center of one of the lenses. It also must be aligned with the receptacle and lens as a real rotating light would be aligned. It should produce light beginning at the center of the lens moving out and away from the center of the model.
See Fig 6-0
The settings for each light are cone 35 hotspot 30, intensity 2 or greater, and color to match the lens material. Shadows should be .60, contrast at 50. Use the advanced raytrace for the shadows on these lights too.
Create a second directional spot light opposite of the first for the other lens. Use the same settings as the first.
Bind the directional spot lights to the lenses.
Now add the omni light above the project to illuminate the scene. I used .85 intensity and .60 shadow. I also used the advanced raytrace shadow setting for this light.
Note: Your lighting requirements will vary from mine based on the size of the scene, materials used, the exterior illumination, the objects in the scene. You will need to do a series of quick renders possibly with shadows off to determine the lighting changes you have to make to get results you want.
To test your project scene, put a sphere over the entire scene and put a gray material or a material you want to use, (2 sided) on the sphere. Put a target camera in the scene, aimed at the rotating light and adjust the view to the camera. Make sure the camera is inside the large sphere and the rotating light fills up the camera view. Adjust the camera target and position to get the view you need. Then render out a few frames. You should get something like this.
Now insert an omni light inside each of the receptacles behind the lens. Be sure to bind them to the receptacles. Adjust the intensity to .50 and the color to match the lens. Then set both of these lights to advanced raytrace shadows on.
Play with lighting and materials a bit and try to get the renderings you want. Then use this is a scene with other elements and test render. You should get some great effects from the light.
This can be used in a disco/rock and roll bar hanging from a ceiling upside-down, on a cart at a department store or discount retailer like the “blue light special”, police, fire, ambulance equipment, or on aircraft. Using the same lighting and similar mounting and cover can be used on light houses and without a cover and different housing and mount for airport rotating beacons.
Good luck and good modeling.
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