Luxology Forum > Nixie Tubes

Plan B

+8 signal

London
36 posts

Haven't posted anything for a while so I thought I'd have a go and share this personal project. Hope you like it: please share your thoughts freely!

02-Oct-2012 2:31 PM

remon_v

0

Netherlands
1149 posts

yes me like a lot!

02-Oct-2012 4:32 PM

GregMalick

0

Hawaii
572 posts

looks great.

What are Nixie Tubes?

02-Oct-2012 5:10 PM

Plan B

0

London
36 posts

They are an older form of display technology that were superceded by led's and lcd's in the '70's and '80's. They usually displayed numbers, but could have other symbols too. 'Nixie' is a trade name but it is a contraction of "Numeric Indicator eXperimental No. 1" (from Wikipedia).

I wanted to make the glowing numbers really pop, and the light to bounce around the other tubes, but I've only been partially successful. Still much to learn!

03-Oct-2012 3:16 AM

MutantPixel

Luxology Headquarters
4155 posts

We had a 'digital' clock that sat on our mantel for many many years when I was a kid made from these tubes. My dad made it from a kit he got, probably heathkit, a store that specialized in do-it-yourself electronics kits. Our TV was also home made. Its no wonder I became the nerd I am today. Nice render, really captures the look of the tubes.

03-Oct-2012 7:28 PM

Plan B

0

London
36 posts

Thanks, MutantPixel. I guess it had a big old power supply? Do you have any advice on how to make the numbers on this render appear to glow more? I find that justcranking up the luminous intensity dosen't seem to do what I hoped it would in terms of lighting the surrounding surfaces - I'm supplimenting the lighting effect with point lights. Also, cranking up the luminous amount changes the colour of the glowing parts in an unrealistic way. Adding bloom helped a lot, but I'm not getting what I want. I've tried other renders against dark backgrounds, and they work much better, but this seems the best compromise I can get at the moment for this shot. Any thoughts?

04-Oct-2012 4:48 AM

mr. murdoch

0

U.K.
18 posts

Sterling work sir, these do look great!

Do you have any reference of how you want the glowing parts to look that we could see? There are some nice big shots on the badnixie.com site, a lot of those are yellow - white to the center of the filament, cooling off to orange at the soft edge. Gradients for luminosity, luminous colour and transparency would do that.

Duplicating the filaments into a new mesh, giving them a new material with its own shader which is not visible to camera and placed above the base shader, would be a way to crank the luminosity up and bring in more light without changing the colour of the visible filament. Not sure if this would produce anything better than you're getting with the point lights though.

04-Oct-2012 7:51 PM

Plan B

0

London
36 posts

Hey Mr. Murdoch,
No, I don't really have reference of what I had in mind - I suppose I just want the image to look cooler than it does right now. Will try your suggestion, and btw, thanks for the heads up about Badnixie.com. Wasn't aware of this site and I'm now drooling at all the lovely clocks on there!

05-Oct-2012 5:48 AM

Topic - Nixie Tubes

Nixie tubes