I've been hard at work on my next tutorial on making indicator lights and just wanted to fool around with them before posting the tut. Let me know if you think they look ok or not and I may the comments to make my final revisions.

They look really good. Are those the correct colours in the states? The middle colour is amber in the UK.

That did come out nicely!



Those are the correct colors for older lights. Newer ones have slightly different colors to aid the color-blind - some bluish tint in the green, and amber instead of yellow. The red is also more of a reddish-orange. Traffic lights in TX are also mounted horizontal. Every state has slightly different rules and standards... but none of them have the red-amber combo light.

Thank you Merrak. I was thinking the red needed to have a little orange in it. Maybe even a little darker in the ON condition. I dunno about Amber tho. If you look up the hex for amber you get either FF7E00 which is really orange or "Automotive Amber", FFE816 which looks like it has a lot more more yellow in it. The latter may work for the yellow light. As far as the green (bottom) it's pretty pale and looks almost white when they are lit up on most of the traffic lights here in Texas. Maybe it's just me and my old eyeballs.

I'm still futzing around with the layers and modes and opacities trying to find the right combination for each color to make them all look right before I try and post anything. This sucker is a monster tutorial. Definitely advanced due to complexity not to mention length.

For the color of the lights you could:
a) Take a picture (or find a picture) of traffic lights and pick the color from the picture
-or-
b) Decide that you are making a piece of "art" and choose a color that you like.

In my opinion, both options are "correct".

Here is a page from the Wisconsin Driver's Handbook (a downloadable pdf).
The color is "representative", not photo-realistic.

The lights look great. The only thing I can see different is maybe a bit longer delay between lights. However file size might then become an issue.

I'm pretty certain the animation can be slowed down without changing the number of frames.

@bkh1914, I agree with your second choice, it is a piece of art and it doesn't matter if it is a bright yellow or orange, Here in Canada, it is amber but it looks good to me the way it is.
You can slow the speed by going to animation > settings > and change to replace and set your delay to a higher number and experiment until it is the way you want when you playback

I don't think anyone would care too much if the shades aren't precisely correct (except maybe a traffic engineer). I didn't mean to come across as picky... I was just answering Erisian's question about what color the lights are in the US

No offense taken at any of the comments and I appreciate all of them. I didn't make this traffic light thingy to be an accurate rendition to the point of being anal about it, nor did I set up the timing on the annimation with any intention of simulating accurate durations, even though it would be cool to do so on both counts. Although the bulk of the suggestions may be technically accurate, my purpose was to show (A) the construction of the lens which is quite complicated and (B) illustrate the difference in the ON and OFF conditions which is even more complex and more difficult than anything I have ever attempted. It looks simple but in reality it is hard to get everything just right. You will understand if I ever get the tut posted. In other words, photrealistic was not my goal here except perhaps the lens architecture.

The indicator lights I used to make the traffic light are intended to be part of my endgame Control Panel tut where I use all the techniques of the other Metal Wurx tuts and pull it all together. The colors used are going to be basic, plain jane anyway. I just wanted to throw up something to see if maybe the colors looked too washed out in the ON condition.

Didn't mean to rant, just explain the intent. The work I did on this lens has me going on lenses, glass patterns and distortions. Anybody know how to make this Radial LED type pattern?

Maybe the Pov Samples scm from the POVsphere thread might be useful here.

I'm not even going to look at POV cuz I can't see a practical use for it. Looks more like a playtoy for the techies and "pattern" makers. The results are cool to look at but that's about it. Besides, I only saw a hex pattern in everything that was posted and nothing radial. I'm trying to figure out how to make the simple radial pattern hat could be used for a lot of different things like making these lenses or perforated metal, but just can't seem to get there.

You don't need povray to get basic circles, just use the scm on it's own. You can use the sphere function, you don't have to use the hexagons.

OK Show me how to make the radial pattern.

It was just an idea. Using the tight function you can get the pattern but you cannot get spaces between them. This scm isn't what you are looking for but it's the only suggestion I could come up with. You would need a concentric circles paths script to use with a paintbrush.

I've been fooling around with this all day trying to develop a way to do it. Even stroking concentric paths wont work because each path overlaps differently when stroked. It would be a weeks worth of trial and error to get the spacing just right and each path would require different spacing. I'd be willing to bet either Lyle, Rod, or Ofnuts knows a way to do it.

I just thought of something else to try. I'll get back to you.

I tried creating circles and using pan to bow but it distorted them badly. I'll keep thinking.

I've got an scm script called pattern from image. I know this output isn't what you're looking for but maybe it's a start.

This is what I've come up with. You might be able to adapt it.

Create circles using guides



Use filters/map/tile



Make sure a circle is in the center and use a circular selection to cut away the outside. Erase any circle bits you don't want.