Hey,
I have parented a light to a camera which moves around this maze I have created. But when I render the animation it looks like strobe lighting, flickering like a thunder storm! I thought this was because the light was moving, but when I cleared the light from the camera and just put lamps around the maze it basically did the same thing. Can anyone help me?!
Thanks, Rach
Look in the Outliner window if your lamp has any IPO’s (ObIpo with a squigly line). If so delet it.
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It doesnt have any IPO, what else can it be?
You can upload your file here :
http://uploader.polorix.net/index.php
Probably the quickest way of (possibly / probably) of finding an answer 
Mike
Thanks mike, Ive registered on it and uploaded my file but what do I do next?!
Rach
You should see a page labelled “Main Page” with a link to your file showing, copy and paste that link here (right click and “copy link " … copy shortcut” … some message like that depending on what brower you’re using.
Mike
Cheers mike (again!) - here it is
http://uploader.polorix.net//files/233/previous%20animation%20(was%20too%20fast).blend
I have reduced the specular of the material (the walls) thinking that that may have been the problem but havent rendered it yet so dont know if it’s solved. seems doubtful to me that this was the problem tho?
The “strobing” appears to be caused by the relative position of the light / camera.
E.g. Frame 1 the light is cast on the right wall, but on frame 5 it isn’t. I don’t know why the lighting effect changes, since the light is parented to the camera, and therefore the relationship “should” stay constant 
Positining the light slightly out in front of the camera seems to cure the problem.
What kind of lighting effect are you looking for? (e.g. dark tunnel with limited range light … uniform lighting … other ???
Mike
Its a psychology experiment you see, so the whole idea of putting the light above the camera was to make sure that the object (which are placed on them stool things -havent put them all in yet) immediately infront of the camera is focused on because the others behind it wont be as easy to see. How far in front of the camera do you think i need to place the lamp and at what height?
(thanks so much for your help!!)
In that case you probably want to use a SpotLight instead of just a lamp. The spot can be directed and also have its spotlight beam (SpotSI) angle adjusted. Maybe place a light(s) above the “maze” to provide basic lighting for the scene.
For even greater effect, you can use the Defocus Node that I mentioned in your other thread about focusing the camera.
I hooked up that node with your file here :
http://uploader.polorix.net//files/232/spot%20and%20dof1.blend
There are some notes in the file, also see this page on the wiki
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Compositing_Nodes_Filters#Defocus
Mike
Attachments
thanks so much mike, i’ll have a go!
i’ve tried the spot light thing but the animation still looks flickery because of the lights, like strobe lightening. This is really confusing me!!!
you have to isolate your problem down to which frame is the light on, and then which is it off. I think it might be that your light is going through a wall and getting blocked out that way.
It’s not that a light is going through any walls.
And it’s also not (as I initially thought) because of any mis-synchronization between the momevent of the camera and the parented light … unparenting the light and adding fixed lights in the hallways, shows the same “flickering” problem. You can see the symptoms if you downlaod the file and just render the first 5 frames : Frame 1 starts off normal, 3-4 the light changes, then frame 5 it’s back to normal.
Mike
Sorry about that … I didn’t render out enough frames to verify the problem had gone away. I’ll continue to look at at 
Mike
c’mon Mike, you can do it!! Go Mike Go!! It’s the same problem most people have with shading/reflecting that flips between frames. You know, when things just don’t look normal, and get all psycho wierd and stuff. After all, this is for a psychology experiment; maybe he want it that way. Anyway, since you’ve worked so hard on it, I’ll let you spring the answer on him, and explain why it was happening.
And Mr. Buckley, while we wait on Mike, in the future, for isolating problems, see the wiki on Lighting Rigs section i think, anyway, you have to remove the possiblity of lights moving or being animated, then remove the possiblity of materals being the problem, then remove the possiblity of ambient lighting. What you are left with is base mesh issues and what is normal for that mesh in that situation. That process will always get you to the root of the problem.
Well we could wait for Mike or we could say - use AutoSmooth on your maze walls and see how that goes. You can’t generally use SetSmooth by itself on meshes with flat surfaces and sharp corners. It just causes silly shading issues.
Select the maze, press SetSmooth then turn on AutoSmooth and set to something like 80.
Also, you could try setting your Lamp to “Sphere” (under the lamp name in the Lamp panel) and messing with the distance value. This effectively limits the “end of light” such that the scene can go completely dark beyond the lamp’s reach. Try dropping the lamp a bit lower (closer to camera) then turn on sphere, set distance to 8 and energy to 3 to get some idea or the potential.
I’ve been reading up on the wiki and I still cant figure it out. I think there is some light in the maze that I havent put in (for example look at the end of the corridor in the pic, all ive got here is a spot light above the camera so there should be no light down there!) could this be a materials issue? (thanks for everyones help btw)
hi! did you try andy’s solution (autosmooth) ? it works! (at least for me)
yeah the pic above is with autosmooth, i havent tried a render yet so not sure about the flashy lights thing yet. Ive tried this now: lit the maze with a hemi light and put a spot lamp near the camera so the objects nearer the camera will be more lit up. its just the light at the end of this corridor is so weird, i dont get it!! it looks as tho theres no light there now but when you turn the corner its perfectly lit up by the hemi lamp
