Neon presents the challenge of creating realism while not overdoing it with cheese factor.
After studying many real signs it became clear that the intent is to point the traveler towards the building.
These are initial tests for the neon shader.
The challenge was to make the tubes glow uniformly from any camera angle.
This was achieved by tossing specularity and using incandescence exclusively.
A mental ray light surface was used to emit light. Final gather emission controls gave fairly precise control.
Though, every color had it's own personality especially red.
Neon fonts exist but they're simply fancy imitiations, not the real thing.
It was best to draw the letters with curves in order to make realistic connects such as between the 'V' and 'A', etc.
