Daylight & Lighting study animation - how to

[Eric]

Hello all! This is a sorta long post, but I'd REALLY appreciate any help the group might be able to offer.

 

I'd like to see if I can get some input from the group on a VIZ4 lighting study animation.

 

I'm using both sunlight and fixed lighting (about 200 various fixed and spot lights) for a commercial retail exterior model. The sunlight is animated from dawn to dusk, with the lights being the primary lighting at dusk.

 

I'm not up for selecting every light (~200 of them) and turning each of them on at about the start of dusk in the animation, but I can't seem to find a way to turn them all off at once. I thought I would try grouping them and doing a visibility track, but that didn't work when I rendered it. What's the trick to turning multiple lights on and off in the track with just a few clicks, rather than probably an hour's worth of time activating each one individually?

 

Also, how do I coordinate the background color with the real-world color of the sky in relation to the time of day? Is there a setting that changes the background color in relation to the sunlight position/time of day?

 

One final question - I've set the animation to render using radiosity, and to calculate radiosity when required, with automatic exposure control (which looks great when I manually activate radiosity for various frames and render the image), but when I do a full frame-by-frame final redering to individual files, and then walk away for day or two, it doesn't seem like it's re-calculating the radiosity solution.

 

Am I missing something? Once again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[nisus]

Hi Eric,

 

Only a quick answer, unfortunately.

 

I'm not up for selecting every light (~200 of them) and turning each of them on at about the start of dusk in the animation, but I can't seem to find a way to turn them all off at once.

--> instance you're lights as much as possible

OR copy/instance your settings from one spot to another in trackview

 

Also, how do I coordinate the background color with the real-world color of the sky in relation to the time of day? Is there a setting that changes the background color in relation to the sunlight position/time of day?

--> check out Arete's Digital Nature Tools (on www.digimation.com): this plugin changes atmosphere (backgroundcolor, haze etc.) automatically when you animate a sunmove

--> max 2.5 users had a lovely plugin called 4E (Four Elements) which was really marvellous for animated skies. Unfortunately Corel bought the software and does not plan to launch it again (as it might be a concurrent to it's bryce...)

 

I've set the animation to render using radiosity, and to calculate radiosity when required, with automatic exposure control

--> check the manual on automatic exposure control. (I remember somehow that it's not recommended for animations...)

 

rgds

 

nisus