multiple light

[zewanil]

hi

 

i am wondering if there is a way to put multiple light on the same switch

so i have just to put '' on '' and a group of light will light

 

thanks for taking the time

 

P.

[nymn]

I believe what you are trying to accomplish would be using instanced lights... when you copy the first light... use an instance copy... that way any changes you make to one, gets made to any instances with respect to intensity, color, etc...

[zewanil]

thanks for replying ..

well exactly .. its to change the mood of my scene becaus i have like 30 halogen ... instance will make it identic but if i want to switch it off .. i will

have to do all separatly ...

i wonder if there is a way so i can group some light so i can swith them off with ONE switch ..

[nymn]

try setting the intensity to 0.0

[zewanil]

intensity to 0 ?

what do you mean ?

[Dave Buchhofer]

if you're using Vray there is an option to only use lights that are 'visible' in the viewport at any time, its pretty easy to have seperate lighting schemes set up that way by using layers.

 

Otherwise you can write a small 1line script in the maxscript listener (pink box in lower left hand corner)

 

--to shut all selected lights off at once:
$.on = off

--to turn all selected lights on at once:
$.on = on

[SandmanNinja]

I love your short lil scripts, Dave!

[zewanil]

thanks for the reply

 

but if i want just to dimmer some light all in one for changing the mood ?

[Stephen Thomas]

You've already got your answer, make them instances. That way when you change/animate the intensity of one light all the other instances are affected. If you're using standard or photometric lights then instances are nicely grouped together in the light lister menu so you can easily change values in the way you wish.

[Justin Hunt]

you can also use a Scene Explorer, choose the light intensity and ON/OFF columns. This way regardless if the lights are instanced or not you can select lights to turn them on or off and change there intensities.

 

JHV

[SandmanNinja]

Light Lister is a very good tool. It doesn't always work for some reason (gives me an error when trying to open the tool bar). Instancing is the way to go. I think there's a script that can change COPIES to INSTANCES, too...

[Justin Hunt]

Instancing is great if you want all aspects of the lights to be the same, however if you want different properties for different lights AND be able to control banks of lights instancing wont help.

 

Light lister was broken in 2009, there is a hotfix available.

 

jhv

[Dave Buchhofer]

Honestly, unless you're trying to do an animation (And even then, if the view is staying static, then you should simply render out the light sets seperately to a nice deep format like EXR or 48bit PNG's and Linear Dodge (Add) them together in photoshop, then you can just adjust the opacities/color tinting of each layer as you wish.

 

theres a script out there that does a lot of this for you for Vray/Mental ray.. and its something thats built into Maxwell. The script videos will show you all the ideas behind it, the script just makes the process a hell of alot easier than doing it by hand

 

Simple Scriptwise if you wanted to adjust multipliers for selected objects.. then say

--for all selected objects ($) the new light value will be = the current light value divided by 2
$.multiplier = $.multiplier / 2

 

to find out what a lot of these things are, you just turn on the maxscript listener, and in that little pink line it will show you the maxscript equiv for what you're doing in the UI (For most things) that doesn't always equal a script, but for simple stuff like this its super helpful.

[zewanil]

ok

thanks for all

p.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Set the projector map on all your lights to some single convenient map. I have a gradient in my test scene here; doesn't take too much effort to set its colors to what I need (drag and drop color patches). Allows individual control over on, off, color, multiplier... all that lighting stuff. And then throws on a global filter.

 

I think Blur or somebody has a Solid Color map that would make it even easier.