Spotlight Target Rig

[timjackson]

Hi guys,

 

I am trying to create various lighting rigs but know very little about rigging in Max. I've done some in Lightwave years ago but never got around to learning how IK works in Max. The time is upon me. After going through countless tutorials, I cant seem to find a few of the options I think I need to make this work. I've been playing around with bones, float limits on rotations, LookAt Constraint and the HI Solver and wanting to apply that to the SpotLights geometry. You can see what I am wanting in the attached image. Basically what I am wanting is for the spotlights direction to be controlled by a target. I want to be able to move the whole light system only when moving the static base, the target should only control the lamps vertical tilt on its single axis and twist on its hanging mount axis.

 

Does anyone have any tutorials they have seen that would help educate me further or even dropping a few lines of instruction here would be amazing.

 

Many thanks.

 

Tim

 

https://preview.ibb.co/fQSesF/Light_Testing.jpg

[Nicolai Bongard]

Its been a while since i did any of this, but the basics would be to set new pivot points for your objects, link them to eachother, and impose some axis constraints on the objects. If you could live without the rig following the target, but rather just rotate the different parts, you could just link a non-targeted spotlight to your green object, the green to your blue, and the blue to your red object. Then you could use the blue and green objects to rotate each corresponding axis, and the light would point wherever the green object was pointed to.

 

However, what you may need to do in this case is to set the pivot point of the light and the green and blue objects in the center of the red object (from the top view) and in the centre of the blue cylinder that connects to the green object in the side view. Then you link the green object to your light, the blue object to your green object. You restrict the movement in all directions for all objects (not the target of the light obviously), and restrict some axis of rotation for you blue one. You may have to align the Light and the Target to be "straight/head on" to the green object so that it aligns when you start this whole rigging process.

 

The whole logic of this process is that the green object will never move (as it would in real life since it is connected to the ceiling), however it will rotate in all angles around the new pivot point. (so will the light it is following, that also has the same new pivot point.) The blue object that is linked to green object will also never move, but it will inherit the rotation in one axis as if to "look at" or follow the green object. The red object is static.

 

I am pretty sure this setup will work. It may require some trial and error.

Here are some links you may find handy.

 

To link objects:

 

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-4115DE9B-D636-4A42-904E-71259A843E0A-htm.html

 

To adjust pivot of objects:

 

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-6872F014-4785-43D9-A83B-C774507907B3-htm.html

 

To lock certain axis of rotation and/or movement:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-4BAF30BD-02F9-451B-8D5F-9BD2F0CD5C27-htm.html

 

To select what axis of rotation and/or movement is to be inherited from a linked object:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-F0A288A2-29C0-49E7-9141-9966C794F3AD-htm.html

 

Best of luck!

[timjackson]

Thanks for the in depth reply Nicolai,

I'll give what you have said a go and report back. Appreciate the information.

 

Where this little project has come from is we have a purchased pack of studio rigged lights from Model + Model

Link to page

and they are rigged with the setup I am trying to achieve. They all have targeted photometric lights attached to them which control the spotlight geometry. I am wanting to change out the light for a Vray IES light as photometric are quite heavy to render. Replicating the setup they have made is what I cannot understand. Attached image below.

 

 

Anyhow, I will give what you have said a go, many thanks again.

 

Tim