Managing Instanced Light Objects

In architectural modeling, it's common to use instanced lights. Instancing allows you to control the properties of all lights of a particular type by editing the properties of just one of them. However, you sometimes want to control lights individually. This section shows you how.

Set up the scene:

• In the \tutorials\lights directory, open the file instanced_light_array.max.
  NoteAll the files necessary to do the tutorials can be found on the program disc. Before doing the tutorials, copy the \tutorials directory from the disc to your local program installation.

  The scene shows a row of six light fixtures and standard free spotlights, aimed at a wall. The lights are instanced.

Render the scene:

• On the main toolbar, click Quick Render.

  

  Wall illuminated by instanced light objects

Turn off one light:

1. Click to select the leftmost light (Fspot01), and then go to the Modify panel. On the General Parameters rollout, in the Light Type group, click the On toggle to turn it off.
2. Click Quick Render.

   

   Turning off an instance

   Because the lights are instanced, turning off a single light turns off all of them at once.

Hide some lights:

1. On the Modify panel, turn FSpot01 back on.
2. On the main toolbar, click Window/Crossing to choose window selection, and then in the Camera01 viewport, drag a selection window to select the leftmost three lights and their fixtures.
   TipIf the toggle is set to Crossing, then you might select the box object as well. Avoid this.

   

   Lights and fixtures selected

3. Right-click, and choose Hide Selection from the Display (upper-right) quadrant of the quad menu.

   The lights are now hidden.

4. Click Quick Render.

   

   Rendering hidden lights

   Although the lights are hidden, they still illuminate the wall. Hiding a light has no effect on its light-casting properties.

Turn off some lights by making them nonrenderable:

1. Right-click the Camera01 viewport, and choose Unhide All from the Display quadrant.
2. Use click and Ctrl+click to select the leftmost three lights, but not their fixtures.

   

   Light objects selected, but not their fixtures

3. Right-click again, and choose Properties from the Transform (lower-right) quadrant of the quad menu.

   The Object Properties dialog is displayed.

4. On the General panel, in the Rendering Control group, turn off the Renderable toggle.
5. Click Quick Render.

   

   Lights turned off using the Renderable property

   Now you have the desired result. The Renderable toggle can control whether an instanced light casts light in the scene.

Save your work:

• Save the scene as render_toggle_light_array.max.

Using the Light Lister

The Light Lister tool is a sort of master dialog for lights in the scene. For individual lights, it is a shortcut to controls on the Modify panel. (Its General settings also include settings on the Environment panel.)

Set up the scene:

• In the \tutorials\lights directory, open the file light_array.max.

  The scene is the same as in the previous section, but in this case, the lights are independent objects, not instances.

Use the Light Lister to dim some lights:

1. Choose Tools > Light Lister.

   The Light Lister dialog is displayed. There is an entry for each unique light in the scene (instances don't appear on this dialog).

   

   You might have to expand the dialog vertically to see all the rows. As the dialog shows, the scene contains six free spotlight objects, one omni light, and one skylight.

   NoteThe Light Lister cannot control more than 150 unique light objects at a time. If there are more than 150 unique lights in your scene, the Lister displays controls for the first 150 it finds, and a warning that you should select fewer lights. Select fewer lights and then use the Selected Lights configuration.
2. Change the Multiplier value to equal 0.3 for all the free spotlights except the fifth one (Fspot05). Leave the Multiplier for Fspot05 set to 1.0.
   TipYou can use the standard Windows Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste values from one spinner field to another.
3. Click Quick Render.

   

   Only the fifth light casts a full-strength beam.

Use the Light Lister to change light colors:

1. On the Light Lister, change the Multiplier value for all the free spots back to 1.0.
2. Click the color swatch for the second light, Fspot02.

   The Color Selector is displayed.

3. Change the color of the second spotlight to a light gold: R=255, G=191, B=52. Then click OK.
4. On the Light Lister, drag the Fspot02 color swatch to the Fspot04 color swatch.

   A Copy Or Swap Colors dialog is displayed.

5. Click Copy.
6. Drag the Fspot04 color swatch to the Fspot06 color swatch. Once again, click Copy when prompted to copy or swap colors.
7. Click Quick Render.

   

   Now alternating lights have alternating color.

Save your work:

• Save the scene as light_array_with_color.max.

Summary

• To control whether a light instance casts a beam, you can use the light object's Renderable property, which is set from the Object Properties dialog .
• The Light Lister is a convenient overall “console” for adjusting lights in your scene.

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Choosing a Shadow Type