Dabarti tools: Light Assistant

4 votes
Version: 
v0.802
Date Updated: 
10/31/2016

Light Assistant helps with aligning reflections and adjusting the parameters of V-Ray lights.

Main features:

  1. Interactively ALIGN lights reflection directly on the geometry. Hold shift for “Rim Light Mode”.
  2. Interactively change light distance, size and rotation in ADJUST mode.
  3. Quickly control V-Ray Light properties with “Light Lister” like interface.
  4. Adjust light intensity using Exposure Value (EV).
  5. Align and Adjust modes work well with some non V-Ray lights.
  6. 10 Softbox presets in material library included.
  7. Designed to work perfectly with V-Ray GPU (RT)
  8. Chaosgroup V-Ray is required to fully utilize this tool and it’s best to use with V-Ray GPU in ActiveShade (interactive) mode. However it may work with different lights if Align Selected or Adjust Selected is used.

    Light assistant is tool developed for inhouse use at Dabarti and released for free to general public. We’re using only V-Ray in our pipeline so at this stage there are no plans to support any other renderer.

    ======================================
    INSTALLATION INSTRUCTION:
    ======================================

    To install and use the script:
    1. Drop file Dabarti_Light_Assistant_####.mzp into 3ds max Viewport OR Run it from menu MAXScript>>Run file…
    2. After installation you should assign shortcut under Customize >> Customize User Interface >> Keyboard >> Category >> Dabarti >> Light Assistant
    OR create toolbar under Customize >> Customize User Interface >> Toolbars >> Category >> Dabarti >> Light Assistant
    3. Video instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AYF9sHwaNg

    ======================================
    CHANGELOG:
    ======================================

    v0.802
    New Features
    (*) Ability to change texture map of the light.
    (*) Added softboxes presets that will be copied to local matlibs folder and can be loaded from maps browser. (works only in 2017, may be updated for older builds)
    Modified Features
    (*) Right click on EV buttons for double the effect.
    Bug fixes
    (*) Crash when trying to revert light (ON) state when new light was added.

    v0.601:
    [New Features]
    (*) Added "Enable Tooltips" button switches on display of shortcuts tooltips while in Align or Adjust mode.
    (*) New Adjust mode. Allows interactive adjustment of distance, size, rotation around target and local rotation of the light.
    (*) Added Adjust Selected button.
    (*) Added ON button with right click funtion to switch off all other lights. Right clicking again will restore their previous state.
    (*) New Align mode: CTRL - align light to world normal with snap.
    (*) Align Selected and Adjust Selected should work with some other lights that can be targeted.

    [Modified Features]
    (*) Scaling light is moved from Align mode to Adjust mode.

    v0.302:
    [New Features] (*) First Version released to public.
    (*) Ability to align VRayLights based on viewport or camera position. Doesn’t work in orthographic view.
    (*) While in Align mode press SHIFT for rimlight mode.
    (*) While in Align mode press CTRL (or ALT+CTRL) and move mouse to scale the light.
    (*) Added ability create new VRayLight and align.
    (*) Added ability copy selected light and align.
    (*) Added ability align selected light.
    (*) Added ability adjust light distance from the target.
    (*) Added ability adjust light multiplier using +- 1 Exposure Value (EV)
    (*) Added ability adjust Directionality of the light. (Works in the newest builds of V-Ray GPU (V-Ray 3.5))

Video URL: 

Comments

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Prog's picture

Script error when non-target light is selected

Ty 4 great and useful script, Tomasz, but it have some troubles with non-targeted lights in Corona. Screeenshot is below. Tested on 3dsmax 2012-2014.

AttachmentSize
error.png 25.47 KB

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