No Option in OIP to turn light on

[Jonathan K]

Greeting all!

We are using VW2009 Spotlight with Renderworks.

Been using VW for years to do 2d plots so I am somewhat familiar with the software. At any rate I am spending some slow shop time to learn some of the 3d render aspects of Spotlight.

Started a simple file to learn the basics. 1 lighting position with 1 par can and 1 focus point.

I am sure I am missing something basic here....

The lighting device does not give the check box to "Turn Light ON". All we get is the "Draw Beam" option.

The light was inserted properly with the instrument insertion tool.

What might I be missing?

[michaelk]

Open the Visualization Palette.

All the instruments will be listed there. The name will be Channel Purpose UID.

If you don't have a channel or purpose you will only see the uid.

You can turn the light on, add lit fog, etc from there.

hth

michaelk

[Jonathan K]

Hello Michael,

When I open the visualization palette there is nothing there. Just the header for the palette. I went ahead and assigned channel and purpose but still nothing shows up in the Vis palette.

Thanks for the fast reply!

jk

[klinzey]

You should also be able to right click on the lighting device and select "Edit Light..." (Not "Edit...") You should be able to directly asscess the light from here.

If you are using the Viz Pal try viewing All the lights and not just current scene.

[michaelk]

Also make sure the viz palette is on the light tab, not the camera tab. Then below that select the "all" button (not "current scene")

hth

michaelk

[Jonathan K]

Ok so i got the Vis Palette sorted out and can see all the fixtures and options.

Yes, "Edit Light" also works.

Any ideas why these options don't appear in the OIP for me?

One last thing, how do you turn the fog down from 11 to a more reasonable 4?

[klinzey]

With the introduction of the Viz palette we wanted to give the physical rendered light control so that now all lights are accessible in the Viz palette. Once you start using it you will find it a lot easier.

The lit fog is a Renderworks Background. You can edit it through the resource browser.

[Jonathan K]

Brilliant!

Thank you gentlemen.

[michaelk]

Before you play with the fog renderworks background, you might want to look at the angle falloff and distance falloff settings. They make a huge differance.

[Jonathan K]

I was playing around with that as you posted in fact. Changing the falloff's to smooth and the Lit Fog texture to Hazy really did the trick. Huge difference indeed!

Too bad, it seems, that you must do 1 light at a time.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Jonathan K

[michaelk]

au contraire...

You can shift click or command click (on a mac) as many as you like, choose edit and change the settings for all of the selected lights at once.

hth

michaelk

[Jonathan K]

I am working on a Mac but have a windows style mouse. Mac mice are awful imho.

Anyhow.

I can select multiple lights, yes.

From the Vis Palette I can shift click and select as many fixtures as I want. When right clicking them in the selected group and choosing edit I get the diet version of the "Edit Light" window. It does not have any of the beam control attributes.

I should have said in my previous post that the beam options go away with multiple fixtures selected.

Edited February 4, 2010 by Jonathan K

[michaelk]

I had to go back and check...

The diet edit pallet is a 2009 thing. 2010 lets you edit the angle falloff and distance falloff of multiple instruments.

Tell your boss it's time to update!

michaelk

[michaelk]

2010 lets you edit the angle falloff and distance falloff of multiple instruments.

....as long as they are the same instrument type.

[Jonathan K]

Trust me, he knows!

At least I got him to buy me the VS-4 plugin.

Thanks again for you replies!