CompuServe Thread

=== LTUTIL.ZIP === Lighting Utilities IPAS === LIGHT_I.PXP === A couple of months ago I worked on a project with a _lot_ of complicated lighting involved. I really wished I had some additional lighting tools, namely Light Style, Light Arrays, and Deleting Lights by Name. So, having had the IPAS3 kit for a while, I added these features myself and wanted to share the program with the forum. LIGHT_I.PXP is a shareware PXP to implement these concepts. UPDATE FUNCTION: Say you have a bunch of lights in the scene which share a set of common properties, but you wish to experiment with those properties. Currently you must change each light individually, or change one and copy it around again. Painful. Using the Update feature of LIGHT solves this problem. First, you change your prototype light using the standard 3ds tools, then run the pxp and choose the Update function. You are prompted to select the prototype light (the one you changed). Then another dialog is presented where you tag the list of lights to update (either individually, by wildcard, or by 'Quick Find' which lets you just type enough letters to uniquely identify a light). Once you've choosen the list to update, you may then select any or all of the following properties to update (via buttons): [On/Off] [Color] [Multiplier] [Exclusion] [Atten/Range] [Projector] [Shadows] [Overshoot] [Cone/Hs/Fo] [Aspect/Bank] [Rect/Circ] [Location] [Target Pt] The routine will loop thru every light you select and update each property you've choosen. Those properties you did not select are left unchanged. This effectivly implements 'Light Styles' using a prototype light. Update is also handy when you create new objects in your scene. Those objects don't get included in your existing light exclusion lists. Just update one light with the corrected exclusion list, and send its exclusion status to the other similar lights in the scene. ARRAY FUNCTION: This function allows you to create rectangular and polar (circular) arrays of a choosen light. For rectangular arrays, you specify Width/Depth/Height counts, and W/D/H spacing. The spacing coords may be feet and inches (same formats allowed as KBDTRF.ZIP). Thus you can create a plane or 3d grid of lights with very accurate spacing. Polar arrays allow you to create cicular patterns of lights by specifying: Number in Array, Creation plane (Top/Front/Side), Radius, Start angle, and Angle to Fill. (Polar arrays use the souce light at the center of the array, so you specify the plane, and the radius). DELETE FUNCTION: Delete by name…same tag features as above. Very handy – especially when you've made an error with the array tool <g>. This is my second PXP. I learned a lot more about the new feature of IPAS3 which let you develop more sophisticated user interfaces. So, unlike my first upload (KBDTRF) which presents one mondo dialog all at once, this pxp guides you thru the process much more gracefully. It took me a while to write it, so I decided to make it shareware instead of freeware. If you find this routine useful, please register your copy (for $35.00). I'm quite happy to listen to suggested improvements and new features (as well as bug reports), so let me know. Please be sure to save your work while you check it out. I tested it as best I could, but ya never know… It will be called LTUTIL.ZIP unless renamed by Compuserve – Have fun… Mark