DIRECTIONAL LIGHTS – OVERVIEW

The Directional Lights tool simplifies distant light creation and management.

We support Arnold, Redshift and Renderman.

This tool is commonly used in combination with the HDRI Skydome Browser tool.

See the other light pages for Area Lights , Light Presets , and Edit Lights .

THE PROBLEM

Managing directional light settings in the Attribute Editor is cluttered with settings.

Each renderer uses varying terminology for the same functionality.

THE SOLUTION

The Directional Lights tool simplifies, and adds the light controls into a single UI.

We’ve added workflow improvements such as,

– Place light reflections by clicking on a mesh
– Selecting/switch to different lights in your scene
– Opening Maya’s Light Editor
– Drop Light from the current camera position
– Easy color temperature controls

COMPACT SETTINGS

Light Name Textbox
Rename the current directional light.

Add Suffix Checkbox
Automatically add a suffix to the light name Eg. area_ARN
Arnold: _ARN
Redshift: _RS
Renderman: _PXR

Intensity Textbox and Buttons
Set the light’s intensity value.
Note: This value is a generic renderer intensity and values may not match actual renderer settings.

Intensity Buttons tip: shift faster, ctrl slower, alt reset

Soft Angle Textbox
The blur soft angle of the directional light.
Affects the shadow softness, overcast day, and specular highlight.

Color Picker Button
Sets the color of the current directional light.

Hue Saturation Triangle Buttons
Decrease or increase the Hue or Saturation of the lights current color.
Tip: shift faster,ctrl slower, alt reset)

Create Button
Creates a new light with the current settings.

Light is placed at world center.

Drop Light Icon Button
Creates a new light with the current settings.

The light is placed at the current camera’s position.

Place Reflection Light Icon Button
Place Reflection by braverabbit.com (Ingo Clemens).

With a light selected, click-drag on a surface to place the light’s highlight.

Hold Ctrl or Shift, click-drag to vary the distance of the light from the surface.

See our video tutorial for this tool here .

Place Reflection Open Source Repository

Renderer Button Dropdown
Change your renderer with the set renderer icon menu (bottom right). Available renderers are Arnold, Redshift or Renderman

ADVANCED SETTINGS

X Elevation Textbox
The height of the directional light in the sky. Uses rotation values.

Raise the directional light.

Buttons Note: Shift faster, ctrl slower, alt reset

Y Spin Textbox
The angle (left right) of the directional light in the sky. Uses rotation values.

Buttons Note: Shift faster, ctrl slower, alt reset

Z Spin Textbox
The roll angle of the directional light in the sky. Uses rotation values.

Has no effect if the light was created in the Zoo ui.

Buttons Note: Shift faster, ctrl slower, alt reset

Temperature Textbox And Buttons
The color in Temperature (degrees kelvin).

Warm or Cool the color temperature in degrees kelvin.

While on the Color (Hue/Sat) attribute is ignored.