Dabarti Light Assistant

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

Main features:

• Interactively ALIGN lights reflection directly on the geometry. Hold shift for “Rim Light Mode”.
• Interactively change light distance, size and rotation in ADJUST mode..
• Quickly control V-Ray Light properties with “Light Lister” like interface.
• Adjust light intensity using Exposure Value (EV).
• Align and Adjust modes work well with some non V-Ray lights.
• 10 Softbox presets in material library included.
• Designed to work perfectly with V-Ray GPU (RT)
• Added Corona Support

V-Ray

Corona

Download : Dabarti_Light_Assistant_v0.901 (24th November 2017)

(Please link directly to this page as the tool gets constant updates this version will be outdated in near future.)

Rendered with help of Light Assistant:

More on Behance: Jet Engine Episode 1

Videotutorial ( Recorded lightning session of helmet): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHKC9SpdGP8

Older version quick look video: https://vimeo.com/189384214

Chaosgroup V-Ray is required to use this tool and it’s best to use with V-Ray GPU in ActiveShade (interactive) mode.

Light assistant was developed for in-house 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 fully support any other renderers.

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INSTALLATION INSTRUCTION:
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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

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CHANGELOG:
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v0.901
[Bug Fixes] (*) Fixed Corona non target lights crash.

v0.900
[Bug Fixes] (*)  Added Corona Support

v0.803
[Bug Fixes] (*) Fixed crash when VRaySun light is present in the scene.

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))