Realistic Lighting Rig

So far we have created a set of lights, and created envelopes for intensity and color for each of them. We'll now add expressions to drive the envelopes.

In graph editor, select the previously saved "Rig Intensity" channel bank to load the intensity channels for all the lights. Now select the Expression tab underneath the graph window, and click "New". Enter "Intensity Follow" for the name, and delete the contents of the "Value" box.

Click on the "ControlSkyLight.Intensity" channel, and use the right mouse button menu to select the option "Append to Expression". Now select all the channels by using the left mouse button and shift key, apart from "ControlSkyLight.Intensity", and click "Apply" to set this expression for all the lights apart from ControlSkyLight.

Repeat this process for the other channel banks that we saved earlier, calling the expressions "Red Follow", "Green Follow", and "Blue Follow". Remember to click "New" before entering the name for the new expression. If you mistakenly try to apply any of the expressions to ControlSkyLight, Lightwave will refuse, telling you that it has detected a loop in the expression.

You should end up with the graph editor looking something like this:

The expressions

Setting Parent and Target

Go back into Spreadsheet, and change the property bank to "Motion Options: General". Click on ControlSkyLight's entry for "Parent" and shift click on SkyLight(15)'s entry.

By now selecting "LightRigParent" for any one of the lights by clicking on the small black arrow in the selected entry, it will also set the Parent property for the other lights as well. Set the Target property for all the lights to "LightRigTarget" using this method.

Setting parent and target

While we're here, change the property bank to "Light Properties: Basic" and for all 16 lights set the Light Type to "Spotlight". Also, set the property bank to "Light Properties: Shadow" to change the Shadow Type to "Shadow Map".

As a final touch it is usually a good idea to parent the "LightRigTarget" null object to the "LightRigParent" unless you want the lights to track an object. Also, if you wish, you can set up expressions for cone angle, and soft edge angle in a similar way.

That's it, finished! The next page shows how to get the most out of this setup.