Digital Art Zone

How do you aim/point a DISTANT LIGHT? I got one thats pretty much straight up and I want is down for a morning sun rise! I also cant find the one i have now! WHERE is IT!

Distant lights are aimed by rotating them, they can be moved (and even scaled) in the preview window but that is a convenience, only the angle at which they are aimed has a relevence to their lighting.

If you have “lost” one, you could go to the motion panel and enter zeros into the position x, y, and z to centre it.  Or if you select it in the scene tree and then press 0 (zero), your current camera is moved to it (this works for anything, not just lights).

You amaze me Richard

How have you done all of your animation renders in Carrara without knowing that?!

This is both Very Impressive and Bizarre.
Seriously.

I’m beginning to think you are a special kind of intuitive thinker.

Rich is brilliant but blinkered as many geniuses are
he avoids Daz dollies like the plague for example when they would make life easier as supplementry characters.
I did not know the camera 0 trick, sadly, I just created an extra camera by dragging it to the scene tree of I wanted to find zoomed out.

I only know what I use! I don’t think i have ever used a Distant light to be honest! Plus it pleases me to torment you all this my never ending threads! “INSERT EVIL LAUGH HERE!!”

I find you entertaining
and you are very clever
but
boy do you piss some forumites off
I find that entertaining too!

AS do I! LOL!

I’m surprised no one stated the obvious. You select the light, then shift-click an object or body part that you want the light to point at. Select Edit/Point At or cmd- m on a Mac (It’s probably ctrl-m on a PC). The light will automatically point at what you selected. If you move the object or light it won’t point at the same object. If you want it to track an object select the light, click the modifiers tab, then plus, select point at on the drop down menu. Select the object or body part in the drop down menu and the light will track the object when it moves. This works with spot all types of lights and objects too. You can get M4’s head to track another object for instance, great for animations. You can also use a target helper object to make things easier.

BrianP21361 - 23 July 2012 01:40 PM

I’m surprised no one stated the obvious. You select the light, then shift-click an object or body part that you want the light to point at. Select Edit/Point At or cmd- m on a Mac (It’s probably ctrl-m on a PC). The light will automatically point at what you selected. If you move the object or light it won’t point at the same object. If you want it to track an object select the light, click the modifiers tab, then plus, select point at on the drop down menu. Select the object or body part in the drop down menu and the light will track the object when it moves. This works with spot all types of lights and objects too. You can get M4’s head to track another object for instance, great for animations. You can also use a target helper object to make things easier.

Sorry to differ, but for distant lights that would produce some very odd lighting shifts, especially if the light was close to the zero point during an animation.
It really needs to have a set direction unless you are going for some special effect such as a fast moving meteor, and even then a moving bulb may work better for that.
The key point about a distant light is that it has the same effect across the whole scene, barring shadows, and that you only ever need to consider it’s initial drection and then leave it.

RoguePilot,

You’re right. The lighting would be odd. What I really meant is that you can use the point add modifier for an animation. It’s best for having a camera track and object or for having a head face some movement.

Point at, then disable it.  It will point at what you want but wont follow it.

I use combo lighting most of the time though. For day distant plus HDRI. I use HDRI lighting a lot.

select object you are looking at eg head of charactre, select distant light while holdig down shift key, then ctrl k and your align window comes up, choose all three axii, your distant lightis now centred on your objecti and in your screen, move it away but leave iti n the screen, that way you can see it to change it’s pointing idirection
f it is below eg an ocean it probably won’t light the ocean but works for most other things, as long as it is not buried in anobject

shortcuts for pc