Exclude an object of a light source

Electro-Elvis

(I have just experienced, that there might be a flaw in the possibility to exclude an object of a light source. The problem only occurs if you have a lot of objects in your scene. In this case it might be, that just the object you want to exclude from a light source, does not appear in the list that can be opened under the option "influence" in the light lab. the problem is, that this list is not scrollable. Any ideas how I could reach an object, that is missing on this list?

Thanks in advance for any hint.)


I apologize for my hasty question. Meanwhile I simply saved the scene, closed Bryce and restarted it, reopened my scene, checked the option list in the light lab et voila the list was scrollable. It seems to be really only a little flaw.

Szark

No need to apologise we are glad you got it sorted and reported back with how you fixed the issue so others can see, thank you. :)

Horo

Hasn't happened to me yet, but if it will, I hope I'll remember that. Thanks for telling us, electro-elvis.

Rashad Carter

I recognize what ElectroElvis is experiencing.

During the dev cycle for B7 I learned a few things about how it is done under the hood. Apparently, the laboratories are operated by ".mov" files. They are literally videos. Typically, the movie files directing the lab settings for each object in the scene would be unique, but in some cases the .mov files are shared by multiple objects of the same type.

The Material Lab and Terrain Lab are both quite good at treating each copy as unique with a corresponding .mov file to operate and express its settings. However, the Light Lab is a bit different in this regard unfortunately. Lights of the same type tend to share many of the same .mov files operating the various sliders and drop downs. The result is that users often observe the settings assigned to some other Dome suddenly appearing as preferences for the current Dome very much against their desires.

What I have found is that the Light Lab is generally quite good at treating each instance as unique. The exception is the memory dots. All lights of the same type share the same memory dots. It is also possible to "break" certain sliders. The Quality Slider for Domes &3D; Fills can be "broken" by being pulled well beyond the 1000 or so the display allows. NOTE: the quality for Domes can go as high as 10,000 virtual lights!!!!!! Once the slider is broken for one Dome, it seems to be so when viewing other Domes as well, Each of the Domes in the scene retains its individual settings, so there is no loss of overall function, only the slider itself breaks and any alterations in values must be entered manually. Fortunately the values expressed for Quality are quantized to be rounded to the nearest permitted value based on the users input. So again, there is no loss in function in terms of rendering accuracy.

For the Influence controls (where you find Include/Exclude) the check marks deposited by one light source usually dont pop up in the drop down for others. But on the rare occasion that they do you probably have run into a situation where the movie file governing that drop down has gone temporarily corrupt. Saving and reopening is probably a wise idea. Luckily, what you experienced is rare.

Electro-Elvis

@Rashad: Thank you for your detailed explanation. For me as software developer it is interesting to learn, that the Bryce uses .mov files for their option list.

BTW I observed another point, that might be interesting to know. You can not exclude a group of objects, though it shows up in the option list and you can choose it , e.g. BottleGrp, but in the render it has no effect at all. You have to ungroup first your objects and then exclude every single object of the further group in the light lab. Afterwards you can regroup.

Rashad Carter

I am very much a laymen, so the exact way the movie files work is unknown to me. But yes, there are corresponding .mov files for each lab. The sliders

Ah, working with groups. There is a trick to this.

Just like the Instance Lab, the Light Lab cannot "see" inside of a group. It cannot see the individual meshes inside. However, the Light Lab does respect the names of individual items even if the items are nested inside of a group.

Imagine if you will that you have a group that is made of three spheres, Sphere 1, 2, and 3 and their group name is Group 1. When you enter the light Lab you will not see the option to select the individual spheres because they are grouped. But if you create a fourth sphere that is not part of the group and rename it Sphere 1, you will notice that sphere 1 now shows up on the drop down list. If you select sphere 1 from the drop down list you will notice that indeed both of the Sphere 1's, the original that is grouped and the new one that is not are both excluded. So long as they share the exact same name they will both be excluded.

Creating decoy objects and giving them the names of other objects locked inside of groups is very effective.

Also, just like the Instance Lab, it is important to use shorter names for your objects so that the full name displays in the list.

Hope this trick is useful.

Horo

Very interesting, Rashad. It will not surprise you that I didn't know that small detail about the same names. May come in handy sometime. Thanks for mentioning this little trick!