2009
Positioning Light Objects
Once you have placed lights in your scene, you can use transforms to change
a light's position or orientation.
Transforming Lights
Use transforms on light objects as follows:
Move: Use Move on page 959 to change the position of lights. You can
also use it to change the position of light targets.
Rotate: Use Rotate on page 960 to change the orientation of lights.
NOTE You can't rotate a target light about its local X or Y axes. Instead, use Move
to move the light or its target. Rotating the light about its local Z axis can be useful
if the light uses a rectangular beam or projects a bitmap.
Rotating a plain omni light or a photometric light with spherical distribution
has no effect, as these lights cast light uniformly in all directions. However,
rotating an omni light or a spherical light with projection causes the projected
image to rotate.
Scale: Scaling Point, Linear, or Area lights has no effect. Using Scale on
page 963 with spotlights and directional lights changes the size of their light
beam and attenuation ranges. Scaling omni lights changes only the attenuation
ranges. Scaling photometric lights changes their attenuation rate.
Light viewports on page 7614 are another convenient way to transform and
change parameters of spotlights and directional lights.
TIP When you adjust lights, it can be useful to turn off Adaptive Degradation on
page 143. If Adaptive Degradation is on and shaded viewports begin to display in
wireframe, you won't see the result of the changes you make to lights.
Placing Highlights
You use
Place Highlight on page 1018 to position a light to create a specular
highlight at a designated point on an object. Place Highlight is one of the
buttons on the Align flyout. Place Highlight moves or rotates the selected
4990 | Chapter 18 Lights and Cameras