2009

2 Choose a viewport in which to create a compass rose (the compass
direction of your "world"). This should be a Top or Perspective/Camera
view.
3 Drag to create the radius of a compass rose (the radius is for display
purposes only), and then release the mouse button and move the mouse
to set the orbital scale of the sun light over the compass rose. This can be
any distance you find convenient, since directional and IES Sun lights
produce parallel illumination regardless of where their icon is located.
Click to finish.
Upon creation you have two objects in your scene:
■ The
compass rose on page 2635, which is a helper object that provides
the world direction for your sun.
■ The light itself, which is a child of the compass rose, and is
permanently targeted on the center of the compass rose.
If you created a Daylight system, the Daylight Parameters rollout on
the Modify panel lets you choose the type of sunlight and skylight.
The Sunlight drop-down list lets you choose IES Sun, mr Sun, or
Standard (directional). The Skylight drop-down list lets you choose
IES Sky, mr Sky, or Skylight. These lists also offer you the options of
choosing no sunlight or no skylight.
Controls for the geographic location and time of day are on the Motion
panel. The default time is noon, and the default date and time zone are
based on your computer's local settings. The default location is San
Francisco, CA.
The directional light created by the system is managed by two special
controllers: Solar Date and Solar Time. After you create your system, you
can access its creation parameters (time and date, location, orbital scale,
and location) in the Motion panel for the directional light. The parameters
are interrelated, so you can adjust them in any order. Generally, it's easiest
to choose a location first, and then adjust the date and time. You can
access the parameters for selected sunlight or skylight objects in the
Modify panel. The radius of the compass rose is also editable from the
Modify panel, after selecting the compass rose object.
If Date/Time position is selected the Sun and Sky multipliers are
automatically set and animated according to their position. They can be
edited only by using the Manual Position override.
TIP If your scene rendering with Daylight is too bright or too dark, use an
exposure control on page 6732.
5142 | Chapter 18 Lights and Cameras