Replacement Huge CamLightRig
I have been working with Lord_Quillian2 on a replacement for the Maxis huge lightrig.
In case you don't know the huge lightrig that comes with BAT is seriously flawed. Not only are the lights positioned differently from the other rigs, making for inconsistant lighting, but it also has badly set shadow maps which cause very bad render artefacts.
Examples rendered by Lord_Quillian2 of EmergentFungus's great One Canada Square building. The left is lit by the Maxis rig and the right by our replacement.
As you can see the Maxis huge lightrig causes the whole building to be plunged into darkness and the corner to be strangely illuminated as if rounded (this is due to the bad shadow map settings, such as the bias, making the renderer misinterpret how the shadow should fall)
Our new huge lightrig works basically as a 250% scale big lightrig but with carefully corrected shadow parameters for the best tradeoff between quality and memory usage.
Why you should use the fixed huge lightrig
As can be clearly seen in the example above, the fixed huge lightrig addresses all the problems inherent in the current Maxis one and produces large buildings that are lit in keeping with the other BAT lightrigs.
When you should use the fixed huge lightrig
If you model is using the Maxis huge lightrig that came with the BAT you should use this fixed version instead.
If you are unsure which lightrig you are using, you can check by doing the following.
Note: If you are unsure whether the scene is currently using the appropriate size lightrig press the Reset Lights and Cameras button first.
Select XRef Scene... from the File menu. This will pop up the XRef Scenes window.
You should see one file listed in the XRef Files section. If this file is TB2_CameraLightRigHuge.gmax you need to use our replacement (TB2_CameraLightRigHuge_fixed_v1.gmax)
How to use the fixed huge lightrig
1) Download the new rig (attached), unzip and put in the gMax gamepack directory BAT/scenes/CamLightRigs.
Default location would be c:/gMax/gamepacks/BAT/scenes/CamLightRigs
2) Go to the Display tab of the Command Panel and untick Helpers from Hide by Category
3) Select XRef Scene... from the File menu. This will pop up the XRef Scenes window
4) Click the filename in the XRef files to highlight it and press Remove
5) Now press Add. In the Open File dialogue navigate into folder CamLightRigs and select file TB2_CameraLightRigHuge_fixed_v1.gmax
6) Press Bind and select the helper TB2CameraHandle. You can do this either by clicking on it, or, if the scene is dense with geometry and you can't easily click on the helper, by using the following. After pressing Bind click the Select by Name icon. Untick Helpers under List Types then press Invert. You should now only have 1 (unless you use helpers alot) option in the list, which will be TB2CameraHandle. Just double click it (or select it and press Pick) to complete the bind.
7) Finally close the XRef Scenes window.
The bind stage is very important as it is this that makes the model (well lights and cameras really) rotate for the different views.
In case you don't know the huge lightrig that comes with BAT is seriously flawed. Not only are the lights positioned differently from the other rigs, making for inconsistant lighting, but it also has badly set shadow maps which cause very bad render artefacts.
Examples rendered by Lord_Quillian2 of EmergentFungus's great One Canada Square building. The left is lit by the Maxis rig and the right by our replacement.
As you can see the Maxis huge lightrig causes the whole building to be plunged into darkness and the corner to be strangely illuminated as if rounded (this is due to the bad shadow map settings, such as the bias, making the renderer misinterpret how the shadow should fall)
Our new huge lightrig works basically as a 250% scale big lightrig but with carefully corrected shadow parameters for the best tradeoff between quality and memory usage.
Why you should use the fixed huge lightrig
As can be clearly seen in the example above, the fixed huge lightrig addresses all the problems inherent in the current Maxis one and produces large buildings that are lit in keeping with the other BAT lightrigs.
When you should use the fixed huge lightrig
If you model is using the Maxis huge lightrig that came with the BAT you should use this fixed version instead.
If you are unsure which lightrig you are using, you can check by doing the following.
Note: If you are unsure whether the scene is currently using the appropriate size lightrig press the Reset Lights and Cameras button first.
Select XRef Scene... from the File menu. This will pop up the XRef Scenes window.
You should see one file listed in the XRef Files section. If this file is TB2_CameraLightRigHuge.gmax you need to use our replacement (TB2_CameraLightRigHuge_fixed_v1.gmax)
How to use the fixed huge lightrig
1) Download the new rig (attached), unzip and put in the gMax gamepack directory BAT/scenes/CamLightRigs.
Default location would be c:/gMax/gamepacks/BAT/scenes/CamLightRigs
2) Go to the Display tab of the Command Panel and untick Helpers from Hide by Category
3) Select XRef Scene... from the File menu. This will pop up the XRef Scenes window
4) Click the filename in the XRef files to highlight it and press Remove
5) Now press Add. In the Open File dialogue navigate into folder CamLightRigs and select file TB2_CameraLightRigHuge_fixed_v1.gmax
6) Press Bind and select the helper TB2CameraHandle. You can do this either by clicking on it, or, if the scene is dense with geometry and you can't easily click on the helper, by using the following. After pressing Bind click the Select by Name icon. Untick Helpers under List Types then press Invert. You should now only have 1 (unless you use helpers alot) option in the list, which will be TB2CameraHandle. Just double click it (or select it and press Pick) to complete the bind.
7) Finally close the XRef Scenes window.
The bind stage is very important as it is this that makes the model (well lights and cameras really) rotate for the different views.
