this is my python script Lightmanipulator (functions see below). It will help you to create and analyze global illumination seettings. I include 5 light sets where you can see the correct setting - just load them into lightMan. I am interested in feedback, or what you would like to see as features. There will be a row of additional features I am working on in the next version and there are some bugs, like the naming of the lights is not yet correct.

I did this because I wanted to know why some global settings look good and others dont - and I found weird settings which are completely incorrect (in terms of physics). If you look at the floor and when you see many shadows - the lighing is incorrect and will ceate this infamous "dirty" look of your textures. The trick is to create a complete uniform distribution of lights over the poser globe - this is mathematically not trivial. (Mine still has some bugs). While doing this I made some discoveries in Poser - you will see them in the next version which probably will be able to calculate the reflection etc. on a mathematically correct basis for your Poserscene and create colour bleeding effects in a Poser scene.

All settings shown above created have been created in lightmaN - please give me feedback

Download the script here.......

Enjoy Mungo

(The figure is Tenten by Yamato)

Version history

1.5

• Shadow + and - creates shadows in 0.1 steps
• Create sun - creates a sun - select sun and enter sun settings in middle panel - press set Sun Position - adjusts sun position 0,0 is front -x, upwards +y right
• Create globals - creates a equally distributed icosahedron light system
• Set globals - writes settings below into globals, SKY - RIM - BOUNCE
• Adjust - Adjust the parameters below in percent of sun
• Random - The real world has a random character, adds a random term in percent (1-5 is good) to all parameters
• Shadowdefintion - adjust the settings of the suns light camera - about .3- 0.8 sharp shadows, over 1.0 blurred shadows

1.1

• Added own file format
• Fixed bug in list - where the wrong light was selected
• Added new feature - set light values
• Real time update of light values

1.0

• Load - Loads a special light file from disk - creates new lights and does not distroy old ones.
• Save - Saves the selected lights from a listbox to text file on disk.
• Rename-Renames selected lights
• Dim-Dims the selected light in 0.1 steps.
• Brighten - Brightens the light selected in the listbox in 0.1 steps.
• DelInvis - Deletes invisible lights
• Reset - Deletes all selected lights.

The right hand panel is the global lighting panel. First select all lights and delete them. Create Sun, set colour and the rest in the middle panel. Set sun position next. Then create the globals. Now you have to set the percentages for the lights in percentage of sun. Have a look at the lightsets in the zip file to get an idea.

Now you are ready for manipulating them - try various settings and look at the effects. You also can make a low settings set and then add a lighting set with spots without deleting any lights. If you want to do this create or load a spot setting from Poser,rename it, and save it as a lightMan set (lightmaN will save only those lights you have selected). Then delete it and create a global set- Then load the set again. Its this simple.

This looks AWESOME! That looks like a Mac window. Thanks for supporting us mac-users!!

Would I be right in assuming you need propack to make this work? Or will it work with the windows port of pyhton? later jb

Some Good News & Bad News. First The Good News your script works perfectly on Windows Propack :) Now the Bad News the main part of it works in Poser5 but when trying to use the create Globals button it crashes & I can't get to the error message to find out why. So not really a problem if you have only propack or you have both Propack & Poser5. Looking very usefull :)

Hey thanks from ANOTHER mac user yes that did look like a mac window. bout @#$ time :-P.. i have heard so many horror stories with Python scripts from buggy to "just simply don't work" "Mac users just dont bother with it". now that your on the scene i guess that has changed? "i hope i hope i hope... so i guess i will down load it in the hopes that i can use it." "QOUTE" "created in lightmaN" ... What/Where do i find this "lightmaN" thanks for all the hard work...

AKA ! :Download it - the link is in the first post - C1rcle: if it crashes in P5, I will test it - up to (humble me) I forgot its P4 ProPack on Mac. Create globals does nothing serious, it shouldnt crash - are there any P5 users who tried it ? Mungo

MungoPark,

Running the script under P5:

When I tried to load a light set, I received the following error:

File "J:Program FilesCurious LabsPoser 5RuntimePythonliblib-tkTkinter.py", line 1292, in call
return apply(self.func, args)
File "", line 1596, in load_lights
ValueError: invalid literal for int(): 0
Name

When I clicked the Create Globals button, the following error was displayed:

Exception in Tkinter callback
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "J:Program FilesCurious LabsPoser 5RuntimePythonliblib-tkTkinter.py", line 1292, in call
return apply(self.func, args)
File "", line 943, in makeglobals
File "", line 1030, in setenv
TypeError: append() takes exactly one argument (3 given)

This could be due to the difference in Python version between P4 ProPack and P5.

Hope the info helps. This looks like a cool app!

I'll be anxious to see if you can get it to work in P5....I'm not much of a risk taker, I'm afraid so will wait to see what you scripting gurus can figure out :)

Hi outthere: it seems that Python has even more bugs in P5 than in P4 - P5 is not able to read some of its own parametercodes anymore. This was one problem. Another problem in the newer python version is that it is much more strict, and does not allow some speedy jokes anymore. The last problem was that windows uses different linebreaks than the Mac- I added the basic light in a windows and a mac version. I will fix this later. I also did some renders in FireFly - they are much better than in P4 Enjoy Mungo

forgot: download at the same link above - current version is 1.51 Thanx for your help- Mungo

Looks that I am brain dead for today - there will be more scripts coming. Most of them I used in the last years already if you look at my gallery most lights have been created this way, but I never had the time to bring them in a form for other users - I hate interface programming I like to do this interactively and use python like a terminal from the console.

Well MungoPark, there is nothing new about "bugs in P5"! It does not surprise me that it's Python would be "buggy" too! :)

MungoPark, you are very generous! I will download your lightscript right now, and look forward to trying it out. Thanx for sharing your programming... -Hanz

Thank you for the quick fix and your work on this.

Yes thank you Mungo It works perfectly in Poser5 now :)

Mungo is the link at the top of this post the correct one? Now that it's working in Poser 5, I'd like to try it out too :) Thank goodness for people like you who make our lifes simpler :)

The link works - for me from home - I have put the server on a low level, because of security reasons - so you have to try it again, if it does not work send me an im with your email

The link works fine....just wanted to be sure that I got the "updated...Poser 5 ready" version :)

Get the latest version here......

Thanks :)