ok, perhaps there is in pp2012 and I am not seeing it(this is highly possible) BUT...

is there any script etc that allows you to just turn off and on an item being a light emitter all at once?

something that lets you open a scene and just hit "light emitter off" on this, this this and that? instead of doing it one by one in the parameter dial?

I have been going nuts as I dragged in a scene I had from my older gallery folder and was trying to get the light emitter setting turned off on dozens and dozens of things >.<

Snarlygribbly's Scenefixer will turn off all ambient material on all zones on a figure or prop so that they won't emit light.

As for the light emitter checkbox, I don't know of any script so far that will do it all in one shot yet...and if you want that thing (even if it's not emitting light) to bounce light you'll need to leave "Light Emitter" checked on. The only thing I uncheck that for is for hair since Firefly has such problems with transparent layers.

Laurie

can't you just go into the hierarchy editor and tick off the eyeball making them invisible?

That will only make the part invisible.

no. that is how it is working on my system. I just confirmed by lighting the default Andy figure with a light emitting square. turned it off in the Hierarchial editor and he doesnt light up any more in the render. Im using PP2010 maybe it works diff for all you other folks.

Im guessing that there is an actual "light emitter" in PP2012. My example is using an ambient mat on a square which lights up the surrounding stuff in the scene.

 If it is a figure, you can turn it off in the Body parameters and it turns it off for all children, hair, and any props parented to the figure.

Of course you need to do this for each figure.

Also Netherworks Scene Toy allows you to highlight whatever you want ,in it's listing, right click and turn off the emitter light (I know as it was a feature I asked for, lol).  Amongst all the other things it does.  

There's some confusion, somewhere. It's probably me. :D

But, as I understand it, the "Light Emitter" entry on a figure or prop's properties menu is only concerned with whether or not that surface returns reflected light. In other words, if it is checked, then light in the scene will bounce off of it. If it is unchecked, light will simply pass through it. This only effects light-bounces. So, you could have everything in a scene with its "Light Emitter" properties unchecked, and you would get no reflected light from the surfaces of those objects during raytracing or IDL bounces. This is handy, since complex objects with lots of facets may require more rendering time for little or no benefit. By unchecking everything like that and just using something like BB's Enviro Sphere, you can still get bounces off of that and reduce rendering time, yet retain IDL settings for good effect. (Depending on the accuracy you want.)

But, materials settings like Ambient and the like are completely different.

This is my current understanding, but I have yet to work with "Emitters" like meshlights and such in PP2012. I think the confusion either comes only from me, since I'm a noob to PP2012's lighting and materials, or because they chose to label the entry on the properties menu "Light Emitter", which is not really what that setting is for.

If I'm wrong, please correct my ignorance of PP2012 lighting... ;)

PS - I would love to have a script that I could use to choose to alter object/figure properties like "Light Emitter" on the fly, from a list of scene items. That's would be a nice time-saver!

Quote - Im guessing that there is an actual "light emitter" in PP2012. My example is using an ambient mat on a square which lights up the surrounding stuff in the scene.

that is it. it is not being visible or not it is being an emitter or not.

in pp2012 something can be a light emitter.

Quote - There's some confusion, somewhere. It's probably me. :D

But, as I understand it, the "Light Emitter" entry on a figure or prop's properties menu is only concerned with whether or not that surface returns reflected light. In other words, if it is checked, then light in the scene will bounce off of it. If it is unchecked, light will simply pass through it. This only effects light-bounces. So, you could have everything in a scene with its "Light Emitter" properties unchecked, and you would get no reflected light from the surfaces of those objects during raytracing or IDL bounces. This is handy, since complex objects with lots of facets may require more rendering time for little or no benefit. By unchecking everything like that and just using something like BB's Enviro Sphere, you can still get bounces off of that and reduce rendering time, yet retain IDL settings for good effect. (Depending on the accuracy you want.)

But, materials settings like Ambient and the like are completely different.

This is my current understanding, but I have yet to work with "Emitters" like meshlights and such in PP2012. I think the confusion either comes only from me, since I'm a noob to PP2012's lighting and materials, or because they chose to label the entry on the properties menu "Light Emitter", which is not really what that setting is for.

If I'm wrong, please correct my ignorance of PP2012 lighting... ;)

 

PS - I would love to have a script that I could use to choose to alter object/figure properties like "Light Emitter" on the fly, from a list of scene items. That's would be a nice time-saver!

right, if something is a light emitter light bounces off it. But when turned off they dont. I was in another thread (the absinthe one here http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2864118) and he noted that turning off some of the light emitters cut down render time...lo and behold it worked. It didnt effect my scene but seriously cut down the render time.

I keep the floor, walls, ceiling, certain props as light emitters but the rest I dont.

but that can be a pain when you have a large scene as the default setting is to bring everything in as a light emitter.

     "IDL emitter" is a misleading label for the box;  it might better be labeled "IDL enable" or something.  It actually just means that the item participates -be it actively or passively- in IDL calculations.  A glowy prop would be an active IDL emitter;  skin would be a passive diffuse/specular/SSS reflector.

     Hair is especially IDL resource-intensive because it has multiple overlapping layers of transparency.  So, you could expect that traditional transmapped-plane foliage of a tree or bush will also  bog you down.  That's why I've switched to mostly making mesh foliage.  I wish there were a way to substitute two arbitrary meshes in place of the two transmapped planes ("leaf_adult" and "leaf_young") for Ivy Generator.  :)  Actually, I would like a third mesh added for things like blossoms or fruit.  That would be bodacious.