Pointing Dynamic Lights
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Re: Pointing Dynamic Lights
Posted by Salmon Mousse on Sat Feb 26th at 10:41pm 2005


Here's the thing:

I've watched a number of tutorials, and I've fiddled incessantly, but I can't get something to work. In hammer, I make the dynamic light, and I can do all these fabulous things with it and customise it in all these wonderful ways, but it's all for nothing -- Can I not get it to point in a certain direction to begin with?

For example, I parent it to some spinning thing, and, as one would expect, it goes round and round. Unfortunately, it points at the floor. I don't know how odd this seems to other people -- in all the tutorials I've seen, the lights people have made have been pointing at the floor, so I don't really know if what I'm trying to do is do-able.

I would have thought that, in hammer, I shove some numbers in the pitch, yaw, roll places, and it points the cones in that direction, as it does with other things. I can point it AT something with the eyedropper, but I can't seem to just rotate it through 90 degrees in order to make, say, a flashing light on a police car. Anyone know what my problem is -- other than idiocy?




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Re: Pointing Dynamic Lights
Posted by thesilence on Sat Feb 26th at 11:50pm 2005


This is not worded correctly, i dont understand you [addsig]



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Re: Pointing Dynamic Lights
Posted by beguiledfoil on Sun Feb 27th at 12:59am 2005


I think you want to make an info_target and parent that to the moving thing, then use that as your light's target. This solution may not be ideal, because you'll have to set up your moving thing as an orbit.. but still doable..

Make sense? This is only one solution, btw, I imagine there's an easier way to do this as well.

Your english is fine, btw, ignore silence





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Re: Pointing Dynamic Lights
Posted by Salmon Mousse on Sun Feb 27th at 11:13am 2005


No, no, it's OK. I didn't make what I wanted clear, perhaps. I'll try and phrase it a bit better: I am unable to rotate dynamic lights, as one does other entities and brushes. I can't tell whether or not this is a problem unique to me, or a common one, as none of the tutorials I have found has shown it being rotated, other than using the "point at" option in the parameters. What I was asking, was if it is possible to rotate it, say, by clicking twice on the light in the 2D views, and using the rotate handles; if there is no way to rotate it in this manner; or if there's actually a problem with my hammer.

Yes beguiledfoil...I suppose I could get the setup like this:

"spinning thing"--light-----------------------target.

And have it whizz round. Yeah, I imagine that will work, ta very much.




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Re: Pointing Dynamic Lights
Posted by beguiledfoil on Sun Feb 27th at 11:16am 2005


Use a target to "aim" dynamic lights. If you're just trying to rotate/place them statically, all you need to do is place an "Info_target" where you want it to point and then set that up in the light's "point at" attribute. The light won't appear to be pointing at the target, but when you render it, it will.

Hope I'm helpful..





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Re: Pointing Dynamic Lights
Posted by Salmon Mousse on Sun Feb 27th at 11:20am 2005


You are, very much so. I shall try it now.





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