mlh.ls Architecture:   Generic Version:           1.0 LW Version:    6.0 LS Version:     2.0 Last Update:   10.08.00

   Introduction

Multi-Light-Helper copies virtually all light parameters from one light to many, including envelopes, volumetrics, flares, etc. It does not copy the motion channels. It works by reading the current scene file, writing changes to the file, and then reading back in the changed file. This can result in slow operation for files that are large (containing many lights with envelopes). Although a bit clumsy, it probably still easily beats making the changes "by hand."

This is a generic LScript requiring LScript version 2.0.0 or higher; therefore, it only works in Layout in Lightwave 6.

   Controls

Master -- Select light to copy settings from. If you neglect to choose one, you will get a warning message and the script will end. It is recommended that you change the name of the light that you are using as the 'master' to something unique, like 'master' :)

Prefix -- all lights whose name starts with this prefix will be changed to match the master. Hint: you don't necessary need to enter a word. 'C' will select all lights whose name starts with 'c', and it is not case-sensitive.

Save All Objects -- Because MLH operates on scene files, it must save the scene before processing the changes. This option gives the user a chance to save the objects with any changes made since the last save, e.g. surface changes. This option is not selected by default because if all you're doing is tweaking and retweaking light settings, it gets old turning this off each time.

Back up scene file -- Enabling this causes the last saved scene to be backed up before any changes are written to the current scene file.

   Usage Tips

If you've made changes to the objects in the scene (such as surface changes) check Save All Objects so that you don't lose those changes when the scene file is written.

To keep a copy of the previously saved scene, check Back up scene file.

There is a small bug in LW concerning the "Affect Caustics" option. If you have multiple lights in your scene, and the first light is not a 'distant' light, L[6] will turn on "Affect Caustics" for the first light when you load the scene. This has nothing to do with this script; you can easily verify this without even running the script. Inspection of the scene file shows no reason for the option to be activated. There is no entry of "AffectCaustics 1".

Speed: As mentioned in the Introduction, this script can be rather slow. I once timed it at 3 minutes 10 seconds to change 436 lights from distant lights to point lights with default lens flares. About 30 seconds of that was just LW reloading the scene after the changes had been made. This was not on a state of the art system; it was a 450 MHz AMD with an Ultra DMA drive.

This script would benefit from LScript's progress monitor feature; unfortunately, it is not available under the Generic architecture.