Need expression, master, or multiple groups?

[Alejandro Torres]

Do you have moGraph? that would be the easiest way…

[Joseph M. morgan]

Unforunately not… do you think it is cost effective for what I’m describing?

[Brian Jones]

easiest way (because it writes it’s own xpresso) is to right-click on whatever property you want in your master light and choose Animation/Set Driver then choose all the lights you want to follow it then right click on the same property and choose Set Driven (probably Absolute in this case). If you look in the xpresso tags it makes you will see what’s going on and really one expression could do the whole thing with the driver light linking all the properties you want to control to all the driven lights. Check this example, it’s done both ways described as above for both only Intensity and color are controlled but it can be anything that is controllable.

https://homepage.mac.com/bdjones/.public/DriverLight.zip

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Another option is to use a Selection Object set up to select all of your lights. Then you can adjust whatever light properties you want for all of them. You can adjust properties either absolutely by simply typing in a number or moving a slider, or you can change them in a relative fashion by typing in the numerical field, “x*[]”. For example, if you wanted all your lights to be 1/2 as bright, you would type in “x*.5”.

[Joseph M. morgan]

This is the first time I’ve seen XPresso. I got how you did the “Set Driven” example, and was easily able to add Contrast to the set as well.

However, I can’t figure out how you did the “One Expression” one. I opened the XPresso editor… but can’t figure out how to add something. I can easily delete a “port”, but I find no way to add one.

The “Set Driven” seems more “Cinema 4Dish” to me… but, in the interest of learning… how do I get the “One Expression” thing working/edited?

[Joseph M. morgan]

Adam,

My brain is in “After-Effects” mode on this… which may be part of the problem. I’m trying to pick-whip things to each other, add just properties to the selection object… by dragging them ( I tried every variation of dragging I could think of… which may indeed be one short… but still not getting it).

I’m missing something fundamental. I successfully added 3 sample lights to the selection object… and thought, quite stupidly… that would be that.. and I changed the color of one. It, of course, didn’t change a thing in the other two. C4D allows me to hierarchically add the lights underneath the selection object, but somehow I don’t think the design of the selection object is meant for that.

Is this something useful only in animating?

Joe

[Brian Jones]

First, what Adam means by using a Selection Object is to put all the lights you want to control in a Selection Object (a collection of things you want to select/deselect all at once) and once all the lights you want to control are selected you can change the properties of all of them at the same time. (too blindingly obvious for me at the time 🙂

The xpresso ‘One Expression’ thing. The easy way to get objects (well, a reference to the object) is to drag it from the Object Manager into the XPresso. In this case I selected the 3 lights and dragged them into the XPression window I had attached to the null (it doesn’t have to be attached to the null – any object in the scene will do, it just makes sense to attach it to something related to the task).
To add a port on the left (input by default) or the right side (output by default) is to left-click on the blue or red square in the upper corner and choose the property you want to input or output.
XPresso is pretty deep but it doesn’t take much to do useful stuff.

[Joseph M. morgan]

OK… cool. I am so dang tired… you know what… must have clicked everywhere in the danged window and on the objects “except” there.

I still don’t see how the selection thing works… are we actually talking about a selection object, or a null? Nevertheless, I like the one expression thing better anyway. I will be playing with the “Set Driven (Relative)” as well… as that seems interesting.

Thanks for your help… I did rethink some organization and managed to reduce the actual number of light “objects” to 3… so that made it much easier. It didn’t orignally dawn on me that “instance” just meant the same thing in a new location/orientation… and that these “instances” could cross hierarchies… I’m making things way too hard on myself.

Thanks again.
Joe

[Joseph M. morgan]

Oh… I got it… Thanks.

I couldn’t figure out how the Selection object enabled the selection… the “Restore Selection” button didn’t make sense to me… My brain would have wanted it to say something like “Select Attached” or some other language that I’m sure no one else but be would get 🙂

Thanks… useful…. and I suspect I can create multiple selection objects… like “off”, “on 50”, and “on 100” such that all lights are connected to “off” and I can set the brightness to 0. When the lights need to be back on, the “on 50” can be used for those lights with 50% brightness, and “on 100” for 100% brightness. Ideas are coming…

Thanks,

Joe

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Sounds like you decided to go the Xpresso route, but for future reference, double-clicking on the selection object in the Object Manager also selects all the objects.