Black background if 2 or more dome lights are turned on.

[notamondayfan]

Hey guys,

I'm doing some kind of time-lapse, and I'm testing using dome lights with HDRI files for the lighting. I have several dome lights, and I turn these on and off by animating the multiplier, so only 1 dome is on at a time. The only problem is the backgrounds aren't rendered when there are more than 1 dome light, and I can see why this would happen.

So what I'm wondering is, is there a way around doing multiple dome lights, so I can see the backgrounds? As far as I know, you can't animate the On check-box on the light, so I'm stumped.

I can manually turn on and off the lights, but it's just a pain to keep doing.

If anyone knows a way to get around this, then it would be really appreciated.


Many thanks,
Dean

[super gnu]

either comp in the backgrounds or use mix/composite maps to do an animated crossfade of the environment map in max. you could probably use parameter wiring to link the mix amount to the domelight multipliers or vice versa.

[super gnu]

might be worth seeing if you can animate the visibility track for each light.. no idea if this actually works for lights...

[notamondayfan]

Hi super gnu. I could do a mix / blend map, but I ideally just want to control the lights them selves, rather than the maps. I tried the visibility for the lights, and it doesn't have the option, I also tried hiding lights, but again no success.

I do plan on comping in skies, but for testing, drafts, etc it would be useful to see the HDRI sky background.

I can quickly control the lights through the light lister. It's only a short job, so I'm not going to spend hours making something to control the lights, I just wondered if there was a quick and easy way to do it.

Anyway, never mind.

Thanks,
Dean