Hey guys,
I downloaded Yves' skylight rig in an attempt to glean how to create a "rig" setup for lights in a choreography that I can export and then copy exactly into others. After reading the info file and perusing the various components of the rig it seemed simple enough...which is probably why I couldn't reproduce the concept. Naturally, I think I missed something. =) I can save out the lights themselves. I can also save out their choreography actions, and import both into a new choregraphy, but when I get to the part of joining the lights back with their actions, they won't go. What critical step is missing here?

Is there a way to take lighting arrangements I've already set up in a choreography and prepare them for transport to other projects?

Thanks,
Chris

Edit the original action that comes with the skylight. Then it will always be consistent between chors.

However, I believe we used skylights before AM had IBL. I think IBL is more powerful and versatile than a skylight, even though IBL doesn't produce the soft shadows a light rig does. For the best of both worlds, use IBL for global lighting. A Klieg or two for spot lighting. And a light rig with the lights set to ONLY cast shadows (ray traced, 1 ray).

Probably what HomeSlice says is a better solution, but you could also create a chor with the light setup you want and save it out as a .cho file, then import it with different names for each shot.

This is an interesting possibility! I didn't even know that A:M supported image based lighting and will definitely give this a shot when the opportunity arises again. I'll peruse the technical manual to get up to speed. This will be indispensable for compositing shots with live backgrounds. For the purposes of this project however, I'm going with as few and as versatile of lights as I can; probably a gelled klieg light for general hue and shade and a few specialized keys and fills for the subject. The principles of a true light rig, in the sense of a light array set up for skydome illumination, appear to be slightly different I'm finding. Essentially my goal is to take a snapshot of all the lights in a choreography and then import them with the exact same positions and settings into a different choreography. Yves' light rig wouldn't work like this as far as I've seen. Is this a fair observation?

This actually worked very, very well! What I did was duplicate the choreography that contained the lighting I wanted and deleted everything except for the lights. This choreography was then saved out as "***_lights.cho". To import the lights elsewhere I load up both the light choreography file and the target choreography and then drag the lights from one to the other. Presto! The lights show up in an identical location casting the exact same light as in the original scene.

Wahoo!

The only catch is that you have to move the lights between choreographies. If you hold down alt/option to copy them, the lights show up at the center of the world space. I'm taking care not to save the lights.cho file after this process so I can use it again later. Backups are good, too.
Time for breakfast!
Chris