[Closed] Creating & animating theatrical lights using MaxScript

Hi,

I am looking to use scripts to automatically create theatrical lights and animate them (see http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=3693193 ). Is this kind of thing possible in MaxScript?

Basically, I want to create a library of theatre lights (spots, frensels, movers, parcans etc) within Max (based on photometric data) that will perform as they would in reality – I don’t want to have to “fake” lighting.

I want to use scripting for 2 things:

1. to place the lights (so they don’t have to be created every time) – I will be using DWG models from the light manufacturers as placeholders, to which I want to tie a light source. Once the library is built, I will be able to just hit the appripriate icon and a complete light with default settings will appear ready to be placed.

2. to animate the lights so that every parameter does not need manually keyframing. The main animation parameters are:

[ul]
[li]Colour – to simulate the gels in front of the light changing colour
[/li][li]Beam width
[/li][li]Focus – soft to hard and all combinations in between
[/li][li]Movement (in the case of moving/vari lights)
[/li][li]Gobo – placed in front of the lens so a cutout image is projected by the light
[/li][li]Intensity – including change over time
[/li][/ul]

I would like to be able to end up with a cue list so that all that then needs to be keyframed are the cue changes and all the settings for all the lights will change automatically.

All this then needs wrapping up in a GUI.

Is this the kind of thing MaxScript can be used for? Or should I look at developing a totally separate plugin?

Many thanks,

Martin Hughes