Hi,
Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you're finding the example useful. Please find answers to your questions below.
if i wanted to constrain the overall shape of this lighting feature with a spline - how do i do that ? I do not want the spline to trim any of the led lights - i just want the LED lights to follow a basic shape (as you would see it on a reflected ceiling plan).
In order to do this you can add a spline base object to both generator's clipping paths inputs. Select your spline from the scene and then for each generator change the following properties: Turn on
Properties > Clipping Area > Extend X/Y Size to area. Change
For No Slice to
PreserveWhen i try to export from those transform nodes a "Z position" it does not give me that option.
My apologies, I should have been clearer. The Z Position value is found in
Fixed Transform > Position > Z1. the model seems to be upside down & im not sure how or why that has happened. In order to get the LED pads down & below the ceiling connection plates I have to give the ceiling distance a negative value - which i can see was not what you had done in your model (& anyway when i do that the connecting rods are not extending as they should do).
I must admit, I cheated by rotating my RailClone object through 180 degrees. My lights also extended upwards originally. It's necessary to do it this way because you cannot have a negative fixed size value for the connecting rods.
2. The connecting rods (when i use a negative value for the offset from the ceiling) seem to be extending past both the LED pads and also past the ceiling plates - i cant see how to make sure that the rods do not go past those two cut off planes.
This should be fixed by rotating the RC object and using a positive value.
3. in the Y axis i seem to have the LED pads arrayed OK, but in the X axis they seem to be spaced apart by way too much. Ideally there are no gaps (on plan) between any of the pads
Those are my current stumbling blocks......
Instead of using evenly, wire the segments to the
Default input. You may now need to adjust the
Right Padding values for the Lights and the Connecting rods to manouvre them into the correct position. I've also set the light's top padding value to 0 to so that there are no gaps at all in the array.
I hope that helps,
I've attached a revised style, please let me know if you have further questions.
Many thanks,
Paul
p.s. I'm afraid your attachments don't seem to have worked. This may be because we have a files size limit of 1024kb in the forum.