lighting data

Alex had the question, but it may be useful to others.

Below is the link to a maya script which generates a series of grayscale maps which display the intensity of light on the surface over time.

lightMap script



To use it:

(Assuming you already have the lights animated)

copy the entire script and execute it (ctrl+enter)


First make a material which calculates the light intensity by running from the script editor:

surfLum;


this will make a new lambert with the right connections to it to calculate.

apply this material to the surface you want to calculate for.


The other procedure calculates the lighting over whatever range of frames you specify. The format of it is

calcLight(start frame, end frame)


For example if you wanted to calculate the maps from frame 1 to frame 50:

select the surface
shift select the material

calcLight(1,50);


it saves the maps into your project directory, or if you have hypershade open you can see them all.