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Is headlamp and preview light the same thing?

fred9803fred9803 Posts: 1,564
in New Users

Very new user here. Was wondering if turning off the a camrea headlamp is the same as going to Windows/Preview light and turning that off?

I generally use only an emmitting plain to light my scenes and I assume the camera headlamps stay on as I'm not adding any other lights. Do I need to turn them off for each camera or only the active camera?

Probably a dumb question but the Studio manual doesn't help me much.

Comments

  • prixatprixat Posts: 1,590

    That's correct, they are the same thing. A handy shortcut to remember is Control-L which toggles the preview light on and off.

    It has to be off for whichever camera you're rendering from.

  • fred9803fred9803 Posts: 1,564

    Thanks very much prixat, much appreciated.

  • KA1KA1 Posts: 1,012
    prixat said:

    That's correct, they are the same thing. A handy shortcut to remember is Control-L which toggles the preview light on and off.

    It has to be off for whichever camera you're rendering from.

    The Control-L preview light doesn't affect renders though unlike having the headlamp on which will.

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    The answer is a little more involved than what's been given. The Preview light is a very rough approximation of the scene lights, if any, when previewing the scene. (If no scene lights, the preview creates a sort of ambient lighting so you can start working.) Move a scene light, and the preview lighting changes to show the approximate effect. As the camera headlamp is a type of scene light, the headlamp will also show if it's on.

    Note that Ctrl+L will not turn the headlamp off, and the headlamp will -- as noted above -- be rendered whether you have Preview on or off. If you want to control the headlamp, you must do that specifically in the camera properies, and it only applies to the non built-in camera types. 

    There are some situations where the Preview light seems to act contrary to its setting, but in general, it's there to help provide some light when you've turned everything off. For example, turning headlamp off and preview lights ON (when there are no other scene lights) will produce no light on the scene. This is working as designed. You actually have to turn preview OFF, and then D|S "oh, no you don't" filter kicks in, and ambient posing lighting is provided.

    The Preview light is useful in that it provides a way to selectively turn the scene lights on and off, and use the projected light to aid in positioning the lamp. Since the headlamp separately contributes to the scene lighting, you want to turn it off and on when Previewing to see its effect, too.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,839
    Tobor said:
    Note that Ctrl+L will not turn the headlamp off, and the headlamp will -- as noted above -- be rendered whether you have Preview on or off. If you want to control the headlamp, you must do that specifically in the camera properies, and it only applies to the non built-in camera types.

    There is an option in Render Settings that will turn the headlamp off even for the views.

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300
    Richard Haseltine said:

    There is an option in Render Settings that will turn the headlamp off even for the views.

    That's true, but it applies to renders only, and not with respect to Preview Lights, the subject here. If you leave the headlamp on, the render setting has no effect either way. That's to be expected considering where the option is located. If you're looking to use Preview Lights for its intended purpose -- preview the lights -- you must control the headlamp from camera properties.

    Also an addendum since Richard brings it up: The "Views" (perspective, etc.) are not cameras in the sense that they don't have camera controls. This includes headlamps. There's no way to turn the headlamp off Perspective  View, which is why you always want to use added cameras, and not the Views to compose and render your scenes. There's an option in Edit->Preferences, Scene to add a default camera when you open a new scene. You can control the headlamp on this one, or any camera you create with Create->New Camera.

     

  • fred9803fred9803 Posts: 1,564

    A big thank you to all the above for sharing your knowledge. It's all starting to make sense to me now.

  • acanthisacanthis Posts: 604

    Could somebody clarify the AUTO setting for a camera's headlamp, please. I always thought AUTO meant ON in preview OFF in render - but I now see that is not the case.

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,700
    acanthis said:

    Could somebody clarify the AUTO setting for a camera's headlamp, please. I always thought AUTO meant ON in preview OFF in render - but I now see that is not the case.

    Auto uses the settings you enable in the Render tab under General>Auto Headlamp.  It has two settings, Never and When there are no scene lights.  In other words, if you set to when there are no scene lights, the headlamp will be on/used unless you have scene lights.  You can set this per camera (on, off, auto).

     

    headlamp.jpg
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    camera-headlamp.jpg
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  • acanthisacanthis Posts: 604

    Right. Got it. Maybe a better title for the option would be "Use General Settings" instead of "Auto".

    Thanks for your help.

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