Functions

This is another one of my personal add-ons which I added to the Creative Bundle. I made this so I can quickly render the models I was making with my other add-ons like Random Flow, Creative Flow or Panel Cutter.

This add-on does not have a popup menu and it can only be accessed and controlled from the N panel in the 3D viewport.

Figure 1

Its N panel has different sections that show up whether you've selected a lamp or in the camera render view mode.

Here are the different sections and what they do:

Lamp

This section contains all the controls for any lamp object selected. This has two modes that depends if you are using Cycles or Eevee.

Figure 2

At the top part, you can see the name of the lamp with the left and right arrow beside it. These arrows are used to cycle select through the lamps in the scene that depends on the type of cycling method you have set below it.

The Lamp section only appears when you have lamp object selected.

The cycling method has 3 options: All, Type and Collections.

• All : You can cycle select through all the lamps in the scene.

• Type : You can only cycle select lamps that have the same type as the active lamp selected, for example, if the active lamp selected is a sun type then using the left and arrow buttons will cycle select only through all the sun type lamps in the scene.

• Collections : Same methodology as Type but this time you only cycle select based on what collection or group the active lamp selected belongs to.

Below the cycling method is the lamp types you can change the active lamp selected into. We have the Point, Sun, Spot and Area.

Next we have the lamp controls for the Color, Strength and Size. Some additional properties may appear depending on the type of lamp you are using. In Figure 2, the lamp is Spot so we have properties like Spot Size and Spot Blend.

We have the lamp toggles too like Cast Shadow which allows the lamp to make objects cast shadow when rendered. Show Cone only appears when Spot lamp is used and allows you to see the conical influence of lamp which is the area it can light up.

The Use Falloff and Use Blackbody toggles are Cycles render only properties.

Figure 3

This adds the light falloff and blackbody node to the node setup of the lamp. You can find these in the material editor window.

Figure 4

By adding the Light Falloff node, three new options will appear letting you choose what falloff to use: Quadratic, Linear or Constant.

With the Blackbody node added you can select kelvin temperature presets for the lamp instead of color: Flame, Tungsten, Flourescent, Daylight, Overcast, Shade, LCD or Sky. This ranges from the hottest (orange) to the coldest (blue) color warmth.

When you have the render engine set to Eevee the UI of the lamp control section will change.

Figure 5

Instead of assigning color intensity, in Eevee you will new lamp properties like Energy and Specular. You also cannot assign the light falloff and blackbody node here as mentioned above.

The Tracking property shows the object the lamp is currently tracking or pointing to in the scene. This is typically assigned using the Track Active Object, Make Empty And Track and Make Lamp And Track operators in the Track section.

Figure 6

The lamp object will always point to the track object when you move it somewhere else.

Next up we have the Rotate modal operation. This is a modal operator where every control in Blender is replaced by the ones programmed in the modal phase until you confirm it.

Figure 7

You can select whether to rotate on the X, Y or Z axis before using the Rotate modal operator. You can also set the degree interval when rotating using the Degree property - this basically determines how fast or accurate the rotation will be.

Figure 8

Upon clicking the Rotate button, you will enter modal mode with these controls:

• Rotate: LMB + Mousemove, this is used to rotate the lamp around the track object. Press the left mouse button and move/drag it around the screen.

• Confirm: Space / Enter, this is used to confirm the entire operation and set the new location of the lamp object from the rotation.

• Cancel: RMB / Esc, this is used to cancel the entire operation. The position of the lamp will revert back to its original location.

Next we have the location transforms of the lamp which you can edit in the X, Y and Z axis using the global orientation. We also have here the Proximity property which lets you make the lamp go towards the location of the track object or back to its original position.

Figure 9

Lamp List

This provides the list of all the lamps in the scene that gives you some basic controls.

Figure 10

The cursor icon lets you know what lamp is actively selected. Next to this is the name of the lamp and its type indicated by the icon before the text. Then we have the colorbar where you can change the color of the light of the lamp. And finally, the eye icon which we can use to hide the lamp in both in the viewport or in render.

Figure 11

If you are using Cycles render and have added the blackbody node to the lamp nodes using the Use Blackbody toggle, the colorbar will be replaced by the blackbody or kelvin temperature instead.

Lamp Ray Visibility

This only shows up when using the Cycles render engine and displays all the ray visibility toggles for the selected lamp.

Figure 12

This allows you to toggle on or off the lamps effect on the diffuse, glossy, transmission or volume scatter of other objects.

Figure 13

In Figure 13, the glossy visibility of the lamp was turned off so objects receiving its light will not affect the glossy properties of their shader.

Camera

This section only shows up when you are in the camera render view. It contains some of the important settings for the camera that's used quite often.

Figure 14

Most of the properties here are the native controls for the camera like the DOF and Lock Camera to View toggle or the F-stop and Focal Length.

Then we have the added functionalities like the Make Empty and Focus, Clean Focus Empty and the Focus Object bar.

The Make Empty and Focus operator will make an empty on the position of the 3D cursor and set it as the focus object.

Figure 15

If you have the Clean Focus Empty toggle enabled, the last empty object set as the focus object will be removed from the scene when you create a new empty focus object using the Make Empty and Focus operator.

Figure 16

The Distance property of the camera will also be disabled when you have a focus object. The Focus Object bar will have an additional arrow icon which lets you quickly select the focus object.

Figure 17

The Dof Object Proximity property shows up when you have a focus object and will let you make the focus object travel towards the camera or back to its original position.

Track

The Track section contains operators that let you easily point or track objects to other object in the scene.

Figure 18

Track Active Object

This will make the objects in a selection track the active object.

Figure 19

Point To 3d Cursor

This will make all selected objects point to the 3D cursor.

Figure 20

Make Empty And Track

This will make an empty in the position of the 3D cursor and make the selected objects track it.

Figure 21

Make Lamp And Track

This will create a lamp and an empty in the position of the 3D cursor. The lamp will be the actively selected object after the operation so you can immediately reposition it. It will also track the empty object.

Figure 22

Reverse Axis

Reverses the point axis of an object. Typically, the -Z direction is used to point the object to the point to or track to object but you can reverse this to use the +Z direction instead. This is useful for pointing non-lamp objects.

Figure 23

Figure 23, shows the before and after the Reverse Axis toggle is enabled.

Clean Target Empty

This is on by default and basically removes the last focus empty used when using the operator Make Empty and Track.

Figure 24

The operators in this section are designed to make it easier for you to point and track object(s) to other objects. While this is primarily designed to operate on lamps and the thematic functionality of this add-on, you can certainly use this for other stuff like modeling.

Defaults

This contains the default settings for the type of empty generated when using the Make Empty and Track operator along with its starting size or radius.

Figure 25

This has the default settings for the type of lamp generated when using the Make Lamp and Track operator along with the initial light temperature when the Use Blackbody toggle is enabled.

The Helper Font Size makes the helper UI fonts larger when using the Rotate modal operator.

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The Track Lights add-on is quite simple but it can make your workflow faster when lighting up single products for renders. It was originally designed for me to quickly post the modeling results when testing my add-ons in my socials but was added to the Creative Bundle as a bonus.