LINKS:REFERENCE

This section will cover resources like books, websites, Digital work, articles, and even general job information. If your looking for a place to find reference on animation, lighting, how to get a job etc.. this will be the place. As our 3ds max user group moves forward we will continue to investigate market trends and resources. We will provide as much information as we can. Remember this is a user group so pass along references that you found helpful to create your work. The more we can compile the better we all will become!

 
Illumination Engineering Standard (IES)

IES files are provided by the lighting manufacturers themselves, these files "sculpt" the lighting in 3d so
that it looks and provides lighting information exactly as the real fixture (or bulb) would.

To use .IES files in 3dsmax you must use the Photometric lights, these can be found in the "create" panel
under "lights" where you see "standard" in the drop down menu you can choose "photometric". This menu
gives you access to the 8 photometric lighting types. For a sigle bulb fixture choose a point light, for tube
lights like many peerless models choose a linear light.

Once the light is created in the scene, change it's distribution type from "isometric" to "web", then in the
"web parameters" section you can choose a .IES file off your hard drive. You will most likely have to
reorient the IES using the rotations in the "web parameters" section, these allow to adjust for the angle the
fixture was tested in. To create the .IES files the manufacturer places the fixture under a dome with sensors
and they take illumination values at different angles. If the fixture was tested pointing up (which is often the
case) you may have to add an x or y  rotation of 180 degrees.

You can get the General Electric files here:

http://www.gelighting.com/na/specoem/iesdownloads.html

You can get Peerless files here:

http://www.peerless-lighting.com/p22_set.htm

More Peerless, lithonia, Hydrel, gotham and antique street lamps:

http://www.acuitylightinggroup.com/Library/Photometry/default.asp

You can generate your own, lighting catalogs will often provide a chart with numbers and angles, these
can be typed into a text file to create an IES. If you open an existing IES file you can easily figure out the
layout.

And my favorite by far: Erco idrop catalog:

http://www.erco.com

Erco not only provide the IES files but also the entire 3d models, rigged, textured and setup with the IES
files. You can get the models and IES files from their "downloads" page

To have the fixture "track" the walls and ceiling for easy positioning simply turn on "autogrid" before
dragging the fixture into the scene. To turn it on just go to create > click on a primitive and the autogrid
option will become available, turn it on and from now on anythign you create will be built on any surface
under your cursor at creation time.

i-drop

You can get all sorts of idrop objects from different manufacturers as well:

General Info on I-Drop Technology:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1862830

List of i-drop content providers:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=3090335

i-drop publisher script (make your own)

http://www.scriptspot.com/download.asp?ID=1433

More i-drop site:

http://www.point-idrop.com/manufacturers/index.html

Herman Miller seeting:

http://www.hermanmiller.com/CDA/SSA/Category/0,1564,a10-c410,00.html

CAD Block Exchange:

http://cben.net/idrop/