In 3dsMax there’s a tool named “Set Highlight” (I’m pretty sure I remember that correctly)
The idea in Max is for lights, but it actually works for objects as well.
You look through the camera, with your object/light selected, the tool lets you click and drag on polygon surfaces to position it so that the reflection of that object hits right where you’re clicking.
So basically it’s getting the normal angle at that clicked position vs the camera angle, then positioning your object to be the inverse? of that angle change. Then you just move the object closer/further away with local position to keep that spot. (would be awesome if you could control the distance with mouse while during the operation).
I wanted to describe that and ask here because I’m searching and coming up with nothing, but it’s Got to exist right? You can position things based on normal, no problem. I can’t can’t figure out how to position them with respect to a camera as well.
Move the origin of a plane to an edge of a plane first and you can really precisely set a nice area light highlight over your object without Much less trial and error for positioning.
OH, thanks. I’ll look into that. Lumiere looks great. I’m not quite sure it’s quite what I’m trying to describe, but I’m just basing that on what I’m seeing in the video. That looks like it’s aligning itself to the normal at the point you click, but…well I’m not quite sure what’s going on. I wonder if their math is correct, because it seems like it’s taking the camera position into consideration, but the reflection isn’t actually moving to where they are clicking in the video. It seems more like, perhaps, it’s just moving the XY position of the light, and adjusting the angle of the light to point to the surface where you click. And it looks like it only works with lights. I suppose I could just align an object to the area light before moving it around, then they basically act the same.
Thanks for that. Hopefully they get that official light gizmo in an official build, and they add some of the things people are talking about. Getting the interface on something like that is what really helps make it useful. The intent is to help you place something. If it doesn’t feel intuitive, then it isn’t really working.