01 Overview

illumiDrop is an interactive light placement tool for Maya. It allows artists to create, place, adjust, and manage renderer lights directly from a compact floating panel — without needing to manually edit transforms or navigate Maya's Attribute Editor for common tasks.

• Interactive Placement — Click or drag on any mesh surface to place and reposition lights. Reflection and Diffuse modes give you precise control over how the light is aimed.
• Viewport Guides — After placement, illumiDrop draws guide lines from each light to its anchor point, color-coded by placement mode.
• Light Management — A live light list tracks every managed light with per-row exposure, visibility, lock, ramp/texture, and light linking controls.
• HDR Browser — Browse and assign .hdr, .hdri, and .exr images to area lights or dome lights, with optional sidecar JPEG preview generation.

Supported Renderers

illumiDrop v1.0 supports the following renderer plugins for Maya:

Supported HDR Formats

The HDR browser and preview generator support .hdr, .hdri, and .exr files. Other image formats are not supported for preview generation.

02 Installation

Requirements

Installing illumiDrop

1. 1
   Download and extract the illumiDrop package. Place the illumiDrop folder inside your Maya scripts directory. Replace <USER> with your operating system user name.

   Windows: C:/Users/<USER>/Documents/maya/scripts/

   macOS: /Users/<USER>/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/scripts/
2. 2
   Add a shelf button automatically — open the installed illumiDrop folder, then drag illumiDrop_installer.py directly into a Maya viewport.
3. 3
   illumiDrop will add a shelf button to the currently active Maya shelf. Existing shelf buttons are not removed or modified.
4. 4
   Alternatively, open illumiDrop manually or create a hotkey using the commands in Launching / Shelf / Hotkeys.

NumPy for Maya 2024

"C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2024/bin/mayapy.exe" -m pip install numpy --target "C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2024/Python/Lib/site-packages"

sudo /Applications/Autodesk/maya2024/Maya.app/Contents/bin/mayapy -m pip install numpy

OpenEXR / Pillow for EXR Previews

To generate previews for .exr files, illumiDrop requires OpenEXR, Imath, and Pillow. When you first generate an EXR preview, illumiDrop will detect the missing packages and show an install dialog.

The dialog offers two options:

mayapy -m pip install openexr Pillow --target illumiDrop/lib

03 Launching / Shelf / Hotkeys

Shelf Button

Click the illumiDrop shelf button to open the UI. Running the command again while the window is already open will bring it to the front.

Script Editor Command

To open illumiDrop manually from Maya's Script Editor, run:

import illumiDrop
illumiDrop.show()

Hotkey Command

To toggle the placement tool on and off with a hotkey, use:

import illumiDrop
illumiDrop.toggle_tool()

04 UI Overview

The illumiDrop window consists of two main areas: the Left Panel (controls and light list) and the optional Right Panel (HDR browser). The browser panel can be expanded or collapsed using the thin toggle bar between the two panels.

Left Panel

Renderer Selector

Dropdown to select Arnold, Redshift, or V-Ray. illumiDrop can detect the renderer from existing illumiDrop lights or Maya’s current render setting, and you can manually override it here.

+ Light Button

Creates a new plain area light for the selected renderer. After creation, select the light in the list and press Start illumiDrop to begin placing it.

Placement Mode — Reflection / Diffuse

Segmented control that switches between Reflection and Diffuse placement modes. This persists between sessions.

Start / Stop illumiDrop

Activates or deactivates the interactive placement tool for the selected light. The button is disabled when no compatible light is selected. When a light is selected, the button becomes available as Start illumiDrop. While placement is active, the button turns green and reads Stop illumiDrop.

Light List

Scrollable list of all illumiDrop-managed lights in the scene. Each row has inline controls for visibility, lock, light linking, name, exposure, and texture/ramp state.

Status Bar

Shows contextual messages about operations, warnings, and tool state at the bottom of the left panel.

Right Panel (HDR Browser)

HDR Lights tab

Browse, select, and assign HDR images to area lights. Double-click to create a new HDR area light.

Dome tab

Browse, select, and assign HDR images to dome lights. Double-click to create a new dome light.

Folder / Browse button

Select the root folder containing your HDR images. Saved per tab between sessions.

Subfolder filter (Folder dropdown)

Filter thumbnails to show only images from a selected subfolder within the current root.

Search field

Filter thumbnails by filename. The search is case-insensitive.

Thumbnail size slider

Adjusts the display size of thumbnails from 80 px to 256 px. The value is saved between sessions.

05 Light List

Each row in the light list represents one illumiDrop-managed light. The controls are arranged left to right: visibility, lock, light linking, light name, exposure, and texture/ramp state.

LD_areaLight_001

− 0.000 +

T

Light Row Controls

Visibility

Toggles the light between visible and hidden. You can drag across visibility icons to toggle multiple rows quickly.

VisibleHidden

Lock

Toggles the light between unlocked and locked. Locked lights are protected from placement, rename, delete, duplicate, and texture assignment.

UnlockedLocked

Light Linking

Shows how the light is linked in Maya. Click the icon to open Maya’s native Light Linking Editor.

Default LinkCustom LinkØ Affects Nothing

Name

Single-click to select the light. Shift-click selects a range, Ctrl-click toggles a row in or out of the current selection, and double-click opens the light in Maya’s Attribute Editor.

Exposure

Type a value, use the − / + buttons, or Ctrl-drag for quick adjustment. Right-click the field to reset exposure to 0.0.

T / Preview

Shows the light’s texture/ramp state. Click T to create a ramp, click a ramp preview to open the ramp node, click an HDR preview to open the light, or right-click for the ramp/texture context menu.

Texture / Ramp Square States

The small square at the right end of each light row shows the current texture or ramp state of the light.

06 HDR Browser

The HDR Browser is the right-hand panel of illumiDrop. It scans a selected folder and displays thumbnails of all found HDR/EXR images. It has two tabs: HDR Lights (for area lights) and Dome (for dome lights).

Browser Click Behavior

Middle-Click Assignment Rules

Middle-click is a safe assignment action. It will not silently replace an active ramp. The following rules apply:

• In the HDR Lights tab: assigns the image to the selected area/HDR area light.
• In the Dome tab: assigns the image to the selected dome light.
• If no compatible light is selected, assignment will not happen.
• If the selected light has an active ramp, assignment will be blocked. Remove the ramp first, or use the Assign to Selected Light(s) context menu option for an explicit replacement.

Double-Click Light Creation

• HDR Lights tab double-click → Creates a new HDR area light using the clicked image.
• Dome tab double-click → Creates a new dome light using the clicked image.

Subfolder Color Coding

When the root folder contains subfolders, thumbnails are labeled with different muted colors per folder to help visually distinguish groups of images at a glance.

07 Creating Lights

+ Light Button (Plain Area Light)

The + Light button creates a new plain area light for the selected renderer. After creation, the new light is automatically selected in the list. Press Start illumiDrop to begin placing it in the viewport.

From the HDR Browser — HDR Area Light

Double-click any thumbnail in the HDR Lights tab to create a new HDR area light with that image already connected as its texture. The new light is immediately selected and ready to place.

From the HDR Browser — Dome Light

Double-click any thumbnail in the Dome tab to create a new dome light with that image connected. Dome lights are placed at the scene origin and cannot be placed on mesh surfaces.

From the Thumbnail Context Menu

Right-clicking any thumbnail provides dedicated Create New HDR Light and Create New Dome Light options regardless of which tab is active.

08 Placement & Mouse Controls

To place a light, select it in the light list and press Start illumiDrop. The tool intercepts viewport mouse events until you press Stop illumiDrop or click the button again.

Placement Modes

Reflection Mode

The light is placed along the reflected view direction from the clicked surface point. Use this to position highlights and specular reflections. The viewport guide line is drawn in muted blue-cyan.

Diffuse Mode

The light is placed along the surface normal of the clicked point. Use this for direct, diffuse-facing illumination. The viewport guide line is drawn in muted amber.

Mouse Control Reference

The demo below shows the main placement controls: placing a light, adjusting distance, scaling, spinning, and orbiting around the saved anchor point.

Placement Sensitivity

The speed of placement and orbit gestures can be adjusted in Settings → Placement Sensitivity (range: 0.25× to 2.00×).

09 Dome Lights

Dome lights behave differently from area lights in illumiDrop. They are environment rotation-only lights — they cannot be placed on mesh surfaces and always remain at the scene origin.

Dome Rotation

When a dome light is selected and illumiDrop is active, dragging LMB in the viewport rotates the dome environment horizontally. The in-view message reads "LMB Drag rotate dome" to indicate this mode.

Resetting Dome Rotation

Right-click a dome light row in the list and choose Reset Rotation to return the dome to its default orientation.

10 Exposure Control

Exposure is controlled per-light from the light row in the panel. All exposure changes on selected lights are undoable.

When multiple lights are selected, adjusting the exposure of the primary light's row applies the change to all selected compatible lights simultaneously.

11 Ramp & Texture

Applying a Ramp

If a light has no active texture or ramp, click the T square in the light row to create and connect a ramp falloff node to that light. A gradient preview will appear in the square.

To apply a ramp to multiple selected lights, right-click any T square and choose Apply Ramp to Selected Lights.

Removing a Ramp

Right-click the T / ramp preview square and choose one of:

• Delete Ramp Node — removes the ramp from the current light.
• Remove Ramp Node(s) from Selected Lights — removes ramps from all selected lights.

Removing an HDR Texture

Right-click the HDR preview square and choose Remove Texture Node (or Remove Texture Node(s) from Selected Lights for a multi-light operation).

Ramp vs HDR Texture — Assignment Rules

Fitting HDR to Light Ratio

Right-click the HDR preview square and choose Fit Light to Image Ratio to resize the area light to match the aspect ratio of its assigned HDR texture.

12 Multi-Selection

illumiDrop supports selecting multiple lights at once for batch operations.

Selecting Multiple Lights

Active Placement Target

When multiple lights are selected, the last selected light is treated as the primary/active placement target. This means illumiDrop will place and adjust that light when the tool is active. Multi-selection is still used for all batch operations listed below.

Batch Operations

The following operations apply to all selected lights:

• Delete selected lights
• Duplicate selected lights (as a single undo step)
• Toggle visibility
• Toggle lock
• Assign HDR texture to selected compatible lights
• Apply ramp to selected compatible lights
• Remove ramp nodes from selected lights
• Remove texture nodes from selected lights
• Fit HDR area lights to image ratio
• Solo / Unsolo selected lights

13 Solo / Unsolo

Solo temporarily hides all other illumiDrop-managed lights, leaving only the soloed light (or lights) visible. This is useful for evaluating a single light's contribution without deleting or permanently hiding others.

How it Works

1. 1
   Before soloing, illumiDrop records the current visibility state of all managed lights.
2. 2
   Solo is applied — only the selected light(s) remain visible.
3. 3
   When Unsolo is chosen, illumiDrop restores the previously recorded visibility state, not a simple "make everything visible" reset.

Access Solo and Unsolo from the light row right-click context menu.

14 Viewport Guides

After placing an area or HDR area light, illumiDrop draws a viewport guide that visualizes the relationship between the light and the surface point it was placed from (the anchor).

Guide Elements

• Guide line — a line from the light to the anchor point on the surface.
• Anchor point indicator — marks the surface contact point.
• Light name annotation — the light's name displayed near the guide.

Color Coding

15 HDR Browser — Detailed Interactions

Hover Preview

Hovering over a thumbnail shows a larger preview popup near the cursor after a short delay. The popup size and delay are configurable in Settings.

Multiple Thumbnail Selection

The HDR browser supports multi-selection of thumbnails using Shift+click (range) and Ctrl+click (toggle). Batch operations like Generate Preview for Selected and Regenerate Preview for Selected apply to all selected thumbnails.

Thumbnail Context Menu

16 Preview Generation

illumiDrop displays existing sidecar JPEG previews when they are available alongside the source .hdr, .hdri, or .exr file. To create or refresh previews, right-click a thumbnail and choose Generate Preview or Regenerate Preview.

Missing Preview Thumbnails

If no sidecar JPEG preview is found, illumiDrop shows a default thumbnail so the file can still be selected, assigned, or used to create a light. Generate a preview from the thumbnail context menu when you want an image preview.

Default HDR Light Thumbnail

Used in the HDR Lights tab when no preview image exists.

Default Dome Thumbnail

Used in the Dome tab when no preview image exists.

Where Previews Are Saved

Sidecar previews are saved as .jpg files in the same folder as the source HDR/EXR file. Write permission to that folder is required.

Preview Job Behavior

Large preview batches may take longer. You can continue working while previews are being generated, but closing illumiDrop will stop the preview job.

17 Context Menus Reference

Light Row Right-Click Menu

T / Ramp / Texture Square Right-Click Menu

HDR Thumbnail Right-Click Menu

See HDR Browser — Detailed Interactions for the full thumbnail context menu reference.

18 Settings

Open Settings from the ⚙ gear button at the top of the left panel. Preferences are saved in your Maya user preferences and persist across Maya sessions.

Placement

Display

UI Scale

Scale the entire illumiDrop UI to better fit your screen or display DPI. Options: 100%, 125%, 150%, 200%. Changing this setting restarts the panel automatically.

19 Troubleshooting & Support

If something does not work as expected, check the items below first.