V-ray 3.6, viewport lighting?

[zjie]

Hi,

One of the feature for V-ray 3.6 is that we could preview our lighting in viewport without the need to test render, however, it is not working for me when I clicked on "use all lighting" on the viewport, am I missing out of something here?

Using Maya 2016.5

[yolov]

To make it work in 2016.5 (or any version before 2017), you will need to switch to the OpenGL - Legacy rendering engine for viewport 2.0 and enable "Textured" view for the viewport in addition to "All lights".
To switch to legacy openGL for viewport 2.0 go to Maya's Windows menu > Settings/Preferences > Preferences > Display. Look for the Viewport 2.0 rollout and set Rendering Engine to OpenGL - Legacy.
Another important note is that this drawing mode requires VRay lights *AND* VRay Materials to work. (VRay lights won't illuminate native materials. However native lights will illuminate VRay materials).

Here's some (hopefully useful) info:

In Maya versions before 2017, we use the "old" approach (with draw overrides) to draw our shaders, textures and lights in the Maya viewport. This always required OpenGL, and more precisely - the Legacy OpenGL driver mode.
In 2017 and 2018 we use a new approach (Autodesk added a new API for this) which allows us to do more things, but requires the new "Core" OpenGL driver modes and also supports DirectX in Maya versions that have this support.
In 2017, specifically, however we had to disable the new viewport drawing support because of critical bugs in Maya itself, that were later fixed in 2018.
The old drawing modes work in 2017 just as well as in older versions (the one that require the legacy OpenGL modes, vray lights + vray materials, and "textured" + "all lights" enabled for the viewport).

So finally, in versions up to 2016.5 there's our "old" support in Viewport 2.0 and the Legacy Default viewport that always requires OpenGL.
2017 is an exception, since we have our "new" support, albeit disabled, and the old one works just like before.
2018 support to a full extent (meaning everything we could implement by the time 3.6 was out) the new drawing methods. They require the new "Core" OpenGL driver modes, but the "Textured" view is not required (unless there's, well, textures).

Now some clarification on the Maya naming convention on OpenGL modes.
If we take 2018 as a reference point, there's DirectX, OpenGL - Legacy, OpenGL Core Compatibility and OpenGL Core Strict.
It's the same in 2017 and 2016.5.
In 2016, the OpenGL-Legacy is called "OpenGL", the compatibility isn't there,and the Core Strict mode is called OpenGL Core.
In 2015, there's only OpenGL, which is what 2018 calls OpenGL-Legacy.
All versions support DirectX, but VRay only uses it for the new drawing methods and it works in 2018.

Final line of advice would be, given there are no other viewport performance concerns, use OpenGL in 2015, OpenGL Legeacy in 2016 through 2017 and OpenGL Compatibility (or Strict) in 2018.

Here's what our docs currently say https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...wport2.0Issues, I'll try and put more info there and I'll probably have to put on some blog section to the Maya docs, so info like this is available to anyone.