vray light intensity

[Morbid Angel]

Im wondering why vray lights internsity by default is set to 30?

[vlado]

No real reason actually... What default value would make more sense for you?

Best regards,
Vlado

[percydaman]

well, I turned 30 recently....so I guess 30 is good for me I dont have to tell ya that my next birthday would necessitate a change...

[Morbid Angel]

well the reason Im saying is that when Im setuping scene sometimes I forget to go into every vray light and turn down the value from 30 to whatever. Usually 1.0 is good, sometimes 2...depends on how far away the light is from the object.
So if you could make it 1.0 by default that would be cool. Maybe also somekind of range indicator to show the intensity distance - kind of like max standart distance fall off fields (in direct or spot light)

[travistlo]

What exactly does the number mean?

[Morbid Angel]

means how bright the light is.

[RErender]

I think he meant more like this http://www.chaoticdimension.com/foru...ighlight=watts

[flipside]

it depends largely on what you're doing. Values vary between 1 and 50 usually, sometimes very high and sometimes very low, to light up an interior a bit for example. So I don't think changing the default value would be an advantage since you change it anyway.

Some more options for the viewport would be cool though

[Adam H. Stewart]

30 is too high

I agree with Morbid - 30 is too high, I don't think I have ever left a light at the default of 30. I would prefer it if it was standardized with the 3ds light - default 1. It is something that drives me around the twist - some spinners go from 0 - 1 some go from 0-100 some are limitless. When a 3ds light is bright at 1 then I think a Vray light should be bright at 1 - it is just easier to use.

[CCS]

I think 1 makes most sense too. Although I wish the value were meaningful beyond relative measure. For instance, a setting of 60 for a 60 watt bulb.

I've seen something similar to this discussed (I think at vray.info), but never saw it work that way in real life.

[Morbid Angel]

Ok, here is what needs to be done to solve this. Vray light intensity is based on the distance of the light to the objects it is lighting. If you move the light further then brighness changes. Thats why intensity varies like flipside said. Here is where we all get confused:
With 3ds max native light, when its by default intensity at 1, the light is infinite, and thus it does not decay. Vray light however has the decay in it, or so it seems. So in 3ds max native light if we turn on the decay set it to whatever, (inverse square for instance) then the value has to go up greater then 1, 100, 1000 and etc. And if you move the light around or you have different system scale then the paramiter needs to be changed.

So, I propose to implement into vray light feature like 3ds max native
where it will have default 1, then decay option if it is on (decay type) then the value will increase or change, and if decay is off the value of 1 will remain an infinite light.
And as an option W (wats) and etc can also be introduced.

[flipside]

I don't really understand what you mean.

Vray lights have inverse square decay, which is the same as a real life light. You can turn it off by selecting the 'no decay' option.

Brightness of your scene depends on the size of the light of course! Make a huge light with value=1 and your scene will also be overbright. If you don't want that, use the 'normalize intensity' option. But by using these you will need to use pretty high multipliers.

What I would like to see is an adjustable decay, so you can set it to somewhere in between inverse square and no decay (max has 1 option in between), a customizable decay This would be neat in interior scenes if you light them with vraylights in the windows. Altough not really correct, they would throw a lot more light into the interior.

If you use small vraylights you definately need multipliers higher than 30.

I still think by changing the default value (especially as low as 1), we will get the same kind of post as this one but a year later, where people will ask to change it a higher value because 1 is always too low.

[MarioRothenbuehler]

i don't understand why chasogroup use "WATT" to define light intensity.... it is totaly wrong... ! "watt" defines power of electricity.....

i think we must speak about "candela"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_base_unit
and here some interesting tables
http://www.electro-optical.com/whitepapers/candela.htm

/.mario'

[travistlo]

I still think by changing the default value (especially as low as 1), we will get the same kind of post as this one but a year later, where people will ask to change it a higher value because 1 is always too low.

why not just make it something that is part of the ini file. Have a parameter that you can change in the ini file that is for vray defaults?


BTW: ReRender, that was the eplanation i was looking for, the "science or math" behind the number. Thanks.