Vray5 Flipped Normals Problem

[Mike Truly]

Vray5 (latest version)/MAX2020.

This is probably a stupid question but it's driving me crazy.

I have a super simple scene with a teapot which is inside a sphere.

There is a single vray light which lights the teapot but excludes the sphere..

The sphere has flipped normals and a vraymtl with diffuse noise texture. The sphere is lit by a single vray light which only includes the sphere. The sphere has it's Object Properties set such that it is NOT visible to the camera, does NOT cast or receive shadows. It is only visible to reflection/refraction. (Nothing is changed in default Vray Properties at this point).


When I render the scene, the sphere is not visible and the teapot properly shows the reflections of the noise texture from the sphere and the shadows from the light... but the teapot does NOT show the highlights from the light. The sphere is somehow blocking the highlights from the light.

If I hide the sphere and render... the highlights on the teapot are properly shown as are the shadows, but of course there are no reflections from the sphere as it is hidden. See attached images.

Is there a setting I'm missing which would stop the sphere from blocking the highlights from the light?

Thanks!

[hermit.crab]

What's the goal of this? Otherwise, using a Finite VRayDomeLight that affects refl/refr instead of the sphere seems to work.

[kosso_olli]

Vray5 (latest version)/MAX2020.

This is probably a stupid question but it's driving me crazy.

I have a super simple scene with a teapot which is inside a sphere.

There is a single vray light which lights the teapot but excludes the sphere..

The sphere has flipped normals and a vraymtl with diffuse noise texture. The sphere is lit by a single vray light which only includes the sphere. The sphere has it's Object Properties set such that it is NOT visible to the camera, does NOT cast or receive shadows. It is only visible to reflection/refraction. (Nothing is changed in default Vray Properties at this point).


When I render the scene, the sphere is not visible and the teapot properly shows the reflections of the noise texture from the sphere and the shadows from the light... but the teapot does NOT show the highlights from the light. The sphere is somehow blocking the highlights from the light.

If I hide the sphere and render... the highlights on the teapot are properly shown as are the shadows, but of course there are no reflections from the sphere as it is hidden. See attached images.

Is there a setting I'm missing which would stop the sphere from blocking the highlights from the light?

Thanks!

Well, with your description the results make sense to me. What you are seeing in your first image is the reflection of the sphere. Setting the sphere to not visible to camera does not influence its reflection behavior. Hence the blocked light.

[fixeighted]

Indeed; it will also block anything else outside that sphere, e.g. other objects, not just light.

The only odd thing is that although it blocks the reflection of anything outside, it renders the shadows of those objects just fine.
Who knows why?!

[Joelaff]

I have often thought it would be nice to be able to see highlights from lights through objects invisible to the camera like you describe.

This would be similar to invisible lights without the Occlude Other Lights turned on. Basically objects could have a vrayproperty to Occlude Lights (or not).

But it does not work like that at the moment.

[Mike Truly]

Sorry for the late reply... been away dealing with a family emergency.

Thanks very much for the ideas. I will have to get back to this.

Thanks again.