Custom light/material development

[Robert1977]

Hi,

I've just started studying the SDK documentation and samples.

First off, in vrayarch.html it says:
"An example [...] can be found in the "renderer" sample in the \samples\renderer folder of the V-Ray SDK."
However, no such folder exists - and without these samples it's hard to understand the SDK. Also, I am missing sample plugins like the VRayLightMtl.

So I must bother you with these two questions:

1. Where can I find the files mentioned above?

2. I have to develop a custom photometric light, which will be able to adopt any shape of geometry (not only plane, sphere and dome). Essentially, it will have the same effect as a VRayLightMtl, only being physically correct - with properties like luminance, radiance etc...
Do you have any tips how to start writing such a light/material? Can I just modify the VRayLightMtl? If yes, do I somewhere find its code?

Thank you so much

[pixelstudio]

Hey there,

You proberly have looked at the samples that are included with vray, they are found in your chaosgroup/V-Ray/<version of vray>/samples/3dsmaxplugins folder

but i thought there is not a sample of a light in there.

[Robert1977]

Yeah, right,

but where can I find an introduction to light development? Or, as I said, maybe it would be enough if I had the VRayLightMtl source so I could modify it.

[pixelstudio]

Writing plugins for 3dsmax/vray is not that easy if you ask me i'v been strugling with the sdk for a while now. it's gettings a bit more clear but still far from understandping it all

One example of a light that i could found was the good'n old "omni". but well writing a custom light for vray is maybe a bit hard

[vlado]

VRayLightMtl is a material, not a light; so if you want to write materials, it's one thing, but for lights its entirely different. For the VRayLightMtl specifically, I can get you the sources if you email me to vlado@chaosgroup.com; its sources are not in the SDK as it is part of the core V-Ray package.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Robert1977]

Thanks for the info, Vlado. Currently me (Robert) and Christoph are publishing posts under the same account, cause we are in the same department and are occupied with the lighting tasks.
I will ask him if he wants the sources for the VrayLight, otherwise we have integrated the formula that calculates the surface of the object and calculates the photometric units out of it for the VRayLightMaterial (your hint)

Cheers

Robert