volumetric lights and vray issues...

[cocolas]

hey all,

I started to play around w/ volumetric lights and vray earlier and I noticed a few limitations that i was wondering if any of you would know how to overcome....

first I tried standard volumentrics w/ spots and I noticed in both max and vray the only work correctry w/ shadowMap shadows.....w/ vray shadows the volumetrics won't even appear....let alone cast shadows correctly.. ....was wondering if any of you found a solution around this...where one could use max volumetrics w/ vray and lights w/ vray shadows and still cast correct shadows (i.e. light not going straight through an object when a volumetric effect is attached to it)

then I tried Scatter VL (J Bug posted a lnk to it a while back: http://www.afterworks.com/SVLFirst.htm)
and I had a little more luck w/ it in the sense that the volumetric worked w/ vray (you can see it) even with vray shadows for the volumetric light, but it still didn't cast shadows correctly (light/volumetric was still going through solid objects) when the light had vrayShadws......it only worked well when the light had shadowMap shadows....

is there a way to use lights w/ vray and vrayShadows WITH volumetrics and have it work correctly??? (meaning displaying the volume and shadows from solid objects)

thanks in advance!!!

paul.

EDIT: I guess vray does work w/ max volumetrics as long as the light still has shadowMap shadows....

[J_Bug]

All your tests match what I last read about volumetrics in VRay.

In VRay:
Shadow Maps work with both ScatterVL and standard Volume Light.
VRayShadows turn off the Volume Light but will leave ScatterVL on minus shadow casting.

--Jon

[cocolas]

yeah...i figured those were the limitations....
I guess I'll just have to work w/ this......

thanks Jon,

paul.