Standard Lights vs V-Ray Lights

[Teriander]

Since I first started using V-Ray in 2005, I've always used V-Ray lights to light my scenes. I've felt they make my scenes feel more natural when rendering with V-Ray, instead of using Standard lights rendered with V-Ray. A colleague in my office insist on using Standard lights when rendering with V-Ray, even going as far as removing my V-Ray lights to replace them with her standard lights if she takes over my scene. As a result, her renders do not feel as sharp as mine do. Or appear they could look better.

My question is, what are the exactly issues when using standard lights instead of V-Ray so I can explain to her and my boss why rendering with V-Ray lights in V-Ray is better. Or maybe I'm wrong? Do you use Standard lights still?

[voltron7]

Sorry, I've no answer, but also wonder about this from time to time...maybe she is just more comfortable with using the standard lights?

[Teriander]

Sorry, I've no answer, but also wonder about this from time to time...maybe she is just more comfortable with using the standard lights?

That's usually a sign of fear of change. I think if you're going to learn V-Ray, you should learn it all the way. Learn the V-Ray Modifiers, Materials, Lighting, and of course the GI/Rendering options. Why learn everything about V-Ray, then say "I think I'm going to stick with Standard lights, V-Ray lights are confusing." Clearly V-Ray lights are designed for V-Ray, I just need more evidence why they're better than Standard.

[Neilg]

is she swapping out your vray ies lights, or deleting your big plane area lights and swapping them?

ies isnt such a big deal but there is a render time difference.
people deleting things from scenes because they don't understand it and remake it in an out of date method rather than spend a minute learning something drive me mad.

[Teriander]

is she swapping out your vray ies lights, or deleting your big plane area lights and swapping them?

ies isnt such a big deal but there is a render time difference.
people deleting things from scenes because they don't understand it and remake it in an out of date method rather than spend a minute learning something drive me mad.

Depends, mostly if she's taking over my scene and a new space or room is added, she'll lite this new room with Standard lights or Direct lights. If my IES are effecting her new area in a way, she'll remove the IES that bother her. I primarily use IES. But sometimes I use V-Ray Light planes as a fill light, like for Chandeliers or something. For exteriors I use the V-Ray Sun system mixed with a HDRI (V-Ray Light Dome). She still uses the Standard Direct Lights from multiple directions, and wraps a jpg sky around a half sphere for exteriors. It kills me.

[voltron7]

That's usually a sign of fear of change. I think if you're going to learn V-Ray, you should learn it all the way. Learn the V-Ray Modifiers, Materials, Lighting, and of course the GI/Rendering options. Why learn everything about V-Ray, then say "I think I'm going to stick with Standard lights, V-Ray lights are confusing." Clearly V-Ray lights are designed for V-Ray, I just need more evidence why they're better than Standard.

Yes, I also wonder what the main downfalls of standard lights are (with V-Ray), even though I don't use them with V-ray (just seems wrong for some reason.)
I never use the standard ones, but couldn't really say exactly why...first I had assumed they were not really supported.

[Art48]

What I did notice is that, for example, the SpotLight (also the OmniLight) doesn't have a reflection component, it's all specular, whereas the VRayLight can also act as actual reflectable geometry. I've modified the SpotLight by writing a script which attaches a sphere to the SpotLight with the same intensity as the spotlight itself (VRayLightMtl) to get actual reflections from that light source and so far it works good for me.

Edit: On that note it would be wonderful to have an actual SpotLight, same controls et cetera natively for VRay. I love all the controls and I am aware of the "Directional" feature of the VRayLight and while it works right in a technical way it is just not userfriendly at all.

[alexyork]

Using non-vray lights with vray is akin to using non-vray materials with vray. It will work but it's not a good idea, generally. The exception is that occasionally I find a normal old max target direct light can make for a more easily-controlled sunlight than vray's sun through a daylight system etc. But in all other instances I would always, always use vray lights. They are designed to work with vray materials and the renderer itself, properly. You will minimise your chances of issues if you stick to this solid workflow. There's also the fact that it's very easy to reshape a vray light from plane to disc to sphere to object on the fly. If you use max lights you're stuck.

I would strongly encourage your colleague to adopt a full vray workflow for these reasons.

[AlexP]

She still uses the Standard Direct Lights from multiple directions, and wraps a jpg sky around a half sphere for exteriors. It kills me.

Madness
How do their renders look though? Its tough to convince someone stubborn to change their workflow if they are getting good results.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

She still uses the Standard Direct Lights from multiple directions, and wraps a jpg sky around a half sphere for exteriors. It kills me.

Women. No1 understand them : p

[Teriander]

Madness
How do their renders look though? Its tough to convince someone stubborn to change their workflow if they are getting good results.

I can literally count the pixels on her sky because it's being stretched around the sphere. Since she uses more than one direct light for a daytime system it feels like her scene is on a planet with two suns. So you probably get the idea. But to the untrained eye it isn't noticed.

[AlexP]

I can literally count the pixels on her sky because it's being stretched around the sphere. Since she uses more than one direct light for a daytime system it feels like her scene is on a planet with two suns. So you probably get the idea. But to the untrained eye it isn't noticed.

This would drive me actually insane working with someone like this.

[alexyork]

I can literally count the pixels on her sky because it's being stretched around the sphere. Since she uses more than one direct light for a daytime system it feels like her scene is on a planet with two suns. So you probably get the idea. But to the untrained eye it isn't noticed.

How does that work... what a mess. I would suggest you get a training video or something and have everyone watch it in the office. That way hopefully she would learn some new techniques and would not feel singled-out.

[Teriander]

How does that work... what a mess. I would suggest you get a training video or something and have everyone watch it in the office. That way hopefully she would learn some new techniques and would not feel singled-out.

That's the alternative, but I thought I'd post here to see if maybe one of you guys or Chaosgroup could elaborate the benefit of using V-Ray lights over Standard. So I can explain and say "See, even Chaosgroup doesn't recommend using Standard Lights." Because my word is not enough for her.

[Vizioen]

I too find myself guilty of using non-vray lights. I didn't know it was considered a crime . As I'm reading here I tried to look for the alternatives in Vray for let's say an omni light with parameters like attenuation or a regular spotlight with falloff and such (those are the only standard lights I use actually). I can't really find a good way of replicating my examples with vray. As I understand I only have a Regular light ( sphere, plane, dome, mesh), an IES an Ambient and a Sun in Vray. Any thoughts?