V-Ray Next - Max standard light Ambient setting ignored?

[HenrikBC]

I have sometimes used a trick of overriding all materials with a 255 white shader and then placed a standard 3ds max directional light with far attenuation + ambient enabled, to make a falloff/height map, with a nice viewport visual aid for the in/out point.
I recall doing this with V-Ray as well, but when I try it now, it seems like the ambient option is ignored by V-Ray.

Has something changed? I would really like this functionality back.

[Martin.Minev]

Hello,

I tried to reproduce your issue here, but the ambient option is working as it was before according my test. Could you send us an example scene to support@chaosgroup.com, so we can reproduce your issue.
Please mention this thread as well.

[HenrikBC]

Thanks. I have sent an email with example scenes to the support email.

Also, here is two example renders to show the issue. One from V-Ray and one from Scanline. V-Ray produces the render with the sharp black falloff (as if the light was not set to ambient). Scanline produces the one where only the object parts touching the ground are completely black (where the far attenuation has been set to end on the directional light with the Ambient option enabled) - and this is the result I am after.

[HenrikBC]

Any news on this?
Vray Next update 2 still has the same issue.

[HenrikBC]

Vray Next update 2.1 still has this issue. It would be really nice to have this feature back, as it is extremely useful in my workflow to make custom masks with a very controllable falloff.
Is there another way to achieve the same result? The beauty of using a light is that they are visually easy to use in the viewport - and I can choose between directional, spot and omni.

[Martin.Minev]

Hello,

Apologies for the delay in our reply. We could not provide you any ETA currently. We will post here when we have any news. There is a workaround that will give you almost the same result.
You can assign VRayDistanceTex nested in VRayLightMtl to all the objects. Then create a plane and place it where the light is. You can adjust the distance parameter and move the plane until you got the desired falloff. Disable the render property of the plane and use it to drive the VRayDistance texture.
http://ftp.chaosgroup.com/support/sc...9_14-42-36.jpg
http://ftp.chaosgroup.com/support/sc...9_14-58-42.jpg

[HenrikBC]

Hi Martin

The VRayDistanceTex looks like a good workaround. Thank you!
But I am still hoping that the standard max light ambient option will come back sooner than later...