Dome VS Plane Light Portal

[Morne]

So which technique is the latest to get this done fastest and prettiest?

Are we sticking the VRaySky in a Domelight, or still just using VRayPlane lights in Skylight Portal mode in front of windows?

I'm on the latest nightly

[crazy homeless guy]

Skylight portal mode isn't that great. You will get a lot more detail in your shadows using planes in regular mode.

[vlado]

If you are using the VRaySky, then leave it as an environment map and use portals. There is not much point to use a dome light for the VRaySky texture - it makes much more sense for HDRIs.

Best regards,
Vlado

[StateofArt]

Hi Guys,
I've just noticed that in 3.4 the dome light has now the option for the skylight portal mode. Could you please help me understanding in which scenario you'd need it?
Thanks!

Peo

[LudvikKoutny]

Hi Guys,
I've just noticed that in 3.4 the dome light has now the option for the skylight portal mode. Could you please help me understanding in which scenario you'd need it?
Thanks!

Peo

Wow, I just noticed it finally works! It's something I requested long time ago. Basically an option to have domelight always use environment map as a texture, so you don't need to keep manually instancing your environment map to the domelight texture slot every time you change it.

So to word it better, if you enable skylight portal on domelight, domelight will always use environment map as its texture.

The question I have though, is that if simple portal mode makes any difference here.

EDIT: Actually do not use it, it seems bugged. If you have your environment map plugged inside of texture slot, and have skylight portal enabled, then it works, but kind of loses the point. If you have texture slot in dome light empty, and enable skylight portal mode, then it somewhat mixes environment illumination with dome light color.

[StateofArt]

Hi Recon,
thank you very much for the explanation.
I see the point now, of course if it works
Thanks again

Peo

[vlado]

Well, we can make it take the environment map if skylight portal is enabled. Should be fairly easy too...

Best regards,
Vlado

[LudvikKoutny]

Well, we can make it take the environment map if skylight portal is enabled. Should be fairly easy too...

Best regards,
Vlado

Go for it I would also freeze "Simple" checkbox if the light is Dome to avoid confusion

Also, what confused me in my previous post is that skylight portal checkbox used to do nothing in previous versions as far as I remember. Now it does something... something like projecting 50% of environment, and 50% of its own color.

[joconnell]

I must admit I like the vray sky in a dome light option purely so I can use a light select for sky and a separate one for the sun and fiddle in post.

[Morne]

For Interiors, a test this week showed that (dome with vraysky), or (dome with vraysky AND skylight portal), still doesn't come close to plane lights in portal mode, like Vlado also mentioned a bit further up the page

[kosso_olli]

Well, we can make it take the environment map if skylight portal is enabled. Should be fairly easy too...

Best regards,
Vlado

Is this in any way related to the matte problems described elsewhere? Sorry for the confusion, but that is a thing that is still bothering me.

[vlado]

Is this in any way related to the matte problems described elsewhere? Sorry for the confusion, but that is a thing that is still bothering me.

No, but there are a few changes related to that in SP5: a) dome lights will work right away, no need to override the GI environment with black and b) a button on the toolbar to turn the currently selected object into a shadow catcher with all the right settings. So, basically, producing a shadow catcher will be just one mouse click.

Best regards,
Vlado

[kosso_olli]

Glad to hear! Thanks, looking forward to try that out.

[Morne]

OK, so with VRaySun and VRaySky with the latest SP etc, for interiors, are we using domelight with VRaySky plugged into it, or still the plane lights in portal mode?

[flat]

It is a similar question.

At V-Ray Next, should VRaySky be set to Dome Light to use Adaptive Dome sampling?

Or if use VRaySkey Enviroment, is Adaptive Dome sample unnecessary?