automatic lights on openings

[kpavlov]

When ever I render interior I have to place vray lights on windows and when I have many of them its time consuming project.
I remember whyle I was working in lightscape you could define openings and windows and Lightscape automatically do something like that.

I would like to have something like that in vray if its posible.
The idea is to merge all objects that represents glass windows in one object and than I would just select faces oriented inside interior and make them light emitters, and thats it.

Vray has square lights and i supose it wouldnt be a problem that it automaticly create lights for square windows but if window isnt square but round or deformed that would be problem but could be solved also with square light becouse it doesnt matter if some part of lights are inside walls. Or maybe you can make lights diferent shape than square?

Just an idea.

[jujubee]

Different shapes of lights have been suggested before. I think what you describe is just as much work as having to put in a vraylight plane - I don't really see how that saves much time as vray/max would have to 'guess' geometry and would probably do so incorrectly. Personally, I don't want my doors and room openings to automatically throw lights in only to find out mid-render.

I haven't used lightscape so can't say it was any easier.

[Da_elf]

or for it to throw in lights only to find out your doing a night scene hehe

[studioDIM]

A simple workaround would be to assign to that layer a VRayLight Material, even though you'd have to forcefully calculate GI to see the benefits...

You could also assign the same environment map (sperically mapped) to the material, and have them behave much like a VRay Light with "Skylight portal enabled.

And it would work with a night scene as well :P

Lele

[kpavlov]

Imagine how long would it take to position 100 vray lights and its not just copy and position it on their place but you have to scalle it also.

This way you could just select all windows by material selection.
Thats one click.
Merge it to one object. Thats second click.
And than just select inner faces of windows and apply vraylight to it at the end. I think thats ten times quicker than scaling and positioning lights on their positions.

I dont like vray matterials much becouse they dont have quality as normal lights and I would like to controll subdivisions for shadows of lights.

They wouldnt invent this option for Lightscape if its not good.

[Da_elf]

why are more people switching from lightscape to vray if its not good. hehe just a joke. honestly lightscape was mainly for arch viz stuff. vray is not only for arch viz so if they keep cramming more and more stuff in it for arch viz then its going to be too bogged down for the people who dont need it. im sure there has to be a way you can write a max script that will automatically copy and scale vray lights into any opening. besides. wouldnt 1 singular dome light do the same thing as all those vray lights in the windows?

[studioDIM]

This way you could just select all windows by material selection.
Thats one click.

Two, after a keypress

Merge it to one object. Thats second click.

Nope: you'd have a hundred objects selected: you'd have to select only one of them (one click), attach multiple (another), select all the other 99 (one click and a drag, plus another click or a keypress)

And than just select inner faces of windows and apply vraylight to it at the end.

This would mean a LOT of work if the windows are doublefaced and thin, more if their positions are not in a regular pattern.

I think thats ten times quicker than scaling and positioning lights on their positions.

I think not.
Ever tried the Align command? (Alt+a)

Besides, it's really a LOT quicker, setup-wise, to just select your windows layer (one left, one right, and one left click) and assign to them all the VRayLight material.(one click)

I dont like vray matterials much becouse they dont have quality as normal lights and I would like to controll subdivisions for shadows of lights.

The shadow quality of VraylightMaterials is controlled through the IRMap quality (it can be just as precise as a raytraced area in a vast number of cases).
Also, in the case of a hundred Arealights, with a good enough sampling level to notice the difference from the IRcomputed VRLightMtl, you'd end up with a VERY long render.
There, it would surely be a LOT faster to just let the IRMap do the job for you.

They wouldnt invent this option for Lightscape if its not good.

They wouldn't have resorted to a mesh based, vertex coloured GI solution, if they could have done better.
They could not, they were bought off, and now they sit as a secondary method of GI calculation inside another app.
You are talking of something that's very very old, in computergraphics.
That engine has been updated after a few years with the max 7.5 addons.
It's now adaptive, in the way it triangulates the scene objects.
Pity is that to get anywhere near a VRay (you pick the method of choice) solution for GI, even for the simplest of scenes, the memory requirements for the meshing part skyrocket.
And regathering is slow, and prone to artifacts.

In one word, LS is well three feet under.
Long live LS

[RErender]

I wrote a script that would place a vray light at every window pane, I think I've lost it though. :P

Not to hard to do maybe I'll write it again.

[kpavlov]

To SudioDIM. I see you dont have new Logitec laser mouse MXSLR 120008,
so you have to click so many time for one operation.

[studioDIM]

that, and i've been a *tad* overzealous

Lele