circular plane light

[joconnell]

There's supposed to be an option coming in to use luminance as alpha to prevent those black edges appearing as a "card" with the light.

And yep, we could use a disc shaped light with the directional parameter, we just need the disc shaped light

I'd say in terms of a good light for lights we need:

Plane
Sphere
Dome
Box - Approximate box shaped lamp shades
Cylinder - fluorescent tubes
Disc - headlights, torches, spotlights

Any other regular shapes we could add to this?

[voltron7]

As for a VraySpotLight, couldn't you just use the Directional parameter with a plane or disc shaped VRayLight to achieve this?

Yes, that's what I do, but the wish stands

[RockinAkin]

I'd say in terms of a good light for lights we need:

Plane
Sphere
Dome
Box - Approximate box shaped lamp shades
Cylinder - fluorescent tubes
Disc - headlights, torches, spotlights

Any other regular shapes we could add to this?

Could be cool to have checkboxes to enable or disable emission from any one of the 6 faces of the 'box' light.

[AndresAhumada]

Okay, so I did all of these steps to get a disc light.
1. added a softboxmap
2. enable texture on plane light
3. place map into texture of vray plane light.
4. enter softbox texture and turn on hotspot
5. test rendering
6-9 more tinkering in softbox and rendering
10. results still no good, go back into softbox texture again, change base color to black (no idea why, just wild guess.)
11. test render again
12. now I have a black rectangle with a white disc.
13. model the light fixture and abandon the workaround.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]19556[/ATTACH]

Would rather in 1 step have a true disc vraylight at creation. (-Beats dead horse-)
Thanks

I think the idea of the look, s does not go in the direction of how to create a light "similar characteristics" to a light disc type.

The objective is to speed up the way they work and reduce steps to create this type of elements.

two clicks and ready! ...

[YoyoBoy]

With the Softbox you just tick on Radial Vignette, and Invert and it works. But yeah, you still have the problem of the corners of the light being visible.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Here is one example how VrayPlaneLight could be tweaked to work as DiscLight:

Scene:disclight.zip

The trick here is to use VraySoftBox texture as a transparency mask, not directly as a texture.
With that setup the VrayPlaneLight would work exactly as DiscLight, you could change the radius of the light by changing HalfWidth and HalfLengh parameters.
It is a workaround I admit that but adding two more textures without tweaking any settings doesn't require too much time.
The result will be exactly the same as the one produced from a real DiscLight - you could compare it with the PlaneLight on the right side.
You could even use directional parameter to make the illumination of the light less diffuse.

[kosso_olli]

Nice idea Svetlozar,
however, there is a problem with the directionality parameter in your setup. First of all, make the material for the ground a bit reflective, so that you can see the reflections of the lights in the floor. Make a test render, everything looks the way it should.
Now set the directionality parameter to .9 to get a harder shadow and hit render. The reflection is now messed up, looks like shifted in one direction. See picture 1.
Even more weird: Disable the texture for the light, render again. See picture 2. Is this correct?

[cheerioboy]

Here is one example how VrayPlaneLight could be tweaked to work as DiscLight:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]19629[/ATTACH]
Scene:[ATTACH]19630[/ATTACH]

The trick here is to use VraySoftBox texture as a transparency mask, not directly as a texture.
With that setup the VrayPlaneLight would work exactly as DiscLight, you could change the radius of the light by changing HalfWidth and HalfLengh parameters.
It is a workaround I admit that but adding two more textures without tweaking any settings doesn't require too much time.
The result will be exactly the same as the one produced from a real DiscLight - you could compare it with the PlaneLight on the right side.
You could even use directional parameter to make the illumination of the light less diffuse.

I can't open the file in max 2012, what are you loading into the VRayLight texture that allows for the softbox to be used as a transparency mask?
I suppose if this is the solution then you could also just make a circular texture with alpha - maybe a set of them for different color temperatures.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Here is the 2012 version of the scene.disclight_2012.zip
There are some issue with the directional parameter if it is raised above 0.7 not sure why is that, I have to confirm it with our Devs.

[cheerioboy]

Thanks Svetlozar, this does look like a promising work-around. Personally if we didn't want to code all these lights, having a 'cutout' slot to then place a shape and still have the lighting color temperature and other functions available would be awesome.

Here's an image charting the oddness in the lights color as the directional parameter changes


*3dsmax 2012, Vray 3.00.05

[vlado]

Here's an image charting the oddness in the lights color as the directional parameter changes

This is normal for the way directonality is implemented right now and is not a bug. The directionality forces the light to emit in the forward direction and if you are looking at it from the side, it will appear dark.

This is of course, not what people normally expect; real-world lights have more complex directional distribution of the emission that hardly ever goes to black - the light emits *mostly* forward, but there is still some general diffuse emission. We will probably need to add some additional control over that.

Best regards,
Vlado

[AndresAhumada]

Thx Vlado..!!!

But I still think the idea is to provide a solution to decrease the steps to achieve the effect. The idea is to simplify use.

[vlado]

But I still think the idea is to provide a solution to decrease the steps to achieve the effect. The idea is to simplify use.

For the directionality? I don't see how it can be any simpler... If you mean a circular light, then I can see where it can be useful and one of the guys is actually looking into it right now, but I somehow fail to see what's so exciting about it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I didnt read this lovely 5 page thread but does vray light > custom shape > circle (nurbs for example)> fail to get the job done?

[vlado]

I didnt read this lovely 5 page thread but does vray light > custom shape > circle (nurbs for example)> fail to get the job done?

It works, certainly. However the guys seem to want it as a built-in option, like the rectangle/sphere/dome light. In 3ds Max, it would be just another type in the light drop-list while in Maya it will probably end up as an option for the rectangle light (which would not be rectangle anymore, but just a planar light).

Best regards,
Vlado