falloff control on VRAY lights

[digitalx3d]

Just what the topic says. These Vray lights behave just like geometry lights, in that everything is burned out very close to the light source, and then all of a sudden the light intensity fizzles to nothing.

I'd like to see an inverse falloff, or inverse squared. Something that gives the user control of the falloff as a function of distance.

John Pruden
Digital-X

[Dynedain]

vray lights should be inverse square falloff since that is how light behaves in reality

[percydaman]

umm... I thought they already used inverse square.

[Dynedain]

thats what i meant...vray lights are already inverse square, which is how light behaves, which is why there is no setting for it

If you need your light farther away and still bright, just move it and up the values

[trixian]

Still...would be nice with some custom controlls. A near and far attenuation dome maybe

[Geddart]

Hey digitalx3d,

Maybe you can manipulate the VrayLight to solve your Problem? With "No Decay", you will get the Standard Max Result. (yeah, Vray behaves normally naturally) With "Normalize Intensity" it locks the Light Intensity, while changing the Size of the Lightsource. (There is no Viewport representation of that now.)

I agree with you about the custom Fallofs. There could be far better Solutions for that. Brazil handles this quite elegant - not only for Energy Fallofs but also for the control of photons. Now i just saw a VIDEO from the C4D's Head's up Display. It's also very nice and smart. I think i will put something together from that Ideas.
Maybe you guys have some crazy ideas too?

[percydaman]

haha dydedain, reading your post I honestly thought you were agreeing that they needed to be that way.. my fault, I went to public school

[Dynedain]

honest mistake, i can see how it could be read one way or the other

but now that i think about it, limiting to inverse square is a good idea. Thats how all radiation works (be it radio, light, microwave...). The only reason that inverse has been around was because at one time, inverse square was computationaly expensive.

I think people will overall get better results when light behaves as expected rather than confusing them with one more option that could cause problems

[cocolas]

I second the need for some falloff controls on far/near atenuation....... there are time where I need that tight control even if it's not a "natural' behavior

maybe for 1.5 final?? :P

paul.

[percydaman]

maybe for 1.5 final??

hehe, considering how close 1.5 final is, thats probably not in the cards... unless its already implemented.

[cocolas]

hehehe....yeah I know ......just wishful thinking I guess


paul.

[fabrizio]

I need more decay controls on vray lights, as digitalx3d.

Thanx

[Geddart]

Hey People, how about some wild ideas.

As you might know i'm a fan of good workflow. VrayLights are powerful but their interface and options could be smarter and more powerful.
I collected some ideas with others. What do you think without worrying too much about programming now.
When we decided what to put in we could do a cool PS Mockup. Some cool suggestions ppl?

All lights bakeable in the Imap
Shadows on/off
Better (best) placing controls
Viewport representation of everything:
Targets. Fallofs. Projector Map. Portal.
Texture mapping capabilities for area lights
More Light Shapes (cylinders, torus, line)
Control over Photons. Number. Size. Change photons patterns?
Maybe a heads up display thing? With intensity, size- and custom controls. (I think one could do a max script automation for that)
Maybe a LightLister kind of workplace... with selection sets.
Quick Mass Editing Controls when selecting multiple Lights in the same modifier panel window. (different values are greyed)
IES Import / Efitor (saw cool one a few days ago)
Specular Ambient / GI Only.
Atmospherics Support and options.
Interpolated AreaShadows? R&D
Light Material Options + Link to Lightlist

Feel Free to add

[dusan]

Better exposure control?

[Nenad]

As an extend to (or instead of) adding more shapes, why not make it possible to convert any object to a VRay Light (while keeping the initial geometry, of course). Don't know how heavy this would be in terms of computation though (speaking of complex geometry light emitter computation, not the conversion).