Light Select inside VFB like other render engines...?

[lightpixel]

In the Vray 3.6 demo I saw the usage of the Light Select Render Element in combination with NUKE. So I have no experience in Nuke and I dont? want to purchase this software only to use Vray Light Select.
Is there an other option to mix the lights accuate in Photoshop or at least in PDPlayer...? Sorry for the comparison with Corona, but the workaround with Light Select in vray is not very comfortabel...

[Alex_M]

I use Affinity Photo. It's 40 bucks so not that expensive at all and it's really nice because you can fully edit 16/32 bit floating point images unlike Photoshop. I did some tests with Light select in it and I was able to reproduce the same behavior as Nuke. Just use the Add operator on all your light select layers and you are all set.

[vlado]

Fusion is free...

Best regards,
Vlado

[lightpixel]

Yes, it could be done in Affinity when export as .exr and split into layers...already testet. but the results are noisy and the handling is inconvenient. Also tested in PDplayer..same noise results. But Ok, I give another scene a second try...

[lightpixel]

...also missing to be able to set the environment lightning as a light select element. At the moment only possible, when create environment lighting by a vray dome light.

[caypiranha]

Fusion is free...

Best regards,
Vlado

limited for UHD output, thats sometimes to low for quite some reasons

[Ihno]

Natron is pretty nuke like and open Source.

[dans]

Is there an other option to mix the lights accuate in Photoshop or at least in PDPlayer...?

psd-manager can help you with the Photoshop / Affinity / AfterEffects workflow. All VRayLightSelect elements you have in your scene will have the "Linear Dodge (Add)" blending mode applied automatically by default (this is the built-in psd-manager preset at work) and all VRayLighSelect elements will be arranged together in the PSD file because they are of the same type (this is the Auto-Sort mode). So even if you have some other elements in between your render elements, like when adding some additional Light Select elements later on they will still end up all together in the PSD file. Also a VRayBackground layer will automatically be sorted below your VRayLighSelect elements if you use it.

You can reproduce the beauty pass in 32-bit HDR PSDs and also in 8,16 bits per channel files (this is because of the special Gamma Adjustment layer that psd-manager adds). This way you can work linear in 8/16 bits per channel files, which is required to correctly combine the render elements (and is automatic in 32-bit files). Any clipping of colors in the highlights will of course limit your ability to adjust things in 8/16 bits per channel. A good workflow for Photoshop is start with a 32-bit PSD and once you need to switch to 16-bit mode you put all the LightSelect layers together inside a new Smart Object. This way VRayLightSelect layers remain in 32-bit mode inside the Smart Object.

I'm scripting something for automatic creation of the VRayLightSelect elements at the moment to improve the workflow further. How does everyone organize their lights in the scene? You will not want to have one Light Select element per light if you use many. So far I can group them based them on the 3ds max scene layer they are in.

Daniel