Consistent Lighting Elements // Vray Lights "Affect Reflection/Specular" does not change to old behaviour

[Sirsilent]

Did this problem ever get fixed? This is the reason why we never upgraded to Vray 5. I still have the problem with Vray Next.

[belusart01]

I've been working the same way in Vray for years as well, automotive and the same type of blend materials for paint you described. Dome 1 affect diff/spec and dome 2 affect refl. Just recently started to use Vray 5 and was disappointed they changed this behavior with the domes. I also am in a workflow that used the older version render elements instead of putting indirect reflections in the Refl RE and direct reflections in the Spec RE. Turning off consistent render elements does nothing. But it turns out if you disable adaptive dome on you dome lights, this should fix the issues with both problems you're having.

[belusart01]

Ok, seems this still doesn't actually work. It breaks as soon as you add some reflection glossy in your materials. After a co-worker told me the fix to revert back with the above steps, when I actually used it on a project I found out it doesn't actually work. Had a few others test on a simple scene and confirm that it actually doesn't work. So the last version I have personally used that I know turning off consistent lighting elements worked, was Vray Next. This is really a hurdle in the automotive world where I'm at because we all have workflows/pipelines that depend on getting the render elements the old way. More so in the lighting process. To turn off affect reflections on a light to add spec only or the opposite, add some reflections on some glossy trim pieces, there's no longer a way to do this workflow that we've all relied on for many years. In Vray 5, there seems to be no way of doing this anymore.

It does state in the documentation turning this off will render as it did before. Hard to tell if it actually does but there is definitely a bug with lights if so in Vray 5 specifically. I can't have a light affect the reflection if I specify only reflection on it or spec if I only checkbox affect spec. Everything a light contributes goes in spec and nothing else. Reflection checkbox, as stated by others, does not work anymore. From the comments, Chaos seems to not understand the issue? Sure trying to split it out in post could work but seems it still won't get what I had in version before Vray 5. For instance, if I have a light with a gradient ramp I want to add a nice reflective gradient across some glossy material, even with consistent off, it's all controlled by the affect specular checkbox on that light. So when you look at the reflection RE, the reflection is in there and if you look at the spec RE, there is specular contribution. I don't want any spec contribution but I have no choice anymore. Whereas before, I would just uncheck on the light diff and spec, those REs would never have any contribution from that light and I could just add that gradient reflection where I wanted. I guess my point is, sure maybe I could work around it, subtract it out but I don't think I should have to as the Consistent Lighting checkbox states Vray will work as it did in Next and before.

Has anyone found a solution? Or will you guys at Chaos revert the function or turning off consistent lighting elements back to how it worked in Vray Next?

[kristian_turner]

The solution for the HDRI seems to work (disable 'Consistent lighting elements', disable 'Dome Adaptive' on ALL dome lights in the scene). Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to get the 'effect reflection' option of a rectangle light to disable the reflection on fully glossy surfaces anymore. I use this a lot in automotive lighting to add bounce light to metallic paints without seeing the light source in the clearcoat. This is also a problem when using light selects, the 'Direct illumination' option also contains additional reflection information rather than just diffuse and specular contributions as it did in V-Ray Next. I understand the reason for the change but the compositing workaround doesn't help when doing live lighting sessions with photographers, this is a big tool to be missing from my workflow.