nightly bug: // Error: Light instances are not supported //

[snivlem]

Hi,

Before in many versions of V-Ray since like 2009 we could instance vray lights. I noticed in the recent updates (tried testing the latest build) and now maya spits out this error message;

// Error: Light instances are not supported //

The outliner seems to contain the lights and they work, but it doesn't appear in the viewport.

[ydm]

Since Maya 2017 there is a special classification class that allows V-Ray to disguise all of its lights as "authentic" Maya lights.

Thanks to this all V-Ray lights can now be previewed in the viewport by selecting "Use All Lights" (or clicking 7).

The bad consequence of this is, since Maya doesn't allow light instancing, V-Ray now suffers the same limitation.

Does this cause a problem for your scene? How many lights you have and, if copied (instead of instanced), is it significantly slower?

[snivlem]

That makes sense.

It's not a problem with speed - it's just that we used to control temps and intensity of whole carparks/offices etc with one single instanced light which was really useful.

I guess there are workarounds though (by using ramps to control multiple non instanced lights in future). Thanks for explaining what's going on.

[ydm]

You can still control multiple V-Ray lights at once by manipulating their input attributes. For example:

[snivlem]

Thanks - yes that is what I'll do now.