Mesh Lights

[Danielhruby]

I am have some trouble with mesh lights. I dont see a VRay Mesh light option. I do see that if you choose a Portal Light, you get some fields to select a mesh. I assumed that was how to wrangle a mesh light into Vray, but I don't see it illuminating my mesh. Even if I crank up the power up to 10000. Any secrets here?

[1funk]

V-ray added mesh lights before they were available in modo, so they work a little differently.

You need to add an area light, then go to the > vray light tab > light mesh, and select a mesh

I hope we get native modo mesh light support one day

[Danielhruby]

OK. I will try that. Why do portal lights have the same mesh loading option? Perhaps you can put all your glass in one mesh layer and the choose that to be the definition of your portal light? So you dont have to go around the project placing perfectly size portals at all windows? If so, that would be pretty sweet workflow! I suppose it needs to know which side of the glass is camera side (inside) and which is sun/sky.

[vladimir.nedev]

Yes, you can use a mesh as a portal, that's why the option is there.
However, the original mesh is removed from the scene, when it's used as a mesh/portal light, so what you are suggesting won't work, because all your glass objects will disappear.

Also, I am not sure using your window geometry will be as efficient as using simpler geometry.
I haven't really used mesh lights as portals. You can maybe find more information on the internet, if that's a viable technique.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Danielhruby]

I could easily grab a single pane of glass from all the windows in the scene and copy paste them into another mesh and uses that for Portal Lights. That way they can disappear and still work. Does the normal direction of the pane matter? IE should I use the side of glass facing in or out?

[vladimir.nedev]

You should use the side of the glass facing in.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev