is Emissive material involved in caustics effects?

[skysurfer]

I'm trying to render a light fixture parabola and I would know if it is possible to simulate the light using a geometry instead of a light.

Any help will be appreciate.

Riccardo

[fpedrogo]

You can use emissive material to simulate light, but I don't recommend you to do that. The V-Ray for Rhino emissive material is not a direct light and at this point we don't have the feature to convert it to direct light. Thus you will need a very high GI setting to avoid the splotches that the emissive material produce when you are using it on small object. Because the emissive material is related to the GI and not to a direct light you will not get very good caustics. So the best solution is use one of the V-Ray light inside the parabola fixture ( omni light is very good for caustics) to illuminate the scene and the emissive material to simulate that the fixture is producing the illumination.
You can also use IES, spot light or sphere light inside the parabola fixture.

Best

[skysurfer]

Thanks for the explanation, very clear and exhaustive.

At the end I made 6 point light simulating the shape of the Lamp.
Not perfectly but good enough.

Just curiosity, would this feature available at certain point?
-R-

[fpedrogo]

Hi
Our goal is to have of the features that you can find in V-Ray for 3DS Max available in V-Ray for Rhino, but to be honest I'm not sure when we are going to include this one.

Best