Dear all
Please lend a hand with this one. I am attempting to make the flourescent light in this very simple scene look as real as possible.
I am using a commercially available ies file. positioned above the light which is designed to all light to go onto the ceiling as well as the floor/walls area and the light model accommodates this.
I wish to show the elements (objects7-36inc) shiny but not glowing and the flourescent tubes glowing without using the glow effect. When I use the photometric light with the flourescent light excluded it is unrealistic, equally so when it is included,
all help welcome. 
Copy of mill interior exp 1.zip (48.2 KB)
VECW5H15470.zip (797 Bytes)
This will depend partly on the material applied to the object, but mostly on the rest of your scene. As you can imagine there are quite a few more light sources and objects in a real-world scenario for this fixture that will make the reflections on the fixture much more interesting.
I am not too clear on this part. If you want the objects to show as if they are the source of illumination, but do not want them to actually contribute light to your scene, just create them as a VRayLightMtl and put that under a VRayMtlWrapper with Generate GI unchecked. Then if you need a glow effect, do it in post-render composition.
thnaksfor the help
Thanks a lot Beestee,
Had a try with the vray light material with the vray wrapper, and as you suggested I removed the GI, which seemed to help. As far as the scene set up was concerned, I excluded all but the flourescent light suspension wires/power cables, as well as the walls/ceiling of the room, so I would not get shadowing of the light itself. Results are included as attachments
If you have any further suggestions, would be greatful to hear them.
regards Nigel
VECW5H15470.zip (797 Bytes)
mill interior exp 1.zip (72.3 KB)
I think it looks pretty decent as it is now but just for the sake of mentioning it, sometimes fluorescent tubes have a little bit of a gradient falloff of light output towards the ends, and perhaps representing that on the tubes themselves could add a small layer of detail.
