Hello,
Is it possible to find out if soft shadow is possible when watching the ies data in wordpad or similar ?
For what data should I search ?
regards,
I did some research into this a while ago, you’re in luck.
open the ies file and you’ll see this at the start: (important bit bolded)
"[FONT=Microsoft Sans Serif]IESNA:LM-63-2002
U100000_0
ERCO Leuchten GmbH
20-11-2007
ERCO Leuchten GmbH
22405023
LC Downlight
MRC16 50W 10°
TILT=NONE
1 900 1 19 1 1 [/FONT][FONT=Microsoft Sans Serif]2 -0.051 -0.051 0
thats the scale of the light. for some reason, they’re all set to minus values on most files i see - which max doesnt read properly. [/FONT]
[FONT=Microsoft Sans Serif]the first is units (1 is feet, 2 is meters)
the last 3 are width, length and height. [/FONT]
so by making those postive and larger range, you get soft shadows?
I never got them to work in vray for maya
O
The VRay IES lights have a switch for the softshadows. The defaulat value is “OFF”.
Hope this helps.
Paul
Doesnt matter if it’s on or off - a lot of ones we have are in minus values (all the erco ones, etc) and they’ll still come out sharp.
So how would you solve that?
What parameter would you change, or up in the IES file… Very curious now. I love the technique and like to use it.
Thanks HEAPS for this invaluable info!!!
I’ll buy you a beer or 2 for that!!!
Thanks again:)
Jamie
WOW !!! thank you very much cubiclegangster.
I wasn’t hoping for such a great answer… Couldn’t test right now but i’m hoping to get now soft shadows out of my IES files changing the size parameters.
I’ll owe you a Beer too 
Do you know if it’s possible to add that information, if it’s not in the IES file ?
regards