Lowering sun values isn't equal lowering materials to 0.255

Hello friends !

Is it true, or is it wrong ?

To get the float to the value 1, we do have two different ways:
a) Lowering the intensity of the Vray Sun
b) Lowering the materials to 0.255

Now, if I use method a) and I lower the intensity of the sun, I will not get the same full spectrum of levels like I would get if I use method b) ?

I was searching for an answer here, but couldn’t find.
I thought it doesn’t matter if you choose a) or b) ???

I was looking the video tutorials you can find here:
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17824

and in the video tutorial, I couldn’t really hear, that method a) wouldn’t be equal to method b).

thx for every little help,
appreciate that much,
bernhard

The methods are not equal. Changing the sun affects the overall scene brightness, while changing the materials changes the way light is distributed in your scene (e.g. each light bounce will be weaker).

Best regards,
Vlado

hmmm…

Thank you vlado for you respond.

Well, i’s kind of interesting, it may not equal from the mathematic point of view, but it seems to be, that it doesn’t matter for the render itself.

I’ve tested two methods, and I can reach pretty much the same result…

but now, I could hear, don’t do it, never use the Vray Sun with lower settings, because so you will not get the full range of levels, and you will not get the full power of the vray sun and sky system.

What I could find out in my studies:
The core to match the vray sun and sky system with the max material system, which is to bright if we would leave the usual difuse settings to the level 1.

I think that’ s the main reason, why so many people are talking about 0.255 method in rendering, which means nothing more than lowering the brightness of the materials, because it would be to much.

Ok, but the opposite way, would be to lower the sun & sky system, and let the materials like they are… it’s the opposite way I think, but I am also convinced, that you can use the whole power of the vray system. Ant that’s the point, because people told me before, that this is a big mistake, and it’s not true.

That’s the point, why I am a little bit confused, and I wanted to clearify that.

Thank you very much for all your comments, ideas, and thoughts.

bernhard

.255

I don’ t know… since 1.5 I no longer have to mess with that. The vray camera seems to expose just fine now.

The reason for the .255 method was that the sky intensity was off in the older builds. It’s not anymore, so you’ll get much better results by default. (and even better when using LWF)

hmm..

I think I did miss something very important

We still use Vray 1.5 RC 3, and we’ve got now the 1.5, but we didn’t install yet.

but just to understand:
In Vray 1.5, the vray sun & sky sytem is now matching up with the vray standard materials in 3dsmax ?

so, if I would use older scene files now with 1.5, and I would have lowered the materials to 0.255, I do need to set it back to 1, right ?

:?: hmm… thx for every little help,
bernhard

If you do you’ll be asked when opening the scene if you want to use the old system for that scene or not. If you choose to do so you don’t have to change anything.