Hi. There is a little proposition about Vray lights. Lots of users of other r/s often say about pour Vray shadows when you use Vray light at the window area in interior scene. Some times some objects are “flying in the air”. I tried to solve the problem using Max’s Photometric Free Area Light insted of Vray light. When you render the scene using IRR maps and direct in the secondary bonces It works even better then Vray light. To get good shadows you can simply set up thair size and softness not changing the size of the light. You get beautyful strong shadows.
But Free Area Light need a little correction at the corners that are at the window. And it does not work good with photons. Here is the scene I used
Free Area Light with photons. First I put Vray Light at the window and render photons to a file (save it as file) Than to get good shadows I turn off Vray Light and turn on Free Area Light and read photons from file (made with Vray Light). I was not able to get this kind of shadows using Vray light. And as you can clearly see there is an impression that Free Area Light gives you more lighting. SO area light is much faster
and need less subdivs. Thanks
http://vr.reaperfields.com/images/the%20best.jpg
this is very good for vray free users. Thanks for the tip! 
Where can I find this Free Area Light?
Thanks,
--Jon
lights tab/photometric/free area
actually i dunt think there’s any problem wit “floatin in the air” …i have seen these situations in real life…many many times actually…if u look carefully around u …some object do look like floating…the usual reason for this is that light is dim and very diffused…like a dim lamp shining down at an object located far awar from the lamp…
i think it really depend where u put the light…if it’s floating…i think it’s “physically accurate”…
there is maybe one more point, I tried this stuff out, however the irradiance map were rendered so much slow, when I turn on area shadows. Dont know why :?:
Do not try to render scenes with Area Light if you do not know Vray best.
It is a little difficult and It can even make your result worse. I just want to explane what I wanted to say:
If you want to get strong and clear visible swadows, using Vray light, you need to decrease it’s size. BUT it is not correct at the window area.
Area Light allow you to control the size of the shadows independently of the size of the light. And Area Light is much faster than Vray Light. I will explane WHY:
Than more size Vray light have than larger and less clear the shadows become than more subdivs you need for the light to make the shadows good looking. And you are not able to control the size of the shadows.
With Area Light you can make the shadows any size you want. And when the shadows are quite clear thay need much LESS subdivs
This can be useful to create a light in Vray program that uses the same
calculation algorithm. But it need a little improvement - from Vray light.
Vray Light and Area Light can be combined to another light
I see now, I’m working in an older version of MAX. Thanks anyway, I thought it was a free third party plugin
--Jon
eh, I just read again your first post, now its clear. I missed the point the u used pmapping.
All right now
Hi Alkonst,
Very interesting thing,
Congrats !
Gael
I render IRR maps and Fotons using Vray Light than I turn Vray Light off and turn on Free Area Light FOR FINAL RENDERING and IRR maps and Fotons I read from file.
All you need - to attune the multipliers of Vray light and Area Light
I tried to observe real world shadows coming through a window and now I understand that they are quite different from Vray light shadows unfortunatelly. Real world shadows are much more expressive and stronger then Vray light shadows. Of course the beauty of Vray picture is good but the shadows really need lots of improvement.
And real world lighting never decay like INVERSE SQUARE Vray light!
The AIR always helps rays to extend the light intensity much further then INVERSE SQUARE tipe gives.
skylight or sunlight ?
to rerender
to rerender
I think VRAY light at windows and its shadows
I meant what he was comparing to in real world.
i think whatever he will compare wont find anything like that because
Rendering will be always approximation.
Also clean air doesnt makes sense unless it has a huge volume, let say few square kilometers.
two thing could be the ligh to fast loosing its energy (I mean after bounce) which I doubt by the way.
THe other is that color mapping/clamping needed, just as human eye/brain does it. U can use color mapping so that u can light up easily.
Forgive, me for asking this question, but what color mapping method or exposure setting is closest to the human eye? I mean does the eye have variable exponential or linear or an hsv exponential, or maybe a mix or a completely new way of making sense of its surroundings? Could we mimic the way the eye percieves colour and light to get us some super real images 
?
Also in the real world how would light’s fallof be accurately represented in a CG environment? For example the first and secondary bounce multipliers; in the real world should the first multiplier be 1.0, and the secondary be 1.0, or 0.999?
In vray I feel that I have to lower the bounce multipliers otherwise color bleeding runs amok. Should the actual values of light’s bounces be as stated above, or 0.75, 0.75, which many people seem to use.
One final question, The whole colour bleeding thing!
In the real world does light transfer a set amount of colour from one surface to another? Cause in Vray there is no option to lower the global colour bleeding amount without affecting things such as the GL send amount and so forth. Is the lowering of GL transmittance value of an object what affects colour bleeding or is it somting else, cause I really dont like using this workaround!