Volume Light

V-Ray V-Ray for 3ds Max General
1

I was having a look at the Spot 3D help file;

and found at ‘Example 5: Volumetric caustics’ a volume light - how can I do this ?

There is an example model but on close inspection it doesn’t make sense as to how I can turn it into a volume light either.

Thanks

N

2

Can I create VOlume Lights with VRay ?

3

You can do that in two ways:

1) Use the 3ds Max “Volume fog” atmospheric; this works with standard lights only (Omni, Spot, Direct) and with shadow maps;

2) Use a VRayEnvironmentFog atmospheric effect which works with any lights.

Best regards,
Vlado

4

I did this earlier just to find out how volume caustics works.

You can download max scene below. I hope it helps.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2909824/volumecaustics.max

-LarsSon

5

Thanks for that Lars, I will have a blast at that later.

6

When using a standard spotlight and the Volume light effect, it just renders a black cone.

When using the VRay Environment effect and selecting the spotlight as the only source, it renders fog in the entire scene.

How can I confine the fog to the light ?

7

Seems to work just fine here…

Here’s a sample max/vray file for you to look at…

http://www.alaniglesias.com/VrayVolumeLightTest.max

-Alan

8

Hi Alan

I can’t even open your file - did you make it in Max 2010 ? I am running 2009.

Thanks for your help though.

9

Here’s a 2009 version…

[FONT=Times New Roman]http://www.alaniglesias.com/VrayVolumeLightTest2009.max\[/FONT]

-Alan

10

Hi Alan

I got that to work but not straight out - I had to create a VRay camera and play with the shutter speed and film speed but, it works so, thanks for that !

My units are in metres, maybe that might have an affect on it.

N

11

Hmmm..not sure what might have happened there…it was just a straight file open here.

Glad it worked for you, though.

-Alan

12

Hi Alan

I reduced the f-stop to 2 and it works fine now - thanks for your help !

13

Most welcome! I’m glad it worked for you…

-Alan

14

Any way I can get you to re-upload the test file? I am haing the exact same problems as Infrared. If I use regular volume lights, the light is always a dull grey, and If I use Vray environment fog, the only way I can get the fog to show up is if there is fog in the entire scene, and not just the light cone.

15

Hmmm…yeah, I did delete them during some housecleaning recently. Sure, I’ll put 'em both back up there…

http://www.alaniglesias.com/VrayVolumeLightTest2010.max

http://www.alaniglesias.com/VrayVolumeLightTest2009.max

-Alan