Hi,
I’m in the middle of an interior view using the sun/sky and physical camera. I’ve added a number of VRay plane lights inside the glazed facade, but the scene had become darker and more orange - is this correct?
I would have thought that the interior would become brighter?
Any pointers as to how to use these lights would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Are the plane lights set to invisible?
Yes they are.
Affect shadows ?
There is no affect shadows. There is a cast shadows, but I assume this means it will geneate shadows from other objects as it is a light.
sorry i mean for the glass dude .. for the light to pass through the glass you need to tick affect shadows.. but you probably know that.
Sorry. Yes, the glass has affect shadows selected. It’s the plane lights that are causing the issue. If there are no plane lights in the scene, just the sun, the scene is brighter.
Seems to me that even if the lights were set with a very low multiplier (say 2 or 3) the scene should still be lighter than with no lights.
Yes very odd, do you have a sample scene ?
I’ll see what I can do. Thanks for you’re help bythe way.
A scene would be good, it’s hard to understand what goes on from the description.
Best regards,
Vlado
I just tried to replicate the problem in a test scene, but couldn’t. Plane lights made the scene brighter as you’d expect. Even with a multiplier of 0 there was no negative impact on light levels. Stumped.
Here’s a test scene. Differing results with the plane light on or off.
TestScene.zip (21 KB)
Taking a look now and experiencing the same problem. Even when recreating the scene from scratch. Things I have noticed are:
1. Standard cam doesn’t have this problem, only physical cam.
2. If you turn the light on and put intensity to 0 it renders fine.
I’ll post more if and when I figure it out.
I tried this as well in max 9 using sp3 and got results just like tct’s test scene in 2009. Regarding setting the light to ‘0’, I think that actually turns the light off - same as unchecking the “on” box. (I think there was an issue before since the light on/off value can’t be animated so someone animated it down to zero but vray was still processing the light and it took ages to render).
Anyways, back to this scene, it appears that the vray light is not letting any GI through. If you expand the light to be the size of the room (like a cutting plane) you can clearly see where the GI is stopped by the light. Direct light, like the sun, goes right through it however. Also, unchecking “affect diffuse” in the light allows the GI through (it doesn’t light the room up either then!).
I can still see it in the standard cam, it’s just less noticeable because the intensity of the sun and the light are closer ( I assume you lowered the sun’s intensity).
Ignore me please!
Ignore that last post, just realised the problem is still there 
tct: A workaround is to use the vraylightMtl in SP3 and check “Direct Illumination” and apply it to a plane in place of the light. Uncheck “visible to Camera”, “Visible to refl/refr”, “Cast and Receive shadows” in the object props and Uncheck “Visible to GI” in the vray props. I don’t see any other way of forcing vray to ignore the light when calculating the GI (visible to GI is not available for lights).
Using the plane lights as sky portals channels the environment light rather than blocking it.
I guess you just have to make a choice, use the plane lights in sky portal mode to supplement the environment light, improving illumination and sampling at the expense of render times and more noise; or use the plane lights as normal, effectively replacing the environment light for lower render times and less noise but more hassle in setting the individual multipliers.
Maybe someone better qualified can confirm this.
Thanks guys. I currently have them set in sky portal mode, which as you say, has increased the render times. I’ll look into the work around.
Thing is, most of the tutorials I’ve seen have used plane lights to suppliment the sun and to get better shadows in the room - has it suddenly stopped working or it it just me?
How do you light an interior?
