i don’t know if there is a way of doing this because its so basic and i cant believe its not there so am not sure maybe i don’t know a way of doing it
so if anyone can enlighten me would be much appreciated
can i make a volume light on V-ray lights ?
like the 3dsmax’s very basic spot/direct lights volume light ? can i make a volume light that only affects specific V-ray light planes/discs ?
or can the Vrayenvironmentfog have like exclude/include lights dialog helping us achieving this
i tried to use the lights dialog of the vrayenvironment fog but something is off
i attached a screenshot explaining the problem
this is by far as much as i can get about this effect
a similar question was asked here, however they used standard 3dsmax volume lights, as a workaround, but were asking if there were any plans to add a vray volume light effect.
after some testing the problem is that VrayEnvironmentFog affect all lights and there is no way we can completely exclude any light (not only the dome light) from it
the attached picture shows how the scene got really dark after using vray fog
so i hope they fix it or give us the vray light volume fog option
So there’s two things - one is the max volume fog is limited to the cone of light you put it in, the vray one is a volume that’s filling the entire scene (up to your fog height). Since the vray fog has actual thickness, it can block light, similar to haze or smoke in the air. The second part of this is lighting your shot before you’ve got everything in there - you’ll likely have to compensate for this new fog object that’s blocking light in your scene by increasing the power of the dome light. You can try lowering your fog height so there’s less of it to block light or make your fog distance much bigger so that the fog that is there is far thinner!
Chaos don’t tend to do unphysical things if possible so I’m not sure if they’d be inclined to add in fog that’s only in the light volume and nowhere else in the shot. You could run your fog as a second pass and add in in comp which’d give you a bit more flexibility after.
You can also add in env gizmos as well to limit it so specific areas. i struggled with this but learnt to up my exposure a few stops with heavy fog and add a vray atmosphere pass to add more in post easily.
Well the vrayenvironmentfog has a lights dialog where you only add lights that want to affect fog particles thats doesn’t sound very physical afterall
and thats actually a good option that is very useful we are artists after all
all i want is a way to completely exclude lights
or have this already existing lights dialog work correctly
if that is achieved a vray light volume fog will be easily achievable
Use VRayEnvironmentFog with gizmos around the desired lights or use the exclude list. 3ds Max Volume Light is a very fake and completely non-physical effect.
As @joconnell explained, the particles of the fog are in the way and that’s why you are getting a darker render. The exclude list works exactly as expected - it tells which light to affect the fog, it can’t cut the rest of the fog that is not lit by them automagically.
