general basic light settings

[STRAT]

Hi chaps, sorry to post again, but i'm getting absolutely no joy here at all.

I'm basically trying to switch from using the AR to using Vray. i'm starting with the basics - a light. no gi.

i first assign a flat grey material to my exterior house scene, and invoke the vray bridge. then i put in an infinite light as my sun. because i'm using the vray render engine this 'normal' light has almost all of it's regular options i'm used too, so i assign a vray light tag to it. here's where the problems begin...

1) first off, using an infinite light, (which is standard archi rendering practice), but i have no control of the light's brightness. not up or down. it's either on or off. the intensity control has no effect. but i have good controllable area shadows.

2) increasing/decreasing the light's intensity is a must, not only that, increasing/decreasing the shadow intensity is also a must. i cannot do this either.

so i now decide to go to the Sun Light tab and make it a Physical Sun instead. I now have complete control over the light's intensity, and still have complete control over it's shadow type. but now i...

3) loose control of it's colour. i cant tinge it at all. i know i can change the gi colour in the environment tab, but this is not the same as changing the light's own colour, which i might want different than the gi colour. and i still have no shadow intensity control. i also cant find the light's contrast controls or it's distance clipping controls (which are different to falloff).

4) as mentioned in an earlier thread, the option to include/exclude and object from a light is essential.

I'm not interested in using a general c4d sun object/light and i dont want to use a physical sky. this is not the way i work.

I know i'm banging on, but these are of major importance. and they're basics. I'm so keen and eager to migrate from the AR, but without the control a maxon light gives me i'm struggling.

Vray for C4D is looking awesome so far, and you chaps have done a stirling job on it, and it's gi rendering is superb, but it's making life awkward without the basic control over normal lights.

unless you know more than i.....

Thank you :)

[stefan]

well first VRAY is a gi engine. it is 99% used and made for GI,meaning for physical correct light, dont use it without i suggest.

also many many workflows and cheats we are used in AR doesnt make sense in vray and might not look as we desire. you seldom have to cheat in vray.

vray needs as all engines its own workflow.

you can very much increase and decreas the light intesity, use the light tag, all adjutsment is done in the light tag. a tip, use area lights only, they are the best and most real. then you have full controll over all aspects.

the include/ exclude is a nice feature in c4d, we will add that in updates yes.

overall you might count in a few days to learn vray and get a feeling for it.
it is agreat engine, but as beeing very different to AR it needs adjusted workflows of course.

hope fun will come,
cheers
stefan

[STRAT]

thank you Stefan, i guess, as you say, i should re-think how i render. i'm too used to the AR where i need to cut corners. perhaps in VR this is not necessary.

do i need shadow intensity control? maybe not. perhaps i should start thinking about my work flow in a more 'real' sense.

in the morning i will certainly substitute my infinite light for an area light. if this gives me the option to have fine control over my shadow shape and light intensity and colour then i will be a lot happier.

but the ability to individually include/exclude objects from a light's illumination is a must. i thank you for adding it in a future update.

Thank you, i'll keep at it.

[stefan]

if possible we add shadow color and intesity, normally this is done via colormapping in vray.

of course we want to add all good things from Ar workflow. we just started and are at version 1.0x.

dont stop to contribute your wished:-)
as a strong user wish we added volume lights just recently, that will come in an update soon, p.e. - a thing that the "maxpeople" dont have yet after years:-)

cheers
stefan

[STRAT]

ok, pulling my hair out!!!!!!!!!!

please advise how to insert a simple light i can have control over it's intensity, colour and shadow type and properties.

i cant even grasp how to light my scene with a simple area light!!!!

for your info, i'm rendering with the vray render engine, but WITHOUT gi enabled.

thank you

[hiro]

i don't understand, why you do not use the GI Modus.
This is the ultimative force of Vray.
For me: if wouldn't use GI , there's no need for Vray.

[STRAT]

i am going to use gi obviously, but before i switch the gi on in the environment tag i want to get the lights working.

if i switch the gi on i get nice gi but am still bundled with the same problem - i still cant get the lights to work.

[STRAT]

ok chaps, here's a real basic scene. please insert a fully controllable light into it.

http://www.nikclark.com/strat/boxes.c4d

this should be a completely basic operation, but it alludes me. i cant find 1 tut about it (the manual doesn't help).

keep in mind i want FULL light intensity control and FULL area shadow control AND direction. Also, I do NOT want to use the sunlight/sky system. just simple lights.

thank you



(test)

http://www.vrayforc4d.com/tests/boxes.c4d

[stefan]

hi strat,

it goes like this:

add a light,
add a vraylighttag
adjust ligh type, color, shadow, intensity and all you want in the light tag

thats it, i think it is quite easy.
cheers
stefan

p.s here is your file, i added 2 lights:

p://www.vrayforc4d.com/tests/boxes.c4d

[STRAT]

thank you Stefan, but when i load in your file and hit render i get this -

http://www.nikclark.com/strat/white.jpg

[Rich_Art]

Yes indeed I got the same result as you STRAT,

Peace,
Rich_Art. :wink:

[STRAT]

ok, been testing on both a mac and pc.

first off, i generally work in millimeter units on my pc. my mac is in centimeters.

when i tested your file out on my pc it went white (as shown above). but it worked fine on my mac. Does this mean there's a scaling issue? this is obviously an issue, especially as some of my large scale landscaping models relatively span an area of squared miles.

Then i changed my pc over to centimeters to conform to my mac, made another simple scene and rendered the same file out again, but with 2 completely different results -

here's the mac render -

http://www.nikclark.com/strat/mac_test.jpg


and exactly the same file rendered on a pc (same units too) -

http://www.nikclark.com/strat/pc_test.jpg

the pc version is there, but it's very dark. Again, a serious issue. Our company have both mac and pc seats of Vray and we want to be 100% happy we can interchange between all our computers WITHOUT any differences. everything obviously needs to be exactly the same.

as it stands it certainly isn't and it's a big concern for us indeed. until this issue is resolved we cannot continue with vray unfortunately

[stefan]

......
of course you have to modell all in real scale? (units doens matter, but they muust fit your project.
have you the latest version 1.03?

i really dont get your problem, sorry.

cheers
stefan

[STRAT]

yes i'm on 1.03. but why when i render your file it comes out white?
Rich_Art suffers the same problem i do.

[stefan]

here is the file again as zip, maybe it get damaged before:

http://www.vrayforc4d.com/tests/boxes.zip

i tested on mac and pc on 5 computers, every where it renders fine

please make sure:

have a logical scale, if you modell in mm and then suddenly use cm the modell will be extremly small and render overblown of course.
i put in 2x 500watt lights. they are good in real world sizes. not in miniature.
also if your modell is too big the lights are too weak as 500watt in huge space is nothing of course.

So dont change units in the files suddenly, make sure if you switch from one c4d to another that you use the same units!

cheers
stefan

[Rich_Art]

I needed to set the intensity units back from 495.2 to 0.5.
After that the image was still a little bit bright.
I'm working with cm units.

Peace,
Rich_Art. :wink:

[STRAT]

i just tried the new downloaded scene Stefan, and the same happened with me as with Rich_Art again; i had to turn down the light intensities from 495.2 to 0.5 to get it working. and i'm in mm units whereas Rich is in cm.

I'm now using the 1.04 upgrade too.

Also, you say you inserted two 500 watt lights. how do i know this? where in cinema does it tell me this? and why do me and Rich suffer the same problems you dont? (and we're using different unit scales)


Also, the general infinite light works wonders with a vray light tag, but i cannot change it's intensity at all. can this possibly be fixed? i'd be a happy man then :)

thank you

[stefan]

do you use watts?

cheers
stefan

edit renato will soon come here, hope he understand what you

[Tong]

wich wat system you use. there is 2 ways.

[STRAT]

do you use watts?



i just opened your file straight from download, and the lights' intensity units said "Default(image)"

[stefan]

ok then it seems to forget the watt setting
please try using watts

renato also juts tries, it renders fine for him too.
maybe because i am on german system.

cheers
stefan

[STRAT]

ok then it seems to forget the watt setting
please try using watts

i cant. i change the intensity units to watts but it automatically changes back to Default(image) immediately.

[Rich_Art]

I tried to set the units to watt, but the system won't let me change the settings. I'm on 1.04 by the way..

Peace,
Rich_Art. :wink:

[STRAT]

also, where can i find info or tuts on changing the area type to sphere or dome?

will sphere or dome benefit me? what do these do? all i get from them is pure blackness or whiteness.

[Tong]

use area light type to change default 2 watts

[JDP]

I don't know if this is a bug or by design but in the file Stefan posted if you go to the Area Light tab of the VRay Light tag and uncheck 'No Decay' then you will be able to set the lights unit to Radiant Power or whatever you want in the Common tab. With no decay checked it doesn't seem that you can use anything apart from default image, which you will have to use low units for, around 1 or less. Things to bear in mind are VRay uses a real world system, with 'no decay' unchecked you will get real world falloff of lights and really you should use GI for this, if you don't you will have to crank the units right up, radiant power of 500,000+. I don't think you can set up wihout GI and then switch it on because the results and settings you need to use are vastly different. Also don't forget about the physcal camera tag, here you can adjust the f-stops, shutter and film speeds to control your exposure. Here is a link to the VRay manual where you can find a lot of useful info. http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150R1/

[stefan]

the photometric lights need decay to work.
so to use them you have to use decay as real lights.

cheers
stefan

[stefan]

ok i now too have problem with strats file
we look into this

cheers
stefan

[stefan]

strat it seems the camera with the special expressotag makes problems

with normal cam it looks normal
cheers
stefan

[stefan]

ok Daniele also confirmed, when deleting the custom xpresso tag all work good.

you need to set high values for the arealights in this case as the scene is big, and the lights very small and far from target

cheers
stefan

[STRAT]

stefan - i am now setting up and rendering a seen for real, and so far all is funky. i havent tried out the same file on my mac yet, but all is working nicely on my pc.

[stefan]

fine, the infinite light will be updated,

i render since 4 month on it with no problems:-)
so verall it is very rock solid. hope you will find it too

cheers
stefan

[STRAT]

thank you stefan. i appreciate what area lights are for and how they act, but for us archi types the constant directional properties of an infinate light are a must.

[DanieleF]

Hi STRAT,
infinite light problem just fixed.
I'll upload the fixed plugin soon.

Cheers
Daniele