kw_maher

Thanks Chris. I use IES photometric data in my luminaries - I'm asking about the look of the actual halogen bulb, not the spread of light. Unless I'm missing something here?!

I've in the past been replicating my spotlight "bulb" with a basic self illuminated disc, which is okay when the bulb is sat back into the light fitting somewhat. However, when the bulb is towards the front of the light fitting, it looks pretty flat (obviously). Recently I've been adding flares in post, but its generally hit and miss as to how good it looks with the rest of the image. I've not been that keen to model bulbs "as are" for fear of rendertime tax on the scene. My line of work typically requires 200-300 spotlights per scene. Would you lovely people care to share possible techniques for getting decent looking light bulbs in your spotlights?

Did you get any further with resolving this? It's been happening to me for ages, and is really very inconvenient and frustrating. This seems to be the only thread I can find that even details the symptoms correctly. To confirm to anyone that may be able to help, the issue isn't a broken path, it's the record of any path not being there whatsoever. In the material editor, where the bitmap map usually contains the image file name, the dialogue just says "JPEG File". It doesn't even hint at a filename that I can go back and relink. As Josh has expressed, this is completely random. It's not an issue across Max versions, or different workstations, or different drives/networks. Any ideas? Edit: Oh, and I don't think its a vray issue at all. I use MR.