Vray light material or vray light?

[sigitprayogo]

Hi everyone,

I'm new in 3ds max and vray.

I'm trying to make downlight using vray light material but I always fail to make it shine bright enough to light the surrounding. If I increase the multiplier for vray light material the light like doted . I already turn on GI. Or should I use vray light?

Thank you

[Corey Beaulieu]

You should always use a light to simulate light.

 

Light materials are good for many things, but using them as light is not a good plan. They are great for signage or the lighted face of a ceiling light. We typically use a Light material on the object that is supposed to be projecting the light, but a light for the cast.

 

If I have mis understood what you are doing, you may just need to tick compensate for exposure, emit on backside, and multiply by opacity.

[salvador]

Corey is right. Low intensity simple light material just to make a lamp look as if it's on will not affect your scene (GI calc.); then use a VRay light or a VRay IES to actually simulate the light. Remember to uncheck "Affect reflections" for the light if you use a plane light to prevent if from being seen in reflections.

[sigitprayogo]

I tried using vray ies light for downlight. But the results are like spotlight so the ceiling is still dark if I put the light inside the downlight housing but if I put it outside the housing , ceiling looks glowing . I tried to add ambient light but the result is all part of the house are lit. Do you know where can I get ies file and what is the use of the file? And for the housing how do I create them? Because now I just make the housing and use boolean to make hole in the ceiling.

[salvador]

I used to boolean holes in my ceiling too. Bad idea. Works, but takes a lot of time and many "surprises" can com along. After careful consideration and some testing, now I usually (unless specified otherwise) use a self made spot model made out o a ring for the frame and a cylinder with vray light material for the spot screen (only to give the impression that it is on, not to cast light out). Then I put a VRay IES right under it and choose a wide angle IES file and play around with the temperature. You can find IES files for free. ERCO has a wide library of them and they are free. Throw one at your IES light and see the result.

 

For the common bulb, I would put a VRay light (sphere) inside the bulb model and self illuminate the filament.

[sigitprayogo]

Thank you salvador.

I tried the IES file from ERCO with default setting but the result is too bright. Can you tell me why?

Another problem is the ceilling are not effected by the downlight, I tried to add ambient light but the light seems unnatural

[salvador]

Ok. For ambient light, I'd recommend either a VRay Sun + VRay Sky rig, or a VRay dome light with an HDRI mapped on it. Those will certainly give you a good ambient light.

I see a lot of contrast. Make sure you have GI turned on and if you are not working in LWF, set Color Mapping to Exponential. Once this is done, check your light again and if it's still too bright, turn down the intensity.

 

Good luck.