The Light Select Render Element represents the lighting contribution from one or more user-selected lights in the scene. Each Light Select channel can output one of the predetermined contribution types like the overall direct or indirect illumination or the direct or indirect diffuse or specular contribution to the illumination. The Full mode essentially creates a Beauty render for just the included light(s). The Light Path Expression mode allows for custom contributions to be captured. See the Light Path Expressions page or the Courseware page for more information.
Multiple Light Select outputs can be rendered for a single scene, and lights may be included in more than one Light Select render element.
By using the Light Select render element, specific lights in the resulting render can be captured and adjusted (color, temperature, brightness, etc.) in a composite without the need to re-render. For example, a Light Select element for all of the backlights in a scene, an artist may adjust the backlighting in the composite, without affecting the rest of the scene's illumination.
To use render elements, select from the Available render elements column and click the Add button to add the passes you wish to generate at render time. When you render the scene, the added render elements listed in the column on the right, will also render, which can be viewed from the VFB window's channel drop-down menu.
For more information on the parameters on this dialog, see the Render Elements tab page.
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The parameters for this render element appear in the Attribute Editor under Extra V-Ray Attributes.
Enable – When enabled, the render element is included in the render output.
Deep output – Specifies whether to include this render element in deep images.
Filename suffix – The explicit channel name. The text will be used as a channel name for multi-channel images or as a suffix in the rendered file, for single-channel images (e.g. myrender.lightselect.exr).
Apply color mapping – Applies the Color mapping options to the element.
Consider for Anti-Aliasing – When enabled, anti-aliasing is used where possible.
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Type– Specifies the type of lighting contribution to be generated for the selected lights in the element as follows:
Direct illumination – Outputs all direct light bounces, including diffuse and specular information. Direct raw – Outputs only the raw direct light bounces. No diffuse or specular information is included. Direct diffuse – Outputs only the direct diffuse light bounces. No specular information is included. This mode is similar to the Lighting render element. Direct specular – Outputs only the direct specular lighting information. No diffuse information is included. This mode is similar to the Specular render element. Full – Outputs all available information in the scene, such as GI, SSS, reflection, refraction, etc. This essentially creates a Beauty render for just the included light(s). Indirect – Outputs all indirect light bounces, including indirect diffuse and specular information. Indirect diffuse – Outputs only the indirect diffuse light bounces. This mode is similar to the GI render element. Indirect specular – Outputs only the indirect specular light bounces. This mode is similar to the Reflection render element. Light path expression – Allows capturing custom light transport paths with regular expressions. Right-click in the field for a list of presets. See the Light Path Expressions page for more information. When enabled, an LPE Builder button becomes available.
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Indirect types are not supported with V-Ray GPU.
LPE Builder – Opens the https://lpe-builder.chaosgroup.com/ webpage, available to help you compose expressions and track exactly which ray paths they capture.
Denoise – When enabled, the element will be denoised if a Denoiser render elementis added to the scene.
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The Light Select acts as a standard Maya set. By default, it is empty when and you can easily add lights from the scene to it:
Create a Light Select from the Render Elements tab of the Render Settings window.
From the Outliner, drag one or more lights with the middle-mouse button to the vrayRE_Light_Select element.
Alternatively, Maya's Set editor can be used to add or remove lights from the Light Select set(Windows > Relationship Editors > Sets).
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When using vrayRE_Light_Select, a good practice is to have one vrayRE_Light_Select pass for each light source in your scene. This way the Lighting element can be recreated from them, and adjusted as needed while compositing without re-rendering.
If the vrayRE_Light_Select element Type is set to Direct Illumination, the specular contribution is added to the render element. While this is perfect for simple compositing, a better workflow is for each light to be selected for two Light Select Render Elements, one with its Type set to Direct Diffuse and another with its Type set to Direct Specular. In this way, the specular and diffuse lighting can both be controlled independently at a composite level.
When VRayFastSSS2 or Al Surface Material is used, the SSS render elements should be added to the composite with a plus operation to the Light Selects.
In order to use VRayLightMesh properties with LightSelect render element, add the vrayLightMeshProperties_Linklightlink node to the LightSelect node.
