This page gives information on the VRayLightMix render element.
Overview
The Light Mix render element provides adjustment control to the lights in the scene from inside the New V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB2). When a Light Mix render element has been added before rendering, the intensity and color of the lights and light emitting materials can be changed directly from the VFB during and after rendering; lights can be enabled or disabled on the go, without the need of re-rendering your final output, or navigating to individual lights parameters during IPR. Furthermore, modifications made in the LightMix can be transferred back to the actual lights in the scene with a single click. This feature can handle individual lights as easily as light groups or custom selections.
Read more about LightMix on the Chaos blog
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.
Parameters
Enabled – When enabled, the render element appears in VFB2.
Group by – Specifies how to group the lightning information:
Instanced lights – If there are instanced lights in the scene, each group has its separate channel. All unique lights in the scene are stored in their individual render channels;
Individual lights – Lighting information of each light is stored in a separate channel;
Grouped lights – Lighting information of each group of lights is placed in a separate channel. All lights that are not attached to any group in the scene are stored in their individual render channels;
Manual light selects – Render channels are created based on the existing Light Select render elements in the scene. Lights that are not specified there, are collected in single render channel called Rest.
Each grouping mode automatically creates Environment and Self Illumination render elements and Light Mixing adds them as groups. The information from the light emitting materials is stored in the Self Illumination channel, while the Environment info is stored in the Environment channel.
Common Use
The LightMix allows changing the appearance of the image by controlling the lights in the scene even after the rendering is done.
In the example below, we've created two different light setups with the help of VRayLightMix: daylight and dusk. The Daylight appearance is achieved by using sunlight and an additional softlight to simulate light coming from the outside. The Dusk appearance is achieved by setting the sun Multiplier to 0, changing the color multiplier of the outside light to blue, increasing the intensity multiplier of all interior lights and tinting them with warmer colors (all ceiling and built-in furniture VRayLights), adjusting the self-illumination multiplier of desk and ceiling lights, shaded with VRayLightMtl.
Notes
- VRayLightMix requires Consistent lighting elements and will internally switch render elements calculation to this mode even if the option (placed in the Global Switches tab) is disabled in the UI.