This page offers information about the Lights tab in Chaos Vantage.
Overview
The light tab offers a list of all lights and their properties in the scene and the environment setup. This includes lights imported with .vrscene file.
You can use the right mouse button click to reset the parameters numeric values to defaults.
Lights will be automatically grouped/instanced if they share similar properties. This functionality will be available if the Display controls for all lights is disabled in the UI section of the Preferences dialogue.
Parameters
Environment mode – Specifies the mode which will be used for scene lighting.
Texture – Enables the use of an environment texture for lighting. When this option is selected, Load environment, Clamp to 1 and Rotation parameters appear.
Solid Color – Enables the use of a solid color for lighting. When this option is selected, Environment Color parameter appears.
Physical Sky – Enables the use of an sky texture for lighting. Available only when imported .vrscene has VRaySky texture. When this option is selected, Sun light parameter appears.
Load environment – Loads an image for Environment. This option is available only when Environment mode is set to Texture.
Clamp to 1 – Clamps the colors of the Environment texture to a value of 1. This option is available only when Environment mode is set to Texture
Rotation – Rotates the Environment texture in degrees. This option is available only when Environment mode is set to Texture.
Intensity – Specifies the intensity of the Environment lighting.
Enable Fog – Enables aerial perspective fog to be applied in the scene.
Fog at 90% opacity –Specifies the distance in km at which the fog has absorbed 90% of the light coming from objects behind it. Lower values make the fog appear denser, while larger values reduce the effect.
Fog height – Specifies the height of the fog layer in meters.
Fog color – Specifies the color of the fog layer.
Enable Fog 2 – Enables a second aerial perspective fog to be applied in the scene.
Fog at 90% opacity (2)–Specifies the distance in km at which the second fog has absorbed 90% of the light coming from objects behind it. Lower values make the fog appear denser, while larger values reduce the effect.
Fog height (2) – Specifies the height of the second fog layer in meters.
Fog color (2) – Specifies the color of the second fog layer.
Enable Lights – Enables/disables all the lights from the scene. It provides a global override of intensity for all the lights in the scene.
Environment Color – Specifies the Environment color. This option is available only when Environment mode is set to Solid Color.
Sun light – Specifies which Sun light in the scene will be taken into consideration when computing the appearance of the sky. This option is available only when Environment mode is set to Physical Sky.
Background – Specifies a background. Note that the Background texture is not used for lighting, reflections and refractions.
Same as environment – Uses the specified Environment source.
Solid color – Uses a solid color for the background. When this option is selected, Color parameter appears.
Image – Uses an image as a background. When this option is selected, Load background, Mapping and Rotation parameters appear.
Color – Specifies a color as a background. This option is available only when Background option is set to Solid color.
Load background – Specifies an image to use as a background. This option is available only when Background Image option is selected.
Mapping – Specifies the mapping method for the image - spherical or screen. This option is available only when Background Image is selected.
Rotation – Rotates the image in degrees. This option is available only when Background Image is selected.
Intensity – Specifies the intensity for the background image/color.
Advanced
Ambient light – Specifies a multiplier for the ambient light.
Lights tree – When enabled uses the Light tree method to trace the lights rays. You can further set the number of samples.
Environment importance sampling – Enables the environment importance sampling. This option aims to reduce the sampling noise on objects that are lit by the environment or have glossy reflections that see the environment. In most situations it is better to have Environment Importance Sampling enabled. You might want to disable this option only when using a solid color for the environment.