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Working with Lights

Find out how to create and edit lights, as well as illuminate objects. Also, learn about cloning and mirroring lights and how you can use this in VRED.

learnMore icon For reference on the Light Editor and lights, see the following:

How to Create a Light

Once you know the type of light you want to create, follow the instructions below. To learn about the different lights in VRED, see About Lights.

  1. In the Menu Bar, click Scene > Create Light.

  2. Select the type of light you want to create:

    • Delta and area lights, which include directional, point, spot, spherical, disk, or rectangular lights.
    • IES Profiles and Ray Files (VRED Professional only).

How to Edit a Light

To edit lights, use the Light Editor. To learn about the different parameters, see Light Editor.

  1. In the Menu Bar, click Scene > Light Editor.
  2. On the left side of the Light Editor, select the light you want to edit.
  3. Make the changes you want to the light.

How to Illuminate Objects

By default, a light source illuminates all objects in the scene.

  1. To illuminate only some objects, in the Light Editor, select the light.

  2. Select Local Lighting for that light and define which objects it should illuminate. If using VRED 2017 or newer, do this with Light Link Sets. For previous versions, use the Scenegraph.

    Note:

    If you enable Local Lighting for a light without adding the light to a light link set, nothing in the scene will be illuminated.

How to Clone and Mirror Lights

In VRED 2016 and earlier version, cloning lights was not possible in a usable way because all clones of a light source referred to the same transform beacon node and therefore were at exactly the same position.

With the new light concept in VRED 2017, you can clone and mirror lights without problems because they derive their position directly from the hierarchy above.

In the Light Editor, cloned lights are only listed once. Cloned light names are underlined. Its tooltip shows how many instances of that light are in the Scenegraph. Double-click a light to select all instances in the Scenegraph.

How to Connect Area Lights to HDRLS

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Area Lights from HDR Light Studio Video Captions: In VRED 2020.1, we have implemented the support of area lights from HDR Light Studio. When creating a light with HDR Light Studio and setting it as an area light, VRED will automatically creates an area light node under the environment group, using the same textures as in HDR Light Studio. All values will be taken over from HDR Light Studio, instantly, so you can directly see the changes in the VRED scene, like changing the brightness or moving the light or changing its size. This gives the user more flexibility and a seamless workflow for creating new environments, using HDR Light Studio and VRED.

See more

Connect your VRED environment to HDRLS (HDR Light Studio). For information on rendering, see the note in Rectangular Lights.

Note:

The Tungsten version or higher of HDR Light Studio must be installed to do this. It can be downloaded from here.

  1. In the Material Editor, select an environment material, then in the HDR Light Studio attributes section, click Edit & Load Settings.

    Edit & Load Settings

  2. Enable the Area Light option to create a light node in HDR Light Studio, that will promote this light to an area light. VRED automatically creates a rectangular area light, then receives a texture, transformation, enabled state, and primary visibility for the area light.

  3. In the Scenegraph, the light becomes part of the Environment node of the environment material connected to HDRLS. All area lights belonging to this environment are added to a group (both in Scenegraph and Light Editor).

  4. When switching the HDRLS Area Light option on/off, the light node is re-created in VRED.

    A Smart Dolly of 1000.0 (in HDR Light Studio) positions the area light 1000 units (default: mm in VRED) from the world center or last light paint point. If your object is bigger than 1000 mm (1 m), the light might be initially inside the object. Increase Smart Dolly or use light paint to move it out.

    Try setting the HDR Light Studio Smart Dolly Scalar preferences to 10. This sets the default distance of an area light of the world center or light paint position to 10.000 units in VRED. Use the Smart Dolly slider to bring the light closer and inside the dome. It helps to make the dome geometry larger, so the area light fits inside the dome.

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