Sphere Light

This page offers information about the Sphere Light in Chaos Vantage.

Overview

The Sphere Light is the representation of the V-Ray Sphere Light in Chaos Vantage. The Sphere Light can be either created using the Create new Light object tool > Sphere or imported with a .vrscene file.

Parameters

Enabled – Turns on and off the sphere light.

Color – Changes the color of the sphere light. See the Color example below.

Intensity – Specifies the intensity of the sphere light's brightness. See the Intensity example below.

Invisible – When enabled, makes the light invisible, both to the camera and to refractions. This is useful to prevent bright speckles on glossy surfaces where a ray with low probability hits the extremely bright sphere. See the Invisible example below.

Radius – Specifies the radius of the sphere light. See the Radius example below.

Shadows – When enabled (the default), the light casts shadows. Turn this option off to disable shadow casting for the light. The value moves the shadow toward or away from the shadow-casting object(s). Higher values move the shadow toward the object(s), while lower values move it away. If this value is too extreme, shadows can "leak" through places they shouldn't or "detach" from an object. Other effects from extreme values include Moire patterns, out-of-place dark areas on surfaces, and shadows not appearing at all in the rendering. See the Shadows example below.

Affect diffuse – Determines whether the light affects the diffuse portion of the materials. The value controls the light's contribution to the diffuse portion of the materials. See the Affect Diffuse example below.

Affect specular – Determines whether the light affects the specular portion of the materials. The value controls the light's contribution to specular reflections. See the Affect Specular example below.

Affect reflections – Specifies whether the light source appears in reflections.

Use global mult. - When enabled, uses the Enable Lights value (Render tab > Advanced mode > Lighting rollout) as a multiplier to Intensity value. When disabled, the light is independent from the global multiplier.

Examples

The following examples demonstrate the effect that individual Sphere Light parameters have on the scene. Click on any image to view it at a higher resolution.

Color

This example shows the effect of the Color parameter.

Color is red

Color is green

Color is blue

Intensity

This example shows the effect of the Intensity parameter.

Intensity = 5

Intensity = 10

Intensity = 20

Intensity = 30

Intensity = 50

Intensity = 100

Radius

This example shows the effect of the Radius parameter.

Radius = 1

Radius = 3

Radius = 5

Invisible

This example shows the effect of the Invisible parameter.

Invisible is disabled.

Invisible is enabled.

Shadows

This example shows the effect of the Shadows parameter.

Shadows is disabled.

Shadows is enabled.

Affect Diffuse

This example shows the effect of the Affect diffuse parameter.

Affect diffuse is disabled.

Affect diffuse is enabled.

Affect Specular

This example shows the effect of the Affect specular parameter.

Affect specular is disabled.

Affect specular is enabled.