This page provides information on the types of V-Ray Lights.
Last updated 1 September 2026
This page provides information on the types of V-Ray Lights.
Overview
V-Ray for Rhino offers a number of lights essential for a good render. No matter what type the scene is, you can find the appropriate lighting options in the V-Ray toolbar or in the Asset Editor.
Depending on the scene and the effect you are trying to create with light, you might choose to use only one type of light or any combination of lights.
Below you can find detailed information on creation, application, and UI functionalities of the different V-Ray lights.
Negative intensity values are not allowed for any of the lights. Since Rhino allows negative light intensity, V-Ray considers those as set to a value of 0.
V-Ray lights can be instanced by using the _Array command or Alt+drag the light object in the Rhino viewport. Exceptions are the V-Ray Dome and Sun Light.
In V-Ray Next Update 1.1 some of the render elements are rendered differently than before. The Lighting render element now contains all direct diffuse illumination and the GI element contains all indirect diffuse illumination. Similarly, all direct reflections of lights now go to the Specular element and all indirect reflections go to the Reflection element.
The context options of the Color Slot allow to Copy and Paste a color from one color slot to another, as well as to Reset the color selection to a default value.
You can reset the Input Number Slider's value to its default value by right-clicking on the slider and selecting the Reset context menu option.
Most numeric V-Ray parameters come with a slider to make fine-tuning easier. Each slider is set to a default range of recommended or commonly used values. If a value above that range is used the slider adapts by increasing its range accordingly (2x the input value) to maintain usability. If a value below the current slider range is used, the slider again adjusts its range by shrinking it to twice the amount of the input value.
The slider range does not indicate the parameter's total minimum and maximum input values. The absolute minimum and maximum values of each parameter can be found by hovering over its spinbox.
