Change group of lights at once?

[Yon]

Is there a way to group, link, or slave lights to one light?  So you change the values on one light, and all the grouped lights get the same change?  Like on track lighting, one switch to rule them all.

Thanks,

Yon

[Justin Montoya]

Hey Yon,

Yes you can.  Put the lights in a light group in the lights palette.

 

Then you can adjust the Light Group attributes, double click or right click>edit on the light group title:

Color works.

Intensity - Scale By works.  But the other Replace>Brightness does not, I think it's just for RenderZone.

Radius / Angle works.

 

Also, if you use the Light Mix under Render Element in V-Ray Settings, you can adjust these Light Groups in the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB) during or after the rendering is complete!

 

Here I turned down the Group to .25 intensity after rendering:

 

I find myself using the LightMix a lot more to dial in my lighting settings.  

 

Cheers!

Edited January 8 by Justin Montoya

[Yon]

Thanks so much for fast and thorough answer Justin.  Worked with formZ since the 90's, but have just started rendering in V-Ray for formZ.  I'm reading a lot of your posts here.

 

[Jaakko]

Hi!

The Light Mix is a real time saver. I use it all the time. It would be nice if it recognize groups though.

[Justin Montoya]

7 hours ago, Jaakko said:

Hi!

The Light Mix is a real time saver. I use it all the time. It would be nice if it recognize groups though.

Hi Jaakko,

The newest version does recognize light groups made in the lights palette. 

In my example I have two lights in a group being controlled by the Light Mix.  You have to enable the light groups option in the VRay Settings>Render Elements>Light Mix.

Edited January 9 by Justin Montoya

[Yon]

Ah!  That was the missing step.  I now can implement what you first said Justin.  Awesome.

Make a light group in formZ lights.  Then enable Light Mix in Render Elements, and set Group By: Light Groups.  When you V-Ray render, your grouped lights show up as a single light in Light Mix lights.

Use Light Mix, not the formZ light group to control it all.

[Yon]

Little Cheat:  if you set the V-Ray light to IES, you can hack all lights with the same IES.  You can overwrite the original file, and V-Ray will update all the lights to that new IES without restarting.  This way you can make some adjustments to all the lights shape or intensity on the fly. You have to re-render.

That is the only change is this scene.

Edited January 10 by Yon

[Jaakko]

On 1/9/2024 at 4:44 PM, Justin Montoya said:

Hi Jaakko,

The newest version does recognize light groups made in the lights palette. 

In my example I have two lights in a group being controlled by the Light Mix.  You have to enable the light groups option in the VRay Settings>Render Elements>Light Mix.

Nice. I didn't know this. Thanks a lot. 🙂

[Justin Montoya]

Yon, that's a neat trick!  I usually just use the same IES file throughout but would be nice to adjust more than one at a time.  What program do you use to change your IES, or are you just renaming existing IES library files the same original name so VRay updates automatically?

[Yon]

I'm using existing IES files from the manufactures, or https://ieslibrary.com/ 

Now I'm considering just creating a folder with 1.ies, 2.ies, etc, and dropping in replacements as the light set calls for it.

I wonder if this works for materials as well?  Just need one folder with a base set up