Fp 7.1.2 - Scattered VRay Lights & Active Layer requirement

[rob-bs]

Hello,

I searched on the forum for more information about this subject, but I am coming up short.

We are running on FP 7.1.2 right now (need to update eventually), and it is a known behavior for us that Forest Pack instances any scattered VRay Lights at render time.

The instanced lights are created on the active layer, which means that if the active layer is a non-renderable layer AND the "layer defaults" in Customize > Preferences > General are set to "default to by layer for new nodes", the instanced lights belonging to a Forest Pack are generated correctly but do not render and do not affect the scene.

So it all makes sense, but I am wondering if:

A: Do more recent versions of Forest Pack have a different method of generating scattered lights that avoids interacting with the active layer setting?

B: Is there a workable configuration to avoid this behavior? Like, for example, is it possible to have your active layer be non-renderable and for Forest Pack to generate lights that are visible and affect the scene?

Thank you in advance for any specifics on this. I did look at the change logs for the more recent versions of Forest Pack, but I don't see any reference to the instancing/scattering of VRay Lights and whether the handling of such cases has changed.

[Michal Karmazín]

Hi,

Upon my quick test, the mentioned setup works just fine in the latest versions (FP 8.2.2 & V-Ray 6 Update 1.2) - since the Forest Pack 7.2.1 we added support for native light instancing in V-Ray (which requires V-Ray 5.2 or greater).

Best regards,

[rob-bs]

Hi,

Upon my quick test, the mentioned setup works just fine in the latest versions (FP 8.2.2 & V-Ray 6 Update 1.2) - since the Forest Pack 7.2.1 we added support for native light instancing in V-Ray (which requires V-Ray 5.2 or greater).

Best regards,

Ok, good to know. Can you elaborate on what native light instancing means? Does Forest Pack generate those instances of VRay Lights on the same layer as their "parent" forest pack object?

[Michal Karmazín]

Hi,

In theory, with the “native instances support” any object(s) (lights / meshes) inherit properties from the “source object”, but how layers & layer properties are handled depends on the renderer implementation – in this case, V-Ray and for more details I would suggest you contact directly with Chaos Group as they are developers of the V-Ray engine. Thanks for your comprehension.

Best regards,

[rob-bs]

Hi,

In theory, with the “native instances support” any object(s) (lights / meshes) inherit properties from the “source object”, but how layers & layer properties are handled depends on the renderer implementation – in this case, V-Ray and for more details I would suggest you contact directly with Chaos Group as they are developers of the V-Ray engine. Thanks for your comprehension.

Best regards,

Thank you - I updated Forest Pack to the latest version, and I can confirm that the issue no longer exists. Scattered lights now behave just like other types of scattered geometry with V-Ray. Great!