Iray spotlights not working..?

EternalWinds

Hi,

First off, the Iray update is nothing short of amazing. I love using the system and it produces renders superior to 3Delight ever did for me!

But there's a bit of an issue i'm having; to get Iray to work, I usually change the shader of an object in the scene(a lightbulb, lamp, created primitives, etc.) because adding spotlights (or any type of light) seems to have no effect at all. For example, if I add a spotlight into the scene, enable Photometrics, and fiddle with the settings, not only is the Preview unaffected (as if the spotlight doesn't exist) but the final render seems to ignore it as well.

The main reason this is an issue is because 1. the lights don't actually work, so I have to throw Iray'd primitives around which can clutter a scene and have to be carefully hidden, and 2. I can't find another way to light up a specific "cone" of a scene, for example trying to achieve a true "spotlight" effect I have to literally replicate a spotlight's shape, with the light source inside a tube that I aim at the figure or object.

As a side note, the headlamp function of the camera actually works exactly how i'd like the spotlights to... edit: headlamps only seem to work when no other light source is in the scene. Even if I crank the intensity up to values like 9999999999, nothing happens to the preview or final render... the same issue with a spotlight's luminosity. Do lights only work when there's no objects using Iray shaders in the scene? :X

 

Thanks!

mjc1016

No, they should work all the time...you don't have 'dome only' set?

EternalWinds

mjc1016 said:

No, they should work all the time...you don't have 'dome only' set?

That was pretty much it, yes... my bad... it was set to "Sun-Sky Only" for some reason, I hadn't quite twigged that "Only" meant the lights wouldn't work... *apologies ;)

mjc1016

Yep.  Sun/Sky or Dome only turn all the other lights OFF and use only the 'sun' or the HDR you put in the dome.