IES

[samhal]

Hey all you gurus. Whats the best way to setup IES lighting? Lets say I want to have some track lighting in a room along a wall (which by funny coincidence, I do)...how do you set something like that up?

Thanks,
Sam

[TRRazor]

Just to make sure we're on the same page:
Are you talking about something like this ?



If this is the case you could load the ies-bitmap into the "efficiency or texture" channel of your lamp mesh.

[samhal]

Just to make sure we're on the same page:
Are you talking about something like this ?

Thats the exact page! Thats pretty much what I did...it just doesn't "look" as good as some of the renders in the gallery here. Also, hotspots from hell unless I blur everything beyond recognition.

[TRRazor]

What renders are you referring to specifically ?

mhhh...well I've found an article in the OctaneRender for 3DS Max FAQ that is referring to the subject http://render.otoy.com/manuals/3dsMax/?page_id=97

However - if I try to reproduce it inside OctaneRender for Poser (using only a sphere) it doesn't show the ies texture in the light.
Paul, any suggestions ? Is this even possible in the Poser plug-in ?

[samhal]

Hmmm...damned if I can find it! Hell it may even have been a google search, but what I'm after is something like this:
http://justviz.com/?portfolio=montpellier-street the second image - Master Bedroom

[TRRazor]

Well one way would be to actually add a shaped glas in front of the light bulb that refracts the light in the way visible in the scene.
That would however takeaway a ridiculous amount of rendering speed.
I just tried it with several .ies and jpg files and it would not accept shaping the light output...

I know it works in Octane standalone it doesn't seem to be integrated into the Poser plugin though...maybe I'm all wrong and I'm too stupid to figure it out myself ^^

EDIT:
You have to attach the .ies-file to the distribution of your light source.
Set the distribution to grayscale or rgb image point to the .ies-file and voila ! Hope this helps

[Erick]

Somewhere in the manual I read, that it's probably best, to put the IES map into the Distribution (and/or Orientation) slot. And to use a sphere.

Edit: Here's a link to the manual:

http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Standalone/?page_id=390

Edit-Edit ... what TRR just said =)

[TRRazor]

I just did a quick setup for you, so you can see what I mean:

Setup of the scene:


Finished result:

[samhal]

Ah-ha! Perfectamundo guys! A million thank yous!!!

Another case where RTFM would have saved me alot of headache.

[TRRazor]

You're very welcome
And yeah, sometimes it can help