Table of Contents

This page provides information about the Omni light in V-Ray for Cinema 4D.


Overview



The V-Ray Omni Light or Point Light can be used to create a physically accurate light. It emits light from a single location in all directions.




General



Enabled – Turns the light on and off.

Color – Determines the color of the light.

Intensity – Multiplier for the light strength. The units of the intensity are set by the Units parameter.

Units – Specifies the light units. Using correct units is essential when using the V-Ray Physical Camera. The light automatically takes the scene's unit scale into consideration to produce the correct result for the scale you are working with. The possible values are:

Default – The color and multiplier directly determine the visible color of the light without any conversion. The light surface appears with the given color in the final image when seen directly by the camera (assuming there is no color mapping involved).
Lumens – Total emitted visible light power measured in lumens. When this setting is used, the intensity of the light does not depend on its size. A typical 100W electric bulb emits about 1500 lumens of light.
Lm/m/m/sr – Visible light surface power measured in lumens per square meter per steradian. When this setting is used, the intensity of the light depends on its size.
Watts – Total emitted visible light power measured in watts. When this setting, the intensity of the light does not depend on its size. Keep in mind that this is not the same as the electric power consumed by a light bulb for example. A typical 100W light bulb only emits between 2 and 3 watts as visible light.
W/m/m/sr – Visible light surface power measured in watts per square meter per steradian. When this setting is used, the intensity of the light depends on its size.



Options



Affect Diffuse – Determines whether the light affects the diffuse properties of the materials.

Affect Specular – Determines whether the light affects the specular of the materials. This means glossy reflections.

Affect Atmospherics – Determines whether the light influences the atmospheric effects in the scene.

Diffuse Contribution – When Affect Diffuse is enabled, specifies a multiplier for the effect of the light on the diffuse component.

Specular Contribution – When Affect Specular is enabled, specifies a multiplier for the effect of the light on the specular component.

Atmospheric Contribution – When Affect Atmospherics is enabled, this value determines the amount of involvement.

Area Speculars – When enabled, the highlights match the shape of the light. When disabled, highlights are always calculated as if affected by a point light.

Cut-off Threshold – Specifies a threshold for the light intensity below which the light is not computed. This can be useful in scenes with many lights, where you want to limit the effect of the lights to some distance around them. Larger values cut away more of the light; lower values make the light range larger. When this value is 0.0, the light is calculated for all surfaces.

LPE Label – Allows a label to be assigned, which can be used to reference the light in a Light Path Expression. This is especially useful when working with the Light Select render element to evaluate custom light contribution in the scene.



Shadows



Shadows – Toggles the shadows of the current light. Disable this to turn off shadows.

Shadow Bias – Moves the shadow toward or away from the shadow-casting object (or objects). Higher values move the shadow toward the object(s) while lower values move it away. If this value is too extreme, shadows can "leak" through places they shouldn't or "detach" from an object. Other effects from extreme values include moire patterns, out-of-place dark areas on surfaces, and shadows not appearing at all in the render.

Shadow Color – Controls the color of shadows for this light. Note that anything different from black is not physically correct.

Shadow Radius – Specifies the size of the light. A value of 0.0 makes the light a point light. Larger values produce soft (area) shadows. 



Photon emission



Caustics Subdivs – Only used when calculating Caustics. Lower values mean more noisy results but render faster. Higher values produce smoother results but take more time.

Caustics Multiplier – This value is a multiplier for the generated caustics by the selected object. Note that this multiplier is cumulative - it does not override the multiplier in the Caustics render settings rollout section.



Decay


The Decay parameters determine how the light fades in and out. The Near Decay determines how light fades in. The light isn't at its maximum value at its source, but instead gradually increases until it reaches the Near Decay End. The Far Decay determines how light fades out. The light isn't at its maximum value at its end, but instead gradually decreases after the Far Decay Start.

The Decay options are useful for creating hotspots or controlling the length of a "God Rays" effect created with Environment Fog.

Decay – Controls how quickly the light fades.

None – The light does not fade at all, unless obstructed.
Linear – The light intensity fades with the inverse of the distance, in a linear fashion. E.g. at a distance of 5 units, the intensity is 1/5th of the intensity of the emitter.
Inverse Square – The light fades with the inverse square of the traveled distance. This is physically correct light propagation. For example, at a distance of 5 units, the intensity is 1/25th of the intensity of the emitter.

Near Decay On – Toggles near decay on and off.

Near Decay Start – Determines where the fade in starts. Anything before this point is rendered dark.

Near Decay End – Determines where the fade in ends. After this threshold, the light is at its full value.

Far Decay On – Toggles far decay on and off.

Far Decay Start – Determines where the fade off starts.

Far Decay End – Determines where the light reaches a value of 0, i.e. completely fades off.


Project



Mode – Specifies whether the objects in the list are considered Included or Excluded from the light's effects.

Objects – Creates a list of objects to be excluded or included. When an object is added to the list, the  icons appear, which determine how the light affects the object. The  icon controls whether the emitted light affects the object. The  icon controls whether the shadows caused by the light affect the object. The  determines whether the object's children are affected.