Simulating Self-Illumination Materials with V-Ray 1.50 for 3ds Max/VIZ
VRay materials don’t have a self-illumination setting like standard materials do. Sometimes you may need a vray material to provide its own illumination and there is a way to do that. If you make a vraylight material and assign a map to the color channel, you achieve a self-illuminated material in VRay. A VRaylight material looks practically identical to a standard material with self illumination at 100.
A vraylight material emits a small amount of light with its multiplier left at the default 1.0. By increasing that value, you can make it throw off more light, though it additively brightens the color map you have assigned. This may be undesirable in some cases. You can make it give off more light without it brightening the map by right clicking the object and selecting VRay-properties. From there, you can increase the “Generate GI” value.
Tags: 3ds Max, illumination, vray tutorial
