Can't exclude point clouds from lights in vray

[TessaAnne]

If I exclude a point cloud and the geometry from which it's emitted from a light, it still renders. This is in vray, Softimage 2013..Any ideas?

[julius]

If you simply exclude a point cloud or a geometry from a light, it's normal : the geometry won't be affected by this light, but it renders. If you don't want it to render, you have to hide it (in the visibility options or in group or a partition).

[TessaAnne]

Thanks Julius That makes sense. I will probably have to use a partition then as i need the point cloud to be rendered with one light and not with another one.. How would I set up a partition to exclude it from one light and not the other?

[julius]

assuming you want a specific pass for your point cloud :

1 make a new pass
2 select your point cloud and create a new partition
3 select the background partition and press "h" to hide other objects, or apply an override to uncheck primary rays if you need reflection, or do whatever you need.
4 select the light you don't want the point cloud to be affected with and create a new partition.
5 select this new light partition and press "h".

And you're done.

[TessaAnne]

Thanks Julius That works fine. Is it possible though to keep everything in the same pass?

[julius]

If you want to do that in a single pass, you just have to exclude the point cloud from the light you want...

[TessaAnne]

Thanks Julius Sorry I only got back to working on this now. That works fine. However I think that it is this particular ice compound that I cannot exclude from a light in a partition - Zybrand's grass. It does seem to exclude in mental ray (it renders grey) but not in vray.. However, I have solved the problem temporarily by rendering the grass in different passes in vray.