Lighting an Interior Nighttime Scene Using IES Lights - Photographic Rendering with V-Ray for SketchUp - page 99

Layering up our IES lights
As we are going to be working exclusively with V-Ray's IES light type from this point
on, the first thing we will want to do is get one of them placed in the scene. This will
give us the ability to take a look at its controls and also see how we go about attaching
one of the IES profiles we discussed earlier. Before we just jump into that and in the
spirit of keeping our scene as organized and easy to work with as possible, we are
just going to create some layers that we can add our lights to as we go. At this point,
you can either continue working with the scene file you currently have open or from
the Exercise Files folder, load the Night_Time_Interior_02.skp file.
The approach I have decided to use is to create specific light layers for the different
types of geometry light fixtures that are present in the scene. As you can see in the
viewport, we have up lighters that will be used for general illumination purposes, and
we also have down lighters or wash lights that are being used to illuminate the wall
hanging exhibits.
As it would be good to have the ability to control and evaluate both light types separ-
ately (remember, in SketchUp, a hidden layer effectively turns off all light objects that
are placed on it), we are going to create a layer for each light type. To set our layers
up, perform the following steps:
1. From the Window menu, click to open the Layers dialog.
2. Click on the plus icon at the top of the dialog twice to create two new layers.
3. Let's name the already highlighted layer Up Lights .
4. After that, double-click on the second layer, and rename it Down Lights .
With the required layers in place, we can now create an IES light object and then
take a look at how it can be controlled and put to work as a usable light source in the
scene.
Adding the IES down lighters
To get into position to add our first IES light, let's click on the Down Lighter Up Close
scene tab, which has been set up to give us a nice close-up view of the ceiling-based
light fixtures in the scene. The IES light objects themselves, like all V-Ray lights, can
be created directly from the VfS: Lights toolbar. To do this, perform the following
steps: