Lights and contributions
Blender lights
Blender lights render as they are, with Blender's power, colour, size and spread:
| Blender light | Moray light |
|---|---|
| Point | SphereLight |
| Spot | SpotLight |
| Sun | DistantLight |
| Area, Square / Rectangle | RectLight |
| Area, Disk / Ellipse | DiskLight |
- Area Spread is honoured, with Cycles' power-preserving gain.
- Scaled lights behave as in Cycles: scale does not grow a point or sphere light, and a disk stretched by non-uniform scale keeps Cycles' equal area. A spot whose cone is squashed into an ellipse renders a round cone and warns.
- The light data properties have a Moray panel with the Contribution box (below), a light filter (Barn Door, Cookie, Color Ramp, Decay, Intensity, Rod, Combine) and Promote to Moray Light.
Moray lights
Moray menu (top bar) > Add Light, or Add > Moray Light, adds MoonRay's own light types: Sphere, Disk, Rect, Cylinder, Spot, Distant, Environment, Mesh and Portal. They expose MoonRay's parameters (intensity, exposure, colour and per-type settings). Promote to Moray Light turns a Blender light into one, copying its energy, colour and size.
Emissive meshes
A mesh whose material only emits light lights the scene too. Object Properties > Moray > Emitter Light chooses how:
- Exact (default): flat rectangles and discs become a Rect / Disk light of the same shape (faster, same look); other shapes light with the mesh itself.
- Best Fit: also lights bulbs, bowls and tubes with a Sphere or Cylinder light inside them. Much faster and less noisy for dense emitters; the shape is approximate, the power is kept.
- Mesh Light: always light with the mesh itself.
Contribution weights
Every light, and the World (World Properties > Moray Light), has a Contribution box with Arnold-style controls. They change what a light contributes without moving or re-powering it. They are per light only: there is no scene-wide weight or light multiplier, as in Arnold.
| Control | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Camera | 1 | The light as the camera sees it directly. 0 hides it from the camera. For the World this is the visible background. |
| Diffuse | 1 | Diffuse reflection. |
| Specular | 1 | Glossy and mirror reflection (highlights). |
| Transmission | 1 | Surfaces that only transmit: glass, translucency, diffuse transmission. |
| SSS | 1 | Subsurface scattering. |
| Volume | 1 | Volume scattering (fog, smoke). 0: volumes ignore the light. |
| Indirect | 1 | Extra factor on the light after the path has bounced off a diffuse or glossy surface. 0 = direct light only. A mirror reflection does not count: a wall seen in a chrome ball is still direct. |
| Cast Shadows | on | Off: nothing blocks the light (volumes still dim it). A mirror still shows the light only where it is visible. |
| Max Bounces | -1 | The deepest bounce the light still lights. -1 = unlimited; 0 = only what the camera sees directly. Every bounce counts, mirrors included, so with 0 a chrome ball no longer reflects this light's lighting of the room. |
- Weights go from 0 to 100; the slider stops at 1, type a value to go higher.
- They multiply the light's contribution after sampling, so light AOVs and light groups show the weighted result. Cast Shadows off is slightly noisier on rough surfaces.
- They work the same on the CPU and the GPU.
- From a Cycles scene, Moray takes a light's Volume Scatter ray visibility (off gives Volume 0), its Max Bounces, and the World's Shadow setting (off gives Cast Shadows off), while Moray's own value is still at its default. Cycles' Camera / Diffuse / Glossy / Transmission ray visibility keeps acting as ray visibility, not as a weight.
Light linking and shadow linking
Blender's light linking and shadow linking work: Object Properties > Shading > Light Linking / Shadow Linking on the light (Moray also shows them in Object Properties > Light Linking and Shadow Linking), or Ctrl-L > Link Receivers / Blockers to Emitter.
Only lights can be linked. An emissive mesh with its own light or shadow linking renders unlinked, with a warning.
Light groups
Assign a light to a light group in Object Properties > Shading > Light Group, the same place for Blender lights, Moray lights and emissive meshes; the World's is in World Properties > Moray Light > Light Group. It is Blender's own light-group property, shared with Cycles. Lights inside a collection instance take the instancer's group, as in Cycles. See AOVs and light groups.
Shadow catcher scenes
A light's Plate Light (Shadow Catcher) flag (Object Properties > Moray) says the light is already in the plate. See Shadow catcher.