How to make Gobo Lights In V-Ray for 3ds Max

This quick tip article guides you through the process of creating a gobo/projector light effect using V-Ray Lights.

How to?

1. Create a V-Ray Light and set its Type to “Disc”

2. Make the light fully directional by setting the Directional parameter to 1.0 in the light’s Plane/disc light rollout

3. Plug the texture you want to project in the light’s Map slot

Rendering now, you’ll get the following result:

Depending on the case, you might need to lower the light’s intensity to get the texture 
projection visible. 

You’ll also notice the gobo light has a very sharp edge, but you might want to add a bit of a falloff to make the transition smoother. The next steps show you how to do that.

4. Open the Slate/Compact Material Editor and drag-and-drop the projection Map that’s plugged into the light’s Map slot

5. Create a VRaySoftbox map and plug the projection map into its Base slot

6. Make sure to turn on the Base Color map in the VRaySoftbox Base parameters

7. Plug the new VRaySoftbox map into the light’s Map slot

8. In the VRaySoftbox parameters, scroll down to the Gradients rollout and turn on Radial Vignette

   The default Radial Vignette gradient goes from black to white, which doesn’t give us the result we are 
   after. Flip the gradient colors by using the Flip checkbox.

Rendering now, you'll get a nice falloff toward the edges of the projection. Feel free to adjust it as needed by tweaking the Radial Vignette Gradient Ramp of the VRaySoftbox map.