---
title: "Light Path Expressions"
canonical: "https://documentation.chaos.com/space/VMAX/113581866/Light%20Path%20Expressions"
format: markdown
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This page provides information about Light Path Expressions.

 

## **Overview**

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## **LPE Symbols**

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<span style="color: #000000">The LPE alphabet consists of the symbols representing a ray event/type and additional regular expression symbols (“.”, “+”, “*”, “<”, “>”, “[“, “]”, “|”, “?”, “^” and additional label strings).  </span>

<span style="color: #000000">A valid expression needs to start from the camera (C), capture ray spawn or scattering events and end at light (L), emissive object (O) or the environment (B).  </span>

<span style="color: #000000">Ray spawn events other than C can be combined with scattering types (e.g. <RD> - capture only diffuse reflection) to get a more specific ray event or they can be used directly (e.g. R - capture reflections of any scattering type. This is also equivalent to <R.>)</span>

<span style="color: #000000">Ray termination events can also be combined with each other when you want to capture the contribution of a light together with emissive objects, e.g. C<RD>.*[LO] will capture the GI coming from lights or emissive objects.</span>

<span style="color: #000000"> </span>


## **Render Elements**

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## **Light Select**

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## **Misc**

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## **Object/material select**

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