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Vray Tutorials |
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Please don't translate or copy these tutorials elsewhere. I don't like the tutorials to float around in 10 different versions and places on the net. Feel free to link to this page of course! (see also Terms of Use)
This is a free tutorial!
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Vray Rollout overview |
Before you start
This tutorial is a brief overview of all the rollouts that Vray adds to the 3DS Max render dialog. It's not intended to explain all the settings, the goal is to introduce you to all the rollouts so you know what to find where. Even if you don't understand everything, it is important you become familiar with some terms so that when you come across it later on, it will ring a bell.
The Vray version used to create this tutorial is Vray 1.50.00. This is the version that requires the hardware lock (dongle) as a licensing system. Please do not email me with questions about this tutorial if you are not using this Vray version, since the answer to your question is most likely that you're using a different version.
Make sure you have basic 3D Studio Max knowledge too, I will not explain every little detail so you have to know how to use Max. For example things like the material editor, creating and manipulating objects, modifiers etc should all be familiar.
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New: rollouts in different tabs!
Since Vray 1.5 final, the list of Vray settings in the render dialog is spread over different tabs. As you can see in the image on the right, there are 4 tabs that belong to Vray:
- VRay
- Indirect illumination
- Settings
- Render elements
I don't fully understand the logic behind the placement of each rollout inside of the tabs though. If there's a way to customize this, please let me know at info_at_aversis_dot_be.
For example, why is the displacement rollout in the settings tab, while there are many other rollouts in the Vray tab that could also be placed under 'settings' (authorization, about Vray). Also for example if you want to change the skylight properties, which btw only works when GI is enabled, you don't do this in the indirect illumination tab. I never had problems with all settings in one tab, was easier to acces I think. And now the longest list still contains 9 rollouts so it doesn't change much, regarding scrolling...
But hey, this is just a minor thing, guess I probably have to get used to it :-)
In the screenshots, don't mind the settings, they are not the default ones! |
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Vray Authorization
You can read all of Vray's features on the official Chaosgroup website. I will list some of the most important ones in the next paragraphs. |
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About Vray
Some copyright info :-) Usefull if you don't know what version you have installed! |
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Vray Frame Buffer
Vray has its own frame buffer, that can replace the max VFB. Since this one is working properly, I have never used the max VFB anymore... With the Vray VFB, you can do much more, like basic color corrections for example. You can even control how buckets are rendered by letting them follow your mouse! |
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Vray Gloabl switches
Title says it all, a lot of global 'switches' can be found here. A usefull tab for test renders, for example with one checkbox, you can turn off displacement in the scene, or all textures, or all lights, glossies, etc... Also a very good one is the override material button. You can assign a material to all your scene objects at once, very usefull for troubleshooting a scene, or to evaluate the pure lighting. |
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Vray Image sampler (antialiasing)
I already briefly explained what antialising is in the Vray features tutorial: link here. This is one of the most important rollouts regarding image quality. The image sampler smooths out your image so you don't get jagged edges, or noisy shadows or reflections etc...
You can choose between 3 image samplers, of which the Adaptive DMC is the most usefull 99% of the time. That's why I set it as the default one instead of the 'adaptive subdivision'.
On top of that, you can choose an antialising filter. Especially when dealing with fine textures, these can prevent what is called 'moire patterns'. Take a look in the Vray help for this here: http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150R1/examples_image_sampler.htm#moire |
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Vray Adaptive DMC image sampler
This rollout only exists because i have chosen Adaptive DMC as the current image sampler. So this rollout changes depending on which sampler you choose. |
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Vray Environment
Here you have 3 controls for your scene environment. When turned off, vray will use max's environment properties. The first one is the skylight option, which needs GI enabled to work. As you can see, you can specify a color and give it a strength multiplier. When you add a texture, for example a hdri map, you can light your scene with that. Note that when you use a texture, the color and multiplier slot are not used anymore!
Same for reflections, very handy cause in many cases you want to use a different map for reflections than for your skylight (or a different multiplier).
The last one is a refraction override, this gives you the option to use for example a hdri for reflections, and a simple color for refractions. This can create weird images, but sometimes it can be usefull. |
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Vray Color mapping
Color mapping can apply some kind of color 'corrections' to an image. For example by choosing different types, you can prevent burnt out areas in your image created by bright lights. The clamp output and sub pixel mapping options can be used to clamp colors to the 0-255 range and can therefore help to antialias very bright lights or reflections. Depending on the type you choose, color mapping can also be used to brighten or darken the complete image, instead of having to alter every ligthsource in the scene. Last but not least, there is also a gamma control, which is in fact very very important. See the Gamma 2.2 setup tutorial for more info on this! |
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Vray Camera
Need a fish-eye, cylindrical or spherical camera? Here you can specify all this. The camera types use your max camera point of view, but they change the properties of it.
This tab also controls depth of field and motion blur in your image. DOF is the the camera effect when object appear out of focus outside a certain range. This is caused by the camera's aperture, the bigger the aperture, the bigger the DOF effect. Motion blur is caused by the shutter speed of the camera. With slow shutter speeds, moving objects will become very blurry. Mostly used in animations, but it can be used in stills too of course. |
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Vray Indirect illumination (GI)
I already talked about GI in the 'GI methods' tutorial. In this rollout you can set some general GI properties, choose the GI engine for primary and secondary bounces, or even apply post processing to the calculated GI light. |
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Vray Irradiance map
This is also a variable rollout. Depending on the GI engines you choose in the previous rollout this one will change. I set IR map for primary bounces, so the IR map rollout is shown. Please also refer to the GI methods tutorial for more info. A more in depth tutorial about IR map settings will still follow. |
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Vray Brute Force GI
Another variable rollout, since brute force is selected as the secondary GI engine. |
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Vray caustics
Caustics are light patterns formed by refracted/reflected light. Take a look at the rendered image, these are caustics. In Vray, you have two kinds of caustics: GI caustics and direct light caustics.
In the GI rollout, you may have noticed two checkboxes: reflected and refracted GI caustics. GI caustics are created by GI light (=bounced light). In fact, if you want the GI light to pass trough transparant objects, you MUST enable refracted GI caustics. If not, transparant objects will cast a solid shadow. These caustics are computed by the GI engines, and can therefore be quite slow and not very detailed.
Also, if you have for example a max omni or directional light in your scene, they will not generate caustics as it is not GI light. The vray light types are also direct light sources, but they are special in this regard as they will produce GI caustics too!
But, if you want caustics from max lights, or very sharp detailed caustics, you have to enable the Vray direct light caustics (also called photon mapped caustics). This is what this rollout is used for. However this requires some setup work, also on each light in your scene.
For now, just remember that there are GI and direct light caustics, reflected and refracted caustics, and that if you want GI light to pass transparant objects, you must enable refractive GI caustics. |
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Vray DMC Sampler
The DMC sampler is the most important rollout of them all!!! This is where you can turn a 2 seconds preview render into a 3 hour final high quality image. This rollout works together with the image sampler rollout, and it control the quality of everything in Vray. Changing values here has an effect on GI calculation, antialising, shadows, dof, motion blur, blurry reflections and refraction, etc... |
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Vray Default displacement
Check out the vray features tutorial for some small info about displacement. This rollout controls default values for displacement, which will kick in when you specify a displacement map on a per material basis. When you use a vray displacement modifier on an object however, the modifier will override these settings. |
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Vray system
Another 'behind the scene' rollout. Here you can control how vray handles your ram memory while rendering, which can become very important when dealing with extremely high polygon scenes.
You can also change the bucket size here, and how you want them to appear while rendering the image.
The frame stamp lets you 'stamp' all kinds of info into your image, like for example the rendertime.
Distributed rendering is also setup here. By using this, you can render a single image using multiple computers! You need to have your network setup very well of course to do this... |
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Vray Render elements
Render elements are used to split an image into all kinds of layers which can be composited later. Vray supports max's render elements interface, but it adds its own types, and doesn't support max's render elements.
For example you can split the image into a diffuse component, reflection layer, refraction, GI light only, direct light only etc... This kind off stuff is pretty advanced however, since you also need a decent compositing program to put all the stuff together again. |
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