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each pass.

The idea is to start with a low


Irradiance Map resolution (say a quarter of the resolution of
the final image) and work up to the final
image resolution.
General
This section allows the user to control and
fine-tune various aspects of the irradiance The irradiance map is in fact a collection of
map. This section is enabled only when the points in 3d space (a point cloud) along with
irradiance map is chosen as the GI method for the computed indirect illumination at those
primary diffuse bounces. points. When an object is hit during a GI pass,
V-Ray looks into the irradiance map to see if
there are any points similar in position and
Some background for understanding how the orientation to the current one. From those
irradiance map works is necessary in order to already computed points, V-Ray can extract
grasp the meaning of these parameters. various information (i.e. if there are any
objects close by, how fast the indirect
illumination is varying etc). Based on that
information, V-Ray decides if the indirect
Irradiance is a function defined for any point in illumination for the current point can be
the 3D space and represents the light arriving adequately interpolated from the points
at this point from all possible directions. In already in the irradiance map, or not. If not,
general, irradiance is different in every point the indirect illumination for the current point is
and in every direction. However, there are two computed, and that point is stored in the
useful restrictions that can be made. The first irradiance map. During the actual rendering,
is the surface irradiance - which is the V-Ray uses a sophisticated interpolation
irradiance arriving at points which lie on the method to derive an approximation of the
surface of objects in the scene. This is a irradiance for all surfaces in the scene
natural restriction since we are usually
interested in the illumination of objects in the
Parameters
scene, and objects are usually defined through
their surface. The second restriction is that of
diffuse surface irradiance - which is the total Built-in presets
amount of light arriving at a given surface
point, disregarding the direction from which it Current preset - this dropdown list allows you
comes. to choose from several presets for some of the
irradiance map parameters. You can use these
to quickly set the color, normal and distance
thresholds, as well as the min/max rates. The
In more simple terms, one can think of the following presets are available:
diffuse surface irradiance as being the visible
color of a surface, if we assume that its Very low - this preset is only useful for
material is purely white and diffuse. preview purposes to show the general
lighting in the scene.

In V-Ray, the term irradiance map refers to a Low - a low-quality preset for preview
method of efficiently computing the diffuse purposes
surface irradiance for objects in the scene.
Since not all parts of the scene have the same
detail in indirect illumination, it makes sense Medium - a medium quality preset;
to compute GI more accurately in the works fine in many situations in scenes
which have don't small details.
important parts (e.g. where objects are close
to each other, or in places with sharp GI
shadows), and less accurately in uninteresting Medium animation - a medium quality
parts (e.g. large uniformly lit areas). The preset targeted at reducing flickering in
irradiance map is therefore built adaptively. animations - the Distance threshold is
This is done by rendering the image several higher.
times (each rendering is called a pass) with
the rendering resolution being doubled with

( Irradiance Maps ) Page 1 of 6


High - a high-quality preset that works higher values place more samples in places
in most situations, even for scenes with where objects are close to each other.
small details as well as for most
animations. Hemispheric subdivs (HSph. subdivs) - this
controls the quality of individual GI samples.
Smaller values make things faster, but may
High animation - a high-quality preset produce blotchy result. Higher values produce
that can be used if the High preset smoother images. This is similar to
produces flickering in animations - the Subdivs parameter for direct computation.
the Distance threshold is higher. Note that this is not the actual number of rays
that will be traced. The actual number of rays
is proportional to the square of this value and
Very high - a very high quality preset; also depends on the settings in the DMC
can be used for scenes with extremely sampler rollout.
small and intricate details.
Interpolation samples - this is the number of
GI samples that will be used to interpolate the
indirect illumination at a given point. Larger
values tend to blur the detail in GI although
Note that the presets are targeted for a typical
the result will be smoother. Smaller values
640x480 image. Larger images usually can do
produce results with more detail, but may
with lower Min/Max rates than those specified
produce blotchiness if low Hemispheric
in the presets.
subdivs are used. Note that if you use
interpolated irradiance maps (i.e. the Mode is
Basic parameters set to Animation (rendering)), V-Ray will
actually multiply this value by the number of
Min rate - this value determines the resolution irradiance maps used. For example, if you
for the first GI pass. A value of 0 means the have the Interpolation samples set to 20, and
resolution will be the same as the resolution of the Interpolation frames to 2, V-Ray will
the final rendered image, which will make the actually use 100 samples to interpolate. This is
irradiance map similar to the direct done in order to preserve the blurring of the
computation method. A value of -1 means the GI solution compared to a single frame
resolution will be half that of the final image irradiance map, however it also slows down
and so on. You would usually want to keep this
negative, so that GI is quickly computed for
large and flat regions in the image. This
parameter is similar to (although not the same
as) the Min rate parameter of the Adaptive
subdivision image sampler.

Max rate - this value determines the resolution


of the last GI pass. This is similar to (although
not the same as) the Max rate parameter of
the Adaptive subdivision image sampler.

Color threshold (Clr thresh) - this parameter


controls how sensitive the irradiance map
algorithm is to changes in indirect lighting.
Larger values mean less sensitivity; smaller
values make the irradiance map more
sensitive to light changes (thus producing
higher quality images).

Normal threshold (Nrm thresh) - this


parameter controls how sensitive the
irradiance map is to changes in surface
normals and small surface details. Larger
values mean less sensitivity; smaller values
the rendering. To speed up the rendering in
make the irradiance map more sensitive to
that case, you can decrease this value
surface curvature and small details.
to 10 or 5.
Distance threshold (Dist thresh) - this
Interpolation frames - this determines the
parameter controls how sensitive the
number of frames that will be used to
irradiance map is to distance between
interpolate GI when the Mode is set
surfaces. A value of 0.0 means the irradiance
to Animation (rendering). In this mode, V-Ray
map will not depend on object proximity at all;
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interpolates the irradiance from the maps of any flickering, as the GI sample positions
several adjacent frames to help smooth out on static geometry will not change.
any flickering. Note that the actual number of
frames used is 2*(interp. frames)+1 - e.g. the If you use this option, you should not use
default value of 2 means that in interpolated glossy reflections/refractions
total 5 irradiance maps will be interpolated. in VRayMtl, as they will look odd.
Higher values slow down the rendering and
may produce "lagging" effect. Lower values Detail enhancement
render faster but may increase flickering. Note
that increasing this value also increases the
Detail enhancement is a method for bringing
number of samples used for interpolation from
additional detail to the irradiance map in the
the irradiance map - see the note for
case where there are small details in the
the Interpolation samples parameter.
image. Due to its limited resolution, the
irradiance map typically blurs the GI in these
Options areas or produces splotchy and flickering
results. The detail enhancement option is a
Show calc phase - when this option is on, V- way to calculate those smaller details with a
Ray will show the irradiance map passes as high-precision brute-force sampling method.
the irradiance map is calculated. This will give This is similar to how an ambient occlusion
you a rough idea of the indirect illumination pass works, but is more precise as it takes into
even before the final rendering is complete. account bounced light.
Note that turning this on slows the calculations
a little bit, especially for large images. This On - turns on detail enhancement for the
option is ignored when rendering to fields - in irradiance map. Note that an irradiance map
that case, the calculation phase is never calculated in this mode should not be used
displayed. without the detail option. When detail
enhancement is On, you can use lower
Show direct light - this option is only available irradiance map settings and
when Show calc phase is on. It will cause V- higher Interpolation samples. This is because
Ray to show direct lighting for primary diffuse the irradiance map is only used to capture the
bounces in addition to indirect lighting while general far-off lighting, while direct sampling
the irradiance map is being calculated. Note is used for the closer detail areas.
that V-Ray does not really need to compute
this. The option is only for convenience. This Scale - this determines the units for the
does not mean that direct lighting is not Radius parameter:
calculated at all - it is, but only for secondary
diffuse bounces (only for GI purposes).
Screen - the radius is in image pixels.

Show samples - when this option is on, V-Ray


World - the radius is in world units.
will show visually the samples in the irradiance
map as small dots in the scene.
Radius - this determines the radius for the
detail enhancement effect. Smaller radius
Use camera path - when this option is on, V-
means that smaller parts around the details in
Ray will calculate the irradiance map samples
the image are sampled with higher precision -
for the entire camera path, instead of just the
this would be faster but may be less precise.
current view. This is useful in the following
Larger radius means that more of the scene
cases:
will use the higher precision sampling and may
be slower, but more precise. This is similar to
Calculating irradiance maps for short a radius parameter for an ambient occlusion
fly-through animations in one go. Instead pass.
of using the Incremental add to current
map mode and rendering the animation Subdivs mult. - this determines the number of
every Nth frame, you can turn the Use samples taken for the high-precision sampling
camera path option on, and render just as a percentage of the irradiance map
one single frame - this will produce Hemispheric subdivs. A value of 1.0 means
information for the entire camera path. that the same number of subdivs will be used
as for the regular irradiance map samples.
Lower values will make the detail-enhanced
areas more noisy, but faster to render.
Using irradiance maps for anmations
with moving objects where the camera Advanced options
also moves - either in Single frame,
or Animation (prepass) mode. In this Interpolation type - this option is used during
case, setting the Use camera rendering. It selects the method for
path option on will help to further reduce

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interpolating the GI value from the samples in many points will be chosen is determined by
the irradiance map. the value of the Interpolation
samples parameter.) This is the fastest lookup
Weighted average - this method will do a method and was the only one available in early
simple blend between the GI samples in the versions of V-Ray. A drawback of this method
irradiance map based on the distance to the is that in places where the density of the
point of interpolation and the difference in the samples in the irradiance map changes, it will
normals. While simple and fast, this method pick more samples from the area with higher
tends to produce a blochiness in the result. density. When a blurry interpolation method is
used, this leads to the so-called density
Least squares fit - the default method; it will bias which may lead to incorrect interpolation
try to compute a GI value that best fits in and artifacts in such places (mostly GI shadow
among the samples from the irradiance map. boundaries).
Produces smoother results than the weighted
average method, but is slower. Also, ringing Nearest quad-balanced - this is an extension
artifacts may appear in places where both the of the nearest lookup method aimed at
contrast and density of the irradiance map avoiding density bias. It divides the space
samples change over a small area. about the interpolated point in four areas and
tries to find an equal number of samples in all
Delone triangulation - all other methods of of them (hence the name quad-balanced). The
interpolation are blurry methods - that is, they method is a little slower than the simple
will tend to blur the details in indirect Nearest lookup, but in general performs very
illumination. Also, the blurry methods are well. A drawback is that sometimes, in its
prone to density bias (see below for a attempt to find samples, it may pick samples
description). In difference, the Delone that are far away and not relevant to the
triangulation method is a non-blurry method interpolated point.
and will preserve the detail while avoiding
density bias. Since it is non-blurry, the result Precalculated overlapping - this method was
might look more noisy (blurring tends to hide introduced in an attempt to avoid the
noise). More samples will be needed to get a drawbacks of the two previous ones. It
sufficiently smooth result. This can be done requires a preprocessing step of the samples
either by increasing the hemispheric subdivs of in the irradiance map during which a radius of
the irradiance map samples, or by decreasing influence is computed for each sample. This
the Noise threshold value in the brute force radius is larger for samples in places of low
sampler rollout. density, and smaller for places of higher
density. When interpolating the irradiance at a
Least squares with Voronoi weights - this is a point, the method will choose every sample
modification of the least squares fit method that contains that point within its radius of
aimed at avoiding the ringing at sharp influence. An advantage of this method is that
boundaries by taking in consideration the when used with a blurry interpolation method
density of the samples in the irradiance map. it produces a continuous (smooth) function.
The method is quite slow and its effectiveness Even though the method requires a
is currently somewhat questionable. preprocessing step, it is often faster than the
other two. These two properties make it ideal
for high-quality results. A drawback of this
Although all interpolation types have their
method is that sometimes lonely samples that
uses, it probably makes most sense to use
are far-away can influence the wrong part of
either Least squares fit or Delone
the scene. Also, it tends to blur the GI solution
triangulation. Being a blurry method, Least
more than the other methods.
squares fit will hide noise and will produce a
smooth result. It is perfect for scenes with
large smooth surfaces. Delone triangulation is Density-based - the default method; it
a more exact method, which usually requires combines the Nearest and the Precalculated
more hemispheric subdivs and high Max overlapping methods and is very effective in
irradiance map rate (and therefore more reducing ringing artifacts and artifacts due to
rendering time), but produces accurate results low sampling rates. This method also requires
without blurring. This is especially obvious in a preprocessing step in order to compute
scenes where there are a lot of small details. sample density, but it performs a nearest
neighbor look-up to choose the most suitable
samples while taking sample density in
Sample lookup - this option is used during
account.
rendering. It selects the method of choosing
suitable points from the irradiance map to be
used as basis for the interpolation. Being the fastest of the three
methods, Nearest lookup may be used for
preview purposes. Nearest quad-
Nearest - this method will simply choose those
balanced performs fairly well in the majority of
samples from the irradiance map which are
cases. Precalculated overlapping is fast and in
closest to the point of interpolation. (How
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many cases performs very well, but may tend Bucket mode - in this mode, a separate
to blur the GI solution. The Density- irradiance map is used for each rendered
based method produces very good results in region ("bucket"). Note that since each bucket
the majority of cases and is the default is computed independently of the others, there
method. may be differences at the bucket edges. They
can be reduced by using higher settings for
Note that the lookup method is mostly the irradiance map (the High preset, more
important when using a blurry interpolation hemispheric subdivs and/or smaller Noise
method. When using Delone triangulation, the threshold for the DMC sampler).
sample lookup method does not influence the
result very much. Single frame - the default mode; a single
irradiance map is computed for the whole
Calc. pass interpolation samples - this is used image, and a new irradiance map is computed
during irradiance map calculation. It for each frame. This is the mode to use when
represents the number of already computed rendering animations of moving objects. In
samples that will be used to guide the doing so one must make sure that the
sampling algorithm. Good values are between irradiance map is of sufficiently high quality to
10 and 25. Low values may speed the avoid flickering.
calculation pass, but may not provide sufficient
information. Higher values will be slower and Multiframe incremental - this mode is useful
will cause additional sampling. In general, this when rendering a sequence of frames (not
parameter should be left to the default value necessarily consecutive) where only the
of 15. camera moves around (so-called fly-through
animations). V-Ray will compute a new full-
Use current pass samples - this is used during image irradiance map for the first rendered
irradiance map calculation. When checked, this frame; for all other frames V-Ray will try to
will cause V-Ray to use all irradiance map reuse and refine the irradiance map that has
samples computed so far. Unchecking it will been computed so far.
allow V-Ray to use only samples collected
during previous passes, but not those From file - in this mode V-Ray will simply load
computing earlier during the current pass. the irradiance map from the supplied file at
Keeping this checked will usually cause V-Ray the start of the rendering sequence and will
to take less samples (and therefore compute use this map for all the frames in the
the irradiance map faster). That means that on animation. No new irradiance map will be
multiprocessor machines, several threads will computed. This mode can be used for fly-
be modifying the irradiance map at the same through animations and will work well in
time. Because of the asynchronous nature of network rendering mode.
this process, there is no guarantee that the
rendering the same image twice will produce Add to current map - in this mode V-Ray will
the same irradiance map. Normally this is not compute a completely new irradiance map and
a problem at all and it is recommended to will add it to the map that is already in
keep this option checked. memory. This mode is useful when compiling
an irradiance map to render multiple views of
Randomize samples - this is used during a static scene. Note that this mode is not
irradiance map calculation. When it is checked, supported for distributed rendering.
the image samples will be randomly jittered.
Unchecking it will produce samples that are Incremental add to current map - in this mode
aligned in a grid on the screen. In general, this V-Ray will use the irradiance map that is
option should be kept checked in order to already in memory and will only refine it in
avoid artifacts caused by regular sampling. places that don't have enough detail. This
mode is useful when compiling an irradiance
Check sample visibility - this is used during map to render multiple views of a static scene
rendering. It will cause V-Ray to use only or a fly-through animation.
those samples from the irradiance map, which
are directly visible from the interpolated point. Animation (prepass) - in this mode V-Ray
This may be useful for preventing "light leaks" calculates irradiance maps to be used later on
through thin walls with very different for final rendering with the Animation
illumination on both sides. However it will also (rendering)mode. One irradiance map is
slow the rendering, since V-Ray will trace created for each frame and written into a
additional rays to determine sample visibility. separate file. Note that in this mode you have
to render one map for each frame (i.e. you
Mode cannot render every Nth frame). V-Ray
automatically disables rendering of the final
Mode - this groups of controls allow the user image in this mode - only irradiance map
to select the way the irradiance map is prepasses are calculated.
(re)used.
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Animation (rendering) - in this mode V-Ray Don't delete - the default for this option is on,
renders a final animation using irradiance which means that V-Ray will keep the
maps created with the Animation irradiance map in memory until the next
(prepass) mode. Irradiance maps from several rendering. If this option is cleared, V-Ray will
adjacent frames are loaded together and delete the irradiance map when rendering is
blended so as to reduce flickering. The number complete. This means that you will not be able
of irradiance maps that are interpolated is to save the map manually afterwards.
determined by the Interp. frames parameter.
Auto save - if this option is set, V-Ray will
The irradiance map mode that should be used automatically save the irradiance map to the
depends on the particular rendering task - a specified file at the end of the rendering. This
static scene, a static scene rendered from mode is particularly useful if you want to send
multiple views, a fly-through animation or an the irradiance map for rendering on a different
animation with moving objects. Refer to machine through network rendering.
the tutorials section for more information.
Switch to saved map - this option is only
Irradiance map control buttons available if the Auto save option is turned on.
If Switch to saved map is on, then V-Ray will
There are some more buttons in this group also automatically set the irradiance map
that allow one to perform certain operations mode to From file and will set the file name to
on the irradiance map: be that of the map that was just saved.

Browse - this button allows the user to select Notes


the irradiance map file which will be loaded if
the From file mode is selected. Alternatively,
the user can enter the path and name of the
file directly in the edit box.
You can view, merge and save
irradiance maps with the irradiance
Save to file - this will save to file the irradiance
map viewer tool.
map which is currently in memory. Note that
the Don't delete option in the On render end
group must be turned on. Otherwise V-Ray will
automatically delete the irradiance map at the For animated irradiance maps, GI
end of the rendering process. samples on different objects are not
shared; this may lead to small objects
to appear black in the final renders. To
Reset irradiance map - this will clear the
solve this issue, group those objects
irradiance map from memory.
together - this will work as GI samples
are shared for objects which are part of
On render end the same group.

This group of controls instructs V-Ray what to


do with the irradiance map at the end of the
rendering process.

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