V-Ray 1.52 for trueSpace7.5........................................................................................

3
1. QuickStart Tutorial.............................................................................................. 5
1.1 Workspace ........................................................................................................ 5
1.2 Model ............................................................................................................... 6
2. Workspace Rendering Tools ............................................................................... 8
2.1 Scene Render Command: ................................................................................. 8
2.2 Area Render Command: ................................................................................... 8
2.3 Object Render Command: .............................................................................. 10
2.4 Save to File:.................................................................................................... 10
2.5 Render to File: ................................................................................................ 10
3. Rendering Workspace animation in Model ..................................................... 12
4. Materials ............................................................................................................. 14
4.1 Material Editor Tools ..................................................................................... 15
4.2 Static vs. Live version of Material Editor ...................................................... 16
4.3 Shader selection.............................................................................................. 17
4.4 V-Ray Material Libraries ............................................................................... 19
4.5 Color Shaders: ................................................................................................ 20
4.6 Bump / Normal / Displacement Shaders: ....................................................... 21
4.7 Transparency Shaders: ................................................................................... 21
4.8 Reflectance Shaders: ...................................................................................... 21
5. V-Ray Shaders .................................................................................................... 23
5.1 Glossy Reflection Shader ............................................................................... 23
5.2 Fresnel Reflection Shader .............................................................................. 25
5.3 Sub-surface Scattering Shader ....................................................................... 27
5.4 Hair / Fur displacement Shader ...................................................................... 34
6. V-Ray Options and Parameters ........................................................................ 37
6.1 View ............................................................................................................... 38
6.2 Lights.............................................................................................................. 38
7. Global Illumination ............................................................................................ 43
7.1 GI Parameters ................................................................................................. 45
7.2 GI Notes and Tips: ......................................................................................... 53
8. Caustics ............................................................................................................... 57
8.1 Caustics Settings ............................................................................................ 57
9. Save and Load Irradiance, Light, and Photon maps ...................................... 59
9.1 Map Settings................................................................................................... 59
9.2 GI Maps Notes and Tips: ............................................................................... 59
10. Depth of Field ................................................................................................... 61
11. Rendering Options ........................................................................................... 63
11.1 General Rendering Settings.......................................................................... 63
11.2 Background .................................................................................................. 65
12. HDRI ................................................................................................................. 66
12.1 HDRI Settings .............................................................................................. 66
12.2 HDRI Examples ........................................................................................... 67
12.3 HDRI Notes and Tips ................................................................................... 68
13. TUTORIALS .................................................................................................... 69
13.1 Quick and Simple ......................................................................................... 69
13.2 Soft Shadows ................................................................................................ 70
13.3 HDRI for Reflection Only ............................................................................ 70
13.4 Full HDRI ..................................................................................................... 72
13.5 Caustics ........................................................................................................ 73
13.6 Global Illumination ...................................................................................... 75
13.7 Combining Global Illumination and Caustics .............................................. 75
13.8 Combining Caustics and HDRI .................................................................... 76
 V-Ray 1.52 for trueSpace7.5
V-Ray is a render engine written by Chaos Group (www.chaosgroup.com). It is well known, especially
for its blazing speed as well as an extensive array of global illumination methods that can produce very
high quality renderings.

Box object by Mike Harris, Head by Steve Britton

V-Ray rendering support is implemented as a trueSpace 3rd party render engine, and is fully integrated
into both the Workspace and Model aspects. Scene, Object, and Area rendering are all supported and
accessed using the same Model icons as for Lightworks and Virtualight., so that no changes in
workflow are required, but V-Ray-specific tools and icons are also available in Workspace. Materials
can be edited in the Material Editor, which gives a direct preview of the material rendered in V-Ray so
that you can accurately see the effect of changing the material parameters. The Workspace Material
editor means you no longer have to jump to Model to make surfacing changes.
 Abstract fractal geometry by Marcel Bartel

There is one important aspect where V-Ray support differs from other trueSpace render engines - even
though the user interface is fully integrated into the Modeler aspect, V-Ray support is based on the
contents of the Workspace in trueSpace. The scene description (geometry, lights, and materials) is
taken from the Workspace scene graph, so rendering relies on the Bridge between the Modeler and the
Workspace for scene synchronization. With the addition of the Workspace Material Editor, you can
now choose to work exclusively in Workspace, thereby avoiding any Bridge conversion issues.
1. QuickStart Tutorial
1.1 Workspace
1. Start trueSpace.
2. Setup the scene (alternatively, you can load a scene from any Workspace library)

3. Press the V-Ray Render Scene icon:

4. The V-Ray Render View window will open and display the scene as it is rendered (Note that
instead of rendering scanlines, V-Ray renders “buckets” which show as rectangular areas of
the image. This gives a better (faster) preview of the result than regular scanline rendering.)
5. Although this gives you your first quick V-Ray render, for optimal results you will need to set
up the lights, materials and rendering preferences so that they are specifically tailored for V-
Ray.
 A simple first V-Ray render using a Workspace library scene

1.2 Model
1. Start trueSpace.
2. Setup the scene (alternatively, you can load a scene from the VRay library which can be
loaded from the trueSpace Scene library icon)
3. Open the Preferences panel in Modeler.
4. Choose the V-Ray.tsr from the drop-down box (as seen below)

5. Render the scene by clicking on the “Render Scene” button. (Note that instead of rendering
scanlines, V-Ray renders “buckets” which show as rectangular areas of the image. This gives a
better (faster) preview of the result than regular scanline rendering.)
6. Although this gives you your first quick V-Ray render, for optimal results you will need to set
up the lights, materials and rendering preferences so that they are specifically tailored for V-
Ray.

A simple first V-Ray render using one of the trueSpace V-Ray library scenes
2. Workspace Rendering Tools
Familiar rendering commands are now available in Workspace, as seen below:

2.1 Scene Render Command:

Left-click on V-Ray Scene Render button will start V-Ray rendering, opening the V-Ray Render View
and showing the progress of the render. Note that it is possible to dock Vray view. You can save your
image after it has rendered, see Save to File below.

2.2 Area Render Command:

Area render command allows you to select the rendering rectangle prior to the actual rendering – thus
you can render only the relevant portion of the view getting the rendering preview faster. The intended
workflow is as follows:
Start area render tool
Draw a rectangle in 3D view to define the rendering rectangle
Render will start when you release the mouse after drawing the rectangle
 3D View with area render rectangle drawn

Docked VRay Render View with SaveToFile button

2.3 Object Render Command:
The same functionality as in the case of scene render except only selected objects will be rendered.

2.4 Save to File:

It is possible to save any rendering (even incomplete) to image file. Left-click this button in the
Render View titlebar, and select the image filename from the resulting dialog box. JPEG, PNG, BMP
and HDR formats are supported.

2.5 Render to File:

You can render out a scene to an image file, or an animated scene to a series of images or as an AVI
file by left-clicking this button. Doing so will bring up the output dialog (this example taken from a
computer running Windows Vista):

Output frames: You may render the a single image of the scene or Current Frame Only of an animated
scene, All Frames of the animation, or just a Selection. The length of the All Frames option is
determined by the settings in the Animation Editor

Filename: Enter the name of the file you wish to output, e.g. c:\images\render.avi. As well as .AVI
movie files, various image formats are supported (.BMP, .TGA, .PNG, .JPG, .HDR), in which case
trueSpace will automatically add the frame number, giving you render0000.bmp through
render0030.bmp for example.

When rendering to AVI files, you will be presented with a dialog box to choose which video
compressor to use before the first frame is rendered. The available choices are dependent on what
video codecs you have installed on your system, and you should be aware that some codecs mandate
particular output sizes, such as width and height having to be divisible by 4. Rendering will be aborted
if a frame can not be output to the AVI, so if you are trying to render an animation and only the first
frame is output, there is an incompatibility with the codec you are using.
3. Rendering Workspace animation in Model
Animation created in Workspace can be rendered using any of the rendering engines in Model,
including V-Ray. The workflow is the same – just hit Render to File – with just one small addition to
the output dialog, the ability to change between Workspace and Model under Animation:

Render to File Dialog in Model

When Workspace is selected, the frame range and frame rate information is synchronized from
Workspace, otherwise it is taken from Model.

Note that as Model relies on the Bridge to synchronize information every frame, if a feature or object is
not supported it will not appear in Model and thus will not be rendered in the animation.
4. Materials
Materials for V-Ray can still be edited in the Material Editor in the Modeler aspect, just as they are for
Lightworks and the other render engines, and the Material Editor includes the preview of the material
rendered under V-Ray. Note that the Material Editor will close if you change render engines – this is to
allow the preview window for the Material Editor to change from one render engine to another.

It is now preferable to use the Workspace Material Editor, particularly if you are working with the
animation tools. Now all animation, surfacing, and rendering can be performed on the Workspace side,
without having to go through the Bridge. More information about using the Workspace Material Editor
with non-V-Ray materials may be found in the main trueSpace documentation.

Location of the Material Editor tools in Workspace

View3D toolbar

Material Editor Panel

4.1 Material Editor Tools
 Paint Object:
 Assigns material active in Material Editor to all selected objects.
 Paint Face:
 Starts a tool to assign material active in Material Editor to individual faces. Face can
be selected either by left-clicking on it or by left-click & drag – in that case all faces
which mouse moves over them will be painted by the active Material Editor material.
If there is a face selection associated with the object at the time of a mouse click all
selected faces will be painted.

 The tool is active while paint face cursor is active – you can can disable it by
right-clicking anywhere in the 3D view.
 Paint Over:
 Starts a tool to repaint a material on object with the material active in Material Editor.
The material to replace is selected by left-clicking on any face of the object being
painted by a particular material. Note that the change of the material is propagated
throughout the hierarchy of the selected object.

 The tool is active while paint over cursor is active – you can disable it by
right-clicking anywhere in the 3D view.
  Inspect:
 Starts a tool to acquire material from object and make it the active material in
Material Editor. Left-click on any face using a particular material you want to make
active in Material Editor.

 The tool is active while inspect cursor is active – you can disable it by right-
clicking anywhere in the 3D view.
 Reset: you can return to the default material easily. Right-click on any of the tool icons and
select “Reset”. The default shaders with default parameters will be selected into the Material
Editor for each shader type.

4.2 Static vs. Live version of Material Editor

The default (static) version of Material Editor doesn't provide live update of individual shaders – only
the material preview is updated. This gives an increase in performance when using the Material Editor.
The shader spheres in this case are just placeholders for access to functionality of individual shaders. It
is possible to switch Material Editor to “Live” aspect – in this case the individual shaders are updated
as the shader parameters are modified.

Static version – shader previews are static images Live version with updated preview of shader spheres
showing 4 individual channels of the material
When using the live version of the Material Editor it is possible to switch between sphere and plane
primitives for material/shaders previews by right-clicking on the individual preview panel.

Material, color and transparency channels with plane preview

4.3 Shader selection
 Individual shaders can be loaded into Material Editor from V-Ray shader libraries
 To open V-Ray Shader library double-click the respective shader preview in Material
Editor. Shader library is opened bellow Material Editor and it can be closed at any time...
 Double-click shader item in the library to load it to Material Editor. The new shader will
appear and Material Editor will refresh accordingly.
The regular mapped shaders (texture map, transparency map, bump map, normal map) use a bitmap
control-based interface instead of forcing user to rely on image paths (thus better preview of the map
being used). The maps can either be loaded from Bitmap library, by using CTRL+double-click to bring
up a traditional file dialog, or by using the file picker button.

4.4 V-Ray Material Libraries

V-Ray materials can be stored in a material library. The library can be opened from
Library browser.

V-Ray materials library in Library browser

A V-Ray material library appears in the library stack view like any other.
 V-Ray materials library

To add a material to a material library, do any of these:

 Select the object painted with the material you want to add, right-click in material
library and select “Insert”
 CTRL-click on the object with the material you want to add and drag it to the library
 With the Material Editor open, right-click in material library and select “Insert”

To apply material from library:

 Drag & drop a material from the library to the object
 Double-click the material in the library and the material is applied to all selected
objects
 With the Material Editor open, double-click the material and it will be selected into
the Material Editor

Notes and Tips:

Because the Material Editor opens in the stack view, you may find it convenient to open your V-Ray
material libraries in the workspace itself. To do this, open your material library as normal, then drag
the window into the workspace while holding down the CTRL key. Then you can choose materials
while still keeping the Material Editor open.

4.5 Color Shaders:

Plain and texture-based shaders are supported directly. All other color shaders (that is, the procedural
shaders) are sampled and mapped as textures automatically – this process works by rendering an image
of the shader in Lightworks, and using this as a texture in V-Ray for rendering, with no need for any
intervention by the user.

4.6 Bump / Normal / Displacement Shaders:

Only two displacement shaders are supported - the Bump Map shader (which uses a texture as a bump
map), and the Normal Map shader. All other shaders (that is, the procedural shaders) are not supported.
There is one more special V-Ray shader for simple hair/fur rendering. Documentation for this shader is
found with the rest of the custom V-Ray shaders below.

4.7 Transparency Shaders:

Only two transparency shaders are supported – the Plain transparency shader, and the Transparency
Map shader. All other shaders (that is, the procedural shaders) are not supported.

4.8 Reflectance Shaders:

V-Ray supports some shaders that also work under Lightworks. There are also some shaders supported
under Lightworks that cannot be used with V-Ray, and some shaders that can only be used with V-Ray.
Those shaders which cannot be used under V-Ray will appear as grayed out in the list of available
shaders to show that they are unavailable for use.

Those shaders which are supported under V-Ray as well as under Lightworks are Phong, Caligari
Phong, Metal, Caligari Metal, Plastic, Matte, Mirror, Glass, Conductor, Dielectric, Wrapped Mirror
Map, Mapped Phong, and Mapped Metal. Please see the documentation for these shaders under
Lightworks, as all parameters will work in the same way under V-Ray. Exceptions are noted below.

Wrapped Mirror Map, Mapped Phong, Mapped Metal

In Lightworks, using a texture map with these shaders completely overrides the slider value for the
diffuse, specular, etc. channels, but V-Ray instead multiplies the slider value with the result of the
texture look-up. This gives better control over the surface, particularly when using the Workspace
Material Editor where you can edit the numerical value and the texture map at the same time, but if you
wish to duplicate the Lightworks behavior simply ensure you set the numerical value of the channel
you wish to affect to 1.0.

Here is an example of the Mapped Phong shader in action, providing varying amounts of
transparency/transmission of an etched glass surface, with soft shadows working correctly:
 By Jack Edwards

Metals versus Plastics

To accurately reproduce real-world materials, we need to think about distinguishing characteristics.
Metallic surfaces should show reflections and specular highlights (which are actually just simulated
reflections) as variations of the base color, while plastic materials generally do not do this. Previously,
V-Ray treated all reflective surfaces as metal, but now V-Ray will automatically choose the correct
algorithm based on your choice of reflectance shader. Caligari Metal, Dielectric, Mirror, Mapped
Metal, and Glass will all use the metal-type reflections, while Caligari Phong, Fresnel, Glossy, and
Mapped Phong all use the plastic-type reflections. If you are trying to duplicate a Lightworks material
and are having trouble seeing reflections on dark colors, it is likely you are using Mirror, so you should
switch to a plastic-type shader such as Caligari Phong.

Those shaders which are unique to V-Ray will appear as grayed out when any render engine other than
V-Ray is selected. Full details of these shaders, including descriptions of their parameters and usage,
are given below.
5. V-Ray Shaders
5.1 Glossy Reflection Shader
The Glossy shader allows for blurred reflections and refractions, and is ideal for creating materials that
are not perfect reflectors and are not perfectly transparent. This would include objects which are
reflective but have a rough surface, such as brushed metal, or those which are not highly polished and
only slightly reflective, such as a regular table top or wooden floor. It is also ideal for objects which are
transparent but rough, such as frosted glass, or those which are still quite opaque, such as plastic.

Soft or blurred reflection and refraction is the hallmark of the Glossy Reflection shader (by Saul Cross)

The Glossy shader is available in the Reflectance Shader Library (but only if the V-Ray render engine
is enabled; the shader will appear grayed out and disabled for the Lightworks and Virtualight render
engines).
 General parameters: These function the same way as in the Caligari Phong
shader, please see the documentation for that shader for details.

Refl. Gloss.: This controls the glossiness of the reflections. Low values mean a
very polished surface with a very sharp reflection, while higher values mean
a less polished surface with reflections being more blurred and softer.

Refr. Gloss.: This controls the glossiness of the refraction. Low values mean a
very glass-like surface with very sharp refractions, and higher values mean
refractions being more blurred and softer.

Subdiv: The number of samples to take when approximating the glossy

reflection/refraction. A higher number of samples will reduce noise, but
increase render time.

Glossy Shader panel

Spheres with varying glossiness (from left to right, values of 0., 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8)

Notes and Tips:

 Begin your tests with a low Subiv value (in the range 3-5) to get the feel for the reflection.
Only add more samples afterwards, when ready to do a final render, as they are costly in
calculation time and slow down the rendering.
 A Subdiv value of 1 or Glossiness value of 0 will result in perfect specular
reflection/refraction, making it identical to using the Caligari Phong shader.
 Glossy refraction makes the glass object look like plastic, while glossy
reflection gives the can a brushed metal appearance (Wert objects by Mike Harris)

5.2 Fresnel Reflection Shader

In many simple shaders, reflections and refractions are at a constant intensity over the surface of an
object. In the real world, the brightness of reflection and refraction varies depending on how the surface
is angled to the viewer – reflections become less intense when the surface is facing the viewer, while
refraction (the ability to see though the object) becomes brighter when the surface is facing the viewer.

The Fresnel Reflection shader includes these effects, which can allow for much more realistic objects,
particularly for metal and glass materials, for example. As well as creating a realistic effect in the
refraction, the shader also creates transparent shadows that take Fresnel equations into account.
 Image with regular metal and glass shaders Image using the Fresnel shader the objects

As well as allowing mathematically correct real world effects, the shader also allows you to override
the real world settings to give a more exaggerated (or more subtle) effect than is normally seen, for
more flexibility in the results.

The images above illustrate the differences between regular raytraced reflections and refractions, and
when the Fresnel shader is used (with exaggerated settings, and an oversized wine glass, used here to
illustrate the effects more clearly). In the image on the left, the reflections and refractions are constant
in intensity over the surfaces of the objects.

In the image on the right however, those surfaces which face the viewer (for example, the middle of the
sphere) show reduced reflection compared to surfaces which are sharply angled to the viewer (for
example, at the edges of the sphere). This gives the sphere a bright edge, and the same effect can be
seen on the trumpet. Although exaggerated in this example to make the effect more obvious, even when
used more subtly it still adds realism to the scene (duplicating effects seen in the real world) and gives
the eye extra visual cues about the shape and form of objects.

In a similar way, the glass also shows variation in reflection, but also in refraction (this is the reverse of
reflection, where surfaces facing the viewer are more transparent and show more effect from refraction,
while those at sharp angles to the viewer such as at the edge of the glass show less transparency and
appear more solid and less easy to see through).

The final element to note is the shadow of the glass, which is no longer a constant shadow but varies
depending on the shape of the object the light has passed through.
 Weight : The strength of the Fresnel effect. A higher value will make variation
in the reflections, refractions and shadows more obvious.

Angle : When unchecked, physically correct real world values are used for the
Fresnel effect. When checked, physically correct values are overridden and
the value in the Angle box is used instead, to give user-control over the
result.

A low value will result in a sharp transition to low reflection/high

transmission at the objects edges (when the surface is pointing at a sharp
angle to the viewer rather than at the viewer, called the grazing angle). This
will limit the effect to the edges of the object. Higher values will mean a
more gradual transition, meaning the effect will still be obvious even
toward the center of the object, away from the edges.

A value of 0.2 will approximate the physically correct Fresnel coefficient.

Fresnel Shader panel

Internal Reflect. : If enabled, additional rays will be traced in order to correctly

calculate internal reflections. When checked rendering will be slower, but
the result will be more realistic.

5.3 Sub-surface Scattering Shader

Sub-surface scattering is the name given to the effect when light does not simply bounce off the surface
of an object, but instead penetrates inside the object for a limited depth and bounces around inside the
material. The end result is that when light falls on a particular part of the surface, other areas nearby
also become illuminated, but from the inside. Also, an object may be lit “from the back” where light
passes through the object to illuminate it.

This effect is most widely seen in materials such as marble, jade, wax, translucent plastic, paper,
parchment, and skin, and this shader is ideal for use when those materials are required. Prime examples
of this effect are when shining a flashlight through the skin on your hand, when looking at a candle
(where the wax seems to “glow” from the light of the flame), or a lampshade illuminated by the light
passing through it from the inside.
Without Sub-surface scattering, only direct lighting can Adding Sub-surface Scattering to the candle and parchment
illuminate object, so the candle and parchment appear allows them to be lit from behind, including the Caligari
black. texture on the parchment – note also the colored shadow
from the glass on the parchment.

The head on the left has no sub-surface scattering – the addition of sub-surface scattering
helps achieve the look of jade or marble
 The sub-surface scattering effect is generated as a combination of 2 separate light
transport mechanisms:

Single scatter approximation: This approximates the effect of a single scattering

event in the material – that is, light enters the object, is scattered once, and then
leaves the object in the point being shaded.

Diffusion approximation: As the light tends to become isotropic (uniform in all

directions) after several scatterings in the material, all higher-order scattering
effects after the first are approximated using diffusion approximation. This handles
the effect of light entering the object in one place and illuminating other points in
close proximity.

The difference in the two effects can be seen in the images which are shown below
for each of the parameters.

Sub-surface Scattering
panel

Extinct. S : This controls the extinction coefficient of the material for the single scatter approximation,
and larger values mean less scattering (more absorption) in the material.

Extinct S values of 0.75, 1, 2 and 8 (no diffuse approximation used in these images)

Weight S : This controls the strength for the single scatter approximation effect. Higher values make
the subsurface scattering effect more visible.
 Weight S values of 1, 0.75, 0.35, and 0 (no sub-surface scattering)

Extinct. D : This controls the extinction coefficient of the material for diffusion approximation, and
larger values mean less scattering (more absorption) in the material.

Extinct D. values of 0.5, 1, 2 and 16 (no single scatter approximation used in these images)

Weight. D : This controls the strength of the diffusion approximation effect. Higher values make the
subsurface scattering effect more visible.
 Weight D values of 1, 0.75, 0.5, and 0 (no sub-surface scattering)

Subdiv : This controls the number of samples to take when calculating sub-surface scattering effects (0
means no subsurface scattering). A higher number of samples will reduce noise, but result in longer
render times. Note that for Single Scatter approximation, higher values will help the effect respond
more accurately to the geometry, while for Diffuse approximation it will reduce the noise in the result.
Depending on your objects, you may need a higher Subdiv value to achieve a good Single Scatter result
than you require for the Diffuse approximation result (see images below).

Single scatter approximation only, with sample values of 2, 4, 8 and 32 – note how higher samples allows the effect
to respond more accurately to the geometry, particular on the lips
 Diffuse approximation only, with samples of 1, 2, 4 and 8 – note how higher samples reduce noise for diffuse
approximation, a different result than seen with Single Scatter approximation

The Sub-surface Scattering Shader is available in the Reflectance Shader Library (but only if the V-Ray
render engine is enabled; the shader will appear grayed out and disabled for the Lightworks and
Virtualight render engines).

Skin looks more realistic when rendered using sub-surface scattering (image by Stan Slaughter)
 Combined with Global Illumination, Sub-Surface Scattering is great for marble
(statue from Stanford 3D Scanning Repository)

Notes and Tips:

 Do not use hierarchical objects – while photons can pass through the volume of one single
object, they will be blocked by any other objects (even if those objects are part of the same
hierarchy, they are still considered separate objects in these calculations). This causes artifacts
if the objects intersect.
 Use shadows, at least for they key lights in the scene if not for all lights. If you do not using
shadows, small objects may become illuminated via scattering even if they are in shadow.
 Even with Diffuse set to 0 in the Sub-surface Scattering shader, the surface can still be
illuminated due to the sub-surface scattering effect. Indeed, the higher the Diffuse value in the
shader, the less visible the sub-surface scattering effects will be.
 Objects that use the Sub-surface Scattering shader can display soft shadows on their surface,
even if no soft shadows are enabled for V-Ray. This is because the light transmission through
a surface painted with the Sub-surface Scattering shader will blur and soften the edges of the
shadow. Note that this effect occurs from the Sub-surface Scattering calculations – if the
shader includes Diffuse settings, these may “drown out” the sub-surface scattering effect so
that the soft shadow is not seen, or not seen as clearly. Some sample images can be seen
below:
 Bottom plane uses Sub-surface Scattering shader with Bottom plane with Diffuse = 0.25. Note the appearance
Diffuse = 0. Note the softened shadow due to light / of a hard shadow edge from the regular lighting
shadow bleeding as light is scattered inside the material. calculations for the Diffuse value in the shader.

Bottom plane now using Diffuse = 1. Hard edged shadows

are now very prominent, although the Sub-Surface
Scattering effects can still be seen.

5.4 Hair / Fur displacement Shader

While Workspace provides the full suite of hair modeling and rendering tools, you can obtain very
quick results with this displacement shader, which is only found on the Model side. It allows efficient
rendering as the individual hairs are efficiently generated only when needed (at rendering time – you
won't see any indication of the fur in the Model). Unlike the full Workspace hair and fur, shadows are
not supported and there are no styling tools. Despite these limitations, it's still a useful tool when you
want to quickly apply fur all over an object.

The trueSpace dino gets a furry makeover

 Density: number of individual hairs per unit area

Length: length of individual hair

Thickness: thickness of individual hair

Softness: how soft the hair is, softer hair will bend due to gravity more

To get better-looking results you usually want some variation in the hair
strands. The following parameters allow you to add some
randomness to the base values above:

Dens. Var: variation in density of hair

Length Var: variation in length
Thick. Var: variation in thickness
Soft. Var: variation in softness
Dir. Var: when this is 0, every hair points directly out from the surface of
the object. Add variation by increasing this value.

Hair/Fur Shader panel Segments: number of cylindrical segments for individual hair. You need
to increase this for soft and long hair. Keep low for short hair to
increase the rendering speed.

Color: color of hair/fur

6. V-Ray Options and Parameters
V-Ray options can be set from the V-Ray Options panel, which can be opened by right clicking on any
of the rendering icons (similar to the render options toolbar for the Lightworks render engine) if V-Ray
is the active render engine. This panel will open in the Tool aspect of the Stack view.

Please note that this panel has four different aspects, which can be changed by clicking on the aspects
button of the panel (which reads as “Default” initially – simply click and hold on this to see the list of
available aspects, in the same was as aspects are changed for panels in the Link Editor). The Default
aspect (pictured below) gives you basic controls over the main areas in the render engine, including
some of the basic paramters for Global Illumination and Caustics. However, there is also a GI aspect
which makes more detailed parameters for Global Illumination accessible, a Caustics aspect, which
holds more detailed parameters for Caustics, and a Camera aspect, which contains settings for camera
effects such as depth of field.

The parameters in all four aspects of this panel are described below.
 The V-Ray control panel in Default aspect

The V-Ray panel in GI aspect

6.1 View
You can enter specific dimensions for the Workspace V-Ray Render View here.

6.2 Lights
V-Ray supports Point lights, Spotlights, Distant lights, Projector lights and Area lights. For the
parameters and controls of these light types, please see the relevant chapter in the trueSpace manual.
Note that Shadow Maps are not supported in V-Ray, so all lights will render with Raytraced shadows
whether or not they have Shadow Map selected as their shadow type. The smooth shadow boundaries
created by Shadow Maps are easily possible in V-Ray using alternative techniques – for example, you
could use Area lights; you could use Global Illumination; or you could use the Soft Shadows option.

The parameters that control lighting can be accessed in the Default aspect of the control panel.

Transparent Shadows: Enables/disables computation of transparent shadows for transparent objects and
object with transmission (e.g. glass). Note that in case of transmission the color of the shadow is
defined by the color of the object, for transparent objects the shadows are gray.

Solid shadows, which do not look realistic for these Transparent shadows enabled, which affects objects with
particular objects refraction and those with transparency maps

Soft Shadows: Checkbox which enables soft shadow calculations in V-Ray renders.

Soft shadows work with point or spot projector lights, and allow for a more realistic look to your
renders, with shadows that grow softer the further they are from the shadow casting object.
 A scene rendered with soft shadows

Soft shadows are generated by using a disc based approximation of point light sources. It is possible to
control the size of the disc (and so control the sharpness of the shadow) as well as number of samples
taken to compute it (which controls speed vs. quality).

Size: Specifies the radius of the disc used to replace the point light for the shadow calculation. A small
radius will mean sharper shadows. Note that in order to get a good quality approximation for a larger
radius, you will need to increase the number of samples to avoid too much noise in the result.

Samples: Controls the number of shadow samples taken during the evaluation of the shadow. A higher
number means better quality and less noise, but a longer rendering time.
Hard shadows Even low samples can give good results (here, Samples
was set to 2)

Increasing Size gives softer shadows that spread further (here, Size = 4)
– note this may need a higher Samples value for quality (Samples here = 8)
 Soft Shadows also affect Transparent shadows when enabled; both objects with
refraction and those with transparency maps are affected

Area lights will always give soft shadows no matter what setting you use in the options. They are a
special type of light because instead of light rays coming from a single point, they model light as if it is
coming from a plane. This can give much more realistic results. One thing to note is that falloff with
area lights is treated slightly differently in V-Ray than with other types of lights; there are only two
states, on or off. In practice, this means that setting the falloff in Model to “constant” means there is no
falloff of brightness with distance, while setting it to linear or squared enables falloff.

Constant falloff Squared falloff – note that linear falloff would give the
same result
7. Global Illumination
Global Illumination is the name given to a way of handling the light in a scene that will account not just
for direct illumination (where a ray of light from a light source hits the surface of an object and is
bounced to the eye), but also for other effects, such as light bouncing from one object onto another.
This allows for very realistic renders, and is ideal for cases such as a room lit by a window (where light
from the window bounces around the room to fill in shadows), color bleeding (where a blue wall will
cast a blue light onto the white floor beneath it).

Real, or photograph? Thanks to Global Illumination, you could be fooled! (by Marcel Barthel)

As well as the effect of light sources that you place in the scene, Global Illumination also includes the
effects of an “extra light source”, that being light from the surrounding environment. The color and
intensity of this lighting is controlled by the Environment parameters (see below) and is ideal for
rendering outdoor scenes where it will act as light from the sky, for example.
Global Illumination gives a similar kind of result as radiosity in other render engines supported by
trueSpace (another mathematical model for calculating how light bounces around in a scene, not
supported under V-Ray as Global Illumination replaces it), but Global Illumination under V-Ray is
generally faster to render, and gives better quality results.

Basic parameters for Global Illumination can be set in the Default aspect of the control panel, but
below we will look at the detailed parameters which are available in the GI aspect of the control panel.

The V-Ray control panel in GI aspect, to reveal

more advanced Global Illumination parameters
7.1 GI Parameters
Enable: The checkbox to the left can be used to enable or disable Global Illumination computation.
Note that GI is evaluated in multiple steps. The scene is sampled first (you see a scene rendering with
sample points shown as they are calculated), and this sampling occurs over several steps (the scene will
re-render at each step showing the smaller sample points used in each pass). The final image is
computed as the last step.

Image without GI Image with GI – note the color bleeding

Quality preset - this dropdown list allows you to choose from several presets for some of the GI
parameters. The following presets are available:
 Very low: This preset is only useful for preview purposes to show the general lighting in the
scene.
 Low: A low-quality preset for preview purposes
 Medium: A medium quality preset; works fine in many situations in scenes which have don't
small details.
 High: A high-quality preset that works in most situations, even for scenes with small details.
 Very high: A very high quality preset; can be used for scenes with extremely small and
intricate details.
 Custom: This is used when the preset was modified by the user by manually changing one or
more of the parameters.

Light in global illumination renders comes from two sources, primary and secondary. Primary light
sources are light objects and environment lighting (sky, HDRI), while secondary light sources are light
that is bounced from other surfaces in the scene. You can control the contribution of each type of
source, as well as use different lighting engines for each, as V-Ray 1.5 added the ability to use light
maps, which are better able to handle secondary illumination without excessive rendering times.
Further details on light maps can be found later.

1st Bounce: This is a multiplier which determines how much first diffuse lighting bounces contribute to
the final illumination. Increasing this value makes the image brighter.

2nd Bounces: This is a multiplier which determines how much secondary light bounces contribute to the
final illumination. Increasing the value increases the effect of secondary illumination and color
bleeding in the image.

st nd st nd st nd
1 Bounce=1, 2 Bounces = 1 1 Bounce=1, 2 Bounces = 3 1 Bounce=0.5, 2 Bounces = 3

7.3 Primary GI:

Irradiance cache – used until now, good in most situations as it results in smooth illumination
without artifacts.
Light map – can be used to render light map without the need to complete
Secondary:
Direct – used until now, direct computation of secondary lighting (good for smooth lighting
situations)
Light map – better for scenes with more directionally-dependent illumination (interior scenes with
windows)

Environment: This sets the brightness and color to be used as an environment for Global Illumination.
Double-click the color preview to open the color picker. For example, if you were rendering an outdoor
scene on a sunny day, you would want to set a blue tint for this color, which would then act as light
from the sky. Generally dark colors are all that is needed – the brightness of the color controls the
brightness and strength of effect of the light from the environment, and too bright a color will result in
washed out renders from too much illumination.

Note that the color selected as the environment does not change the background color (as can be seen in
the sample images below)
 GI image with GI Environment = gray GI image with GI Environment = yellow
RGB(192,192,192) RGB(255,255,0)

Environment Image: This lets you use an image to act as the environment for Global Illumination. If an
image is selected, then the Environment color selector has no effect. Note that this allows different
color and intensity of lighting to come from different directions in the scene. Also note that this
method of applying environment images only applies to Workspace; for Model side you should use the
same HDRI Light method as with the Lightworks renderer.

To select an image, double click on the “blank image” to the right of the parameter name, and this will
let you select an image from the Workspace bitmap library. Alternatively, hold CTRL and double click
in order to open a Windows file selection dialog to choose your image. It is suggested that you use
.HDR files for your environments.

To remove an Environment Image and return to using the plain Environment color, right click on the
parameter title (where it says Environment Image, rather than on the image preview) and select Reset.

Format: There are several common formats for HDR environment maps, and you should make sure you
set this to match your image, as “Auto-Detect” can not always give the correct results

Intensity: This controls the brightness of the global lighting generated from the image. If this is 0, no
global illumination will be calculated.
Rfl Intensity: This separate control allows you to brighten or darken any reflections generated from the
image. It also controls the brightness of the environment visible in the background – set this to 0 if you
wish to disable environmental reflections

Samples: A higher value will result in more accurate lighting at the expense of render time. If you set
this to 0, no global illumination will be calculated

Saturation: Allows you to modify how saturated the image is, from -1 to 1, with 0 being normal
saturation and 0 being completely desaturated (grayscale)

Show bkground.: When enabled, the environment image will be visible in the background of the scene
whenever there is no geometry

Env. Lighting only: When you are calculating lighting from the environment image, you usually want
any actual lights in your scene to be disabled. This parameter controls that behavior.

When environment lighting is enabled (Intensity and Samples both greater than 0), Vray will
automatically do a global illumination pass, regardless of whether you have GI enabled or not. If you
do not have it enabled, Vray will use GI settings optimized for HDRI lighting, so if you need a more
complete GI solution, make sure you enable the regular GI checkbox.

HemiSamples: A quality control for Global Illumination, this sets the number of hemispherical samples
used during the irradiance computation. A lower number means fewer samples, which gives faster
render times, but with a lower quality result. A higher number means more samples, which gives better
quality, but longer rendering times. If the number of samples is too low, artifacts will appear as areas
with high variance in their lighting, that is you will see lighter or darker spots on areas that should have
smooth, constant lighting.
HemiSamples of 8, which renders quickly but leaves the HemiSamples raised to 15, which gives a much smoother
result a little noisy result

InterpSamples: 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 the result will be
smoother. Smaller values produce results with more detail, but may produce blotchiness if not enough
HemiSamples are used. You can use this to reduce render times by lowering the HemiSamples and
raising the InterpSamples if sharp and precise detail in the GI effects are not required.

HemiSamples of 8 and InterpSamples of 10, which Using InterpSamples of 20 blurs the result to reduce
renders quickly but shows noise noise without the render time increase from raising the
HemiSamples
QMC Samples: This determines the number of samples used to approximate GI. Note that this is not
the exact number of rays that V-Ray will trace. The number of rays is proportional to the square of this
number, but it can be reduced during the computation by adaptive sampling (further samples are not
computed if the results are very similar).

QMC Depth: This parameter controls the number of light bounces that will be computed for GI. A
value of 0 results in just direct lighting being calculated, and no GI effects will be shown in the image.
A value of 1 will add in the effect of the environmental lighting (set by the Environment color or
image), but there will be no bounces calculated so effects such as color bleeding will not be shown.

A value of 2 will add in one bounce of the diffuse lighting, and this will cause color bleeding to show
up in the final render. A value of 3 will add in secondary bounces, enhancing color bleeding effects.
Higher values will add in more bounces, but the effect of each bounce will be significantly less, and
values above 3 may cause longer render times for insignificant changes in the final rendered image.

QMC Depth of 0 results in just direct lighting – that is, no A QMC Depth of 1 calculates direct lighting, plus lighting
Global Illumination effects at all from the environment (sky dome). No bounces are
calculated, so there is no color bleeding
QMC Depth of 2 adds in a single bounce of lighting, and A QMC Depth of 3 adds in secondary bounces in the
color bleeding now appears lighting, enhancing color bleeding. Higher values are
unlikely to make a significant change to the image

Threshold Parameters: The following three parameters (Color, Normal and Distance Threshold) control
render time rather than affecting visual quality. The sampling process is adaptive, and if the samples are
similar enough (that is, if the difference in color, normal and distance is small enough) then no further
samples are taken even though a higher number of samples was specified by the user in these
parameters.

Color Threshold: 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: 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 make the
irradiance map more sensitive to surface curvature and small details.

Distance Threshold: This parameter controls how sensitive the irradiance map is to distance between
surfaces. A value of 0.0 means the irradiance map will not depend on object proximity at all; higher
values place more samples in places where objects are close to each other.

Min Rate: This value determines the resolution for the first GI pass. A value of 0 means the resolution
will be the same as the resolution of the final rendered image, which will make the irradiance map
similar to the direct computation method. A value of -1 means the resolution will be half that of the
final image, -2 means it will be one quarter of the resolution, -3 means it will be one eighth of the
resolution, 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.

Max Rate: this value determines the resolution of the last GI pass. Note that the actual number of
Irradiance map (GI) pre-passes is determined by a difference between Max Rate and Min Rate values.
Using a lower Min value will allow the renderer to quickly decide on areas that do not require extra
detail in their computation, reducing render time and increasing detail by focusing processing time only
on those areas that need it most – this gives an advantage to setting a lower Min Rate (rather than
setting both Min and Max Rate to the same value) as it can cut down on unnecessary computation.

Max Rate follows the same rules as Min Rate, in that 0 is the same resolution as the image, -1 is half
the resolution, and so on. You may want to set a value of greater than 0 for Max Rate, for example
using a value of 1 will give a final resolution of twice the rendered image. Calculating the GI effects at
a higher resolution than the rendered image gives a smoother and higher quality result, but at the
expense of greater render time.

Min and Max Rate set to -6; note the lack of detail in Min and Max Rate set to -3; now color bleeding can be
the color bleeding seen from each cube
 Min and Max Rate set to 0; significantly increased render time,
but shows even finer detail in the color bleeding

Light map samples: number of samples to take for GI Light map (more samples means more detail but
longer rendering time)

Sample size: determines the spacing of the samples in the light cache. Smaller numbers mean that the
samples will be closer to each other, the light cache will preserve sharp details in lighting, but it will be
more noisy and will take more memory. Larger numbers will smooth out the light cache but will lose
detail.

Store direct light: determines whether the light cache will also store and interpolate direct light. This
can be useful for scenes with many lights using the irradiance map since direct lighting will be
computed from the light cache, instead of sampling each and every light. Note that only the diffuse
illumination produced by the scene lights will be stored. If you want to use the light cache directly for
approximating the GI while keeping the direct lighting sharp, uncheck this option.

Prefilter Light map: the samples in the light cache can be filtered before rendering. Note that this is
different from the normal light cache filtering which happens during rendering. Prefiltering is
performed by examining each sample in turn, and modifying it so that it represents the average of the
given number of nearby samples.

7.2 GI Notes and Tips:

 The main parameters for controlling quality of shadows and color bleeding are the
HemiSamples and the Max Rate parameters. A higher Max Rate will give higher resolution
 calculations for each area, while the HemiSamples will give greater accuracy in those
calculations. Raising either or both of these values will result in less noise in the final image.
 QMC Samples can also result in less noise, though the effect is much less pronounced than
with changes to the HemiSamples and Max Rate parameters. QMC Depth does not affect the
amount of noise, but controls the number of “bounces” computed for the GI effects (values
above 3 are unlikely to contribute significantly to the image).

In order to reduce the amount of noise (and the rendering time) the direct computation of secondary
illumination is typically restricted to a few light bounces only (3 being a default). However this means
that significant portion of the lighting is not accounted for. This is typically compensated for artificially
by increasing the 1st bounce/2nd bounces coefficient to increase the GI effect. Increasing the depth
means longer rendering times but better lighting.

The best results are typically achieved using the irradiance cache for primary GI engine and light map
for secondary engine – this is true especially for scenes with a lot of secondary lighting. Also, if you
combine irradiance cache with light map it is typically good enough to keep irradiance cache
parameters at the “Low” preset. Below you can see several examples of light maps at work and see for
yourself how they improve quality without having to increase the QMC depth.

Light map computation in early stages Final Light map

Note that you already have pretty good information on
scene lighting
 Final rendered image
Irradiance cache + Light Map

Light Map + Light Map Irradiance + Light Map

The Light map can be set as the primary engine for GI as well. However it is quite tricky to control the
parameters to achieve acceptable results.

Irradiance + Direct – QMC depth = 3 Irradiance + Direct – QMC depth = 6

Irradiance + Direct – QMC depth = 15 Irradiance + Light Map

8. Caustics
Caustics are the highlights caused by specular energy transfer, for example when light is focused
through a glass object, or reflected off a mirrored surface.

The V-Ray control panel in Caustics aspect

8.1 Caustics Settings

Enable: Use the checkbox at the left to enable or disable the computation of caustics. Calculating caustics
involves the use of photon maps, which are computed before the actual rendering starts (so you may see
a noticeable delay prior to rendering when caustics are selected). Caustics can add greatly to rendering
times, especially if using a high number of photons.

Metal ring without caustics Metal ring with caustics

Factor: This factor controls the strength of the caustics. It is global and applies equally to all light
sources that generate caustics. Use it to control the visibility of the caustics effect. Typically you can
leave this at value 1, though sometimes the value needs to be increased significantly, for example to
100 or 1000. Often setting this value high first can help in finding the correct values for the caustics
parameters.

Photons: The number of photons to trace for every light source in order to generate a photon map. A
higher number means better quality, but longer render times.

Distance: When V-Ray traces a photon that hits an object, the raytracer searches for other photons on
the same plane in the surrounding area (the search area). The search area is in fact is a circle with the
original photon at its center, and the Distance parameter controls the radius of that circle. Typically the
value should cover the distance of few image pixels as converted to the 3D model space. Too low a
value may result in separate areas of light and dark (due to the search area circles being too small to
overlap). Too large a value may result in unnecessarily long render times.

Caustics with Distance = 0.003, the small value for Caustics with Distance = 0.007, the larger size of area
means the individual photons traced are visible and do sampled for each photon allows a smooth result.
not merge, giving a speckled appearance

Notes and Tips:

 Small Distance settings can lead to sharp caustic effects, but you may require higher numbers
of photons (and so longer render times) to avoid a speckled appearance in the result, as the
search area may be too small for the effects from individual photons to overlap. Raising the
Distance parameter will also help remove the speckled look, but at the expense of the caustics
looking softer or more blurry.
 Use shadows, at least for they key lights in the scene if not for all lights. If you do not using
shadows, small objects may become illuminated via scattering even if they are in shadow.
9. Save and Load Irradiance, Light, and Photon maps
It is possible to save and load Irradiance, Light, and Photon maps, useful when doing multiple
renderings with the same scene. These options let you calculate Global Illumination or Caustics and
save the result, with Global Illumination being saved to an Irradiance map or Light map, and Caustics
being saved to a Photon map.

This allows the map or maps to be loaded later when rendering the same scene (for example, from a
different perspective or viewpoint, or to a different image size), removing the need to repeat the Global
Illumination or Caustic calculations and so speeding up the rendering process on those subsequent
renders.

Do note that Photon maps (for Caustics) are view independent, so once calculated and saved, you can
render an image using that photon map from a different viewpoint. Irradiance maps (for Global
Illumination) are view dependent however – the lighting is calculated for the objects visible in the
image at the time of saving the Irradiance map. Rendering from a different viewpoint with an
Irradiance map loaded may result in samples being missing in areas of the scene which were not visible
from the previous viewpoint when the Irradiance map was calculated and saved. Saving an Irradiance
map remains useful for rendering to different image sizes without the need to recalculate, so that you
can render smaller test images, and then a final large image without the need to recalculate the GI
effects.

9.1 Map Settings

Save Map: Checkboxes that control whether the irradiance, light, and photon maps are saved to file
after rendering

Load Map: Load the irradiance, light, or photon map from file prior to the rendering (skips the map
generation by the render engine).

Open file: Opens the file dialog to select the file name

File path edit: An edit field that allows the user to type the file name/path into the dialog.

9.2 GI Maps Notes and Tips:

Below is a sample of the intended workflow for saving and using Irradiance maps (the same workflow
steps would also apply for Photon and Light maps):
 Check Save Irrad. Map
 Specify the name of the file to save the map to by either typing the file path to the dialog
entry, or clicking on the button left of the file path entry to open the file dialog and pick a file.
  Render the scene as normal – the map is saved to the file at this point. You do not need to
render the scene to file to save the map, rendering to screen will work equally well Render
portion of the scene is also possible but note that in this case only a portion of the map is
evaluated – the other parts might than be missing in sub-sequent renderings.
 Uncheck Save Irrad. Map
 Check Load Irrad. Map - note that in following this workflow, you have the path to file
specified already. If you have loaded a scene later in another session, then you may need to
specify the name of the file to load.
 Render again, for example from a different viewpoint. Since the map is pre-computed, the
rendering is considerably faster.

Note that if you change any geometry, lighting or materials then the maps will no longer be valid.
Using a saved map in a scene that is different in any way from the scene the map was made from will
give unpredictable results.

Also note that you need to enable Global Illumination if you want to load an Irradiance or Light map,
and enable Caustics if you to load a Photon map. Checking an option to load a map will have no effect
without the associated Global Illumination or Caustics checkboxes also being selected.
10. Depth of Field
“Depth of field” is a term used to describe a visual effect where the area you are looking at is in sharp
focus but the areas in front and behind are blurred. It is a great way to bring your scenes to life,
literally adding depth and perceptual cues and heightening photorealism.

The DOF controls are included in the Camera aspect of the V-Ray options panel

10.1 DOF Settings

Aperture: this is the size of the virtual camera aperture, in world units. Small aperture sizes reduce the

DOF effect, larger sizes produce more blur.

Apertures of 0.2 and 2.0
Subdivisions: controls the quality of the DOF effect. Lower values are computed faster, but produce
more noise in the image. Higher values smooth out the noise, but take more time to render. With very
large aperture settings, you will definitely need to increase the subdivisions to avoid excessive noise.
 Subdivisions of 1 and 10

Distance: determines the distance from the camera at which objects will be in perfect focus. Objects
closer or farther than that distance will be blurred.

Distances of 7.0, 15.0, and 25.0

Sides: When enabled, Vray simulates the polygonal shape of a real-world aperture with the number of
sides you specify. Otherwise, Vray assumes a perfectly circular aperture.

Rotation: specifies the orientation of the aperture shape.

Anisotropy: allows the stretching of the DOF effect horizontally or vertically. Positive values stretch
the effect in the vertical direction. Negative values stretch it in the horizontal direction.

Center bias: this determines the uniformity of the DOF effect. A value of 0.0 means that light passes
uniformly through the aperture. Positive values mean that light is concentrated towards the rim of the
aperture, while negative values concentrate light at the center.
11. Rendering Options
Additional rendering options which will affect all the render engines can be set from Render Options
Toolbar (Model only) or the PhotoRender Options Panel. This panel, and a description of how each of
the parameters affects V-Ray in particular, can be found below.

The PhotoRender control panel

11.1 General Rendering Settings

Rendering Quality:
 Wireframe: Not supported under V-Ray.
 Hidden Line: Not supported under V-Ray
 Medium: This renders with textures taken directly from the Workspace, which gives fast
rendering with medium quality. Note that the Workspace textures can be down-sampled
resulting in loss of details on textured surfaces.
 High: This renders with full size textures and gives the best possible quality, although there is
potentially longer start-up and rendering times as a result of the larger memory requirements
from the larger textures. Note that there is no difference between Medium or High settings in
scenes which have use no textures.

Render Method: This has no effect on rendering with V-Ray. It is suggested that this is left set to
RayCast to ensure equivalent results should you switch to another render engine.

Anti-Aliasing:
 • Draft: Very fast rendering with the width and height of the image reduced in half. Suitable for
fast previews.
• None: No anti-aliasing. Fast, but jagged edges will appear in the image.
• 2X: Super-sampling with 2x2 kernel. Every pixel is computed as an average of 4 sample
points.
• 3X: Super-sampling with 3x3 kernel. Every pixel is computed as an average of 9 sample
points.
• 4X: Super-sampling with 2x2 kernel. Every pixel is computed as an average of 16 sample
points.
• Adaptive: Very high quality analytical anti-aliasing for superior image quality.

Adaptive is the suggested optimal anti-aliasing setting. Note that adding anti-aliasing will result in
longer render times, with 4X anti-aliasing being slowest of all. Adaptive should give better results that
2x anti-aliasing, and with faster render times. 3X and 4X anti-aliasing may give better results than
Adaptive (although Adaptive can often match those in quality), but with longer render times.

Triangulate: This has no effect on rendering with V-Ray.

Multithread: Enable or disable support for multiple processors or processors with HyperThreading
technology.

SingleSide: Enable or disable support for single-sided rendering. When single sided rendering is
selected (the box is checked) then normals are not corrected to face the illumination direction, which
results in slightly faster rendering but may reveal artifacts caused by back-facing surfaces. Double-
sided rendering (when the box is unchecked) adjusts the normals to be always facing the illumination
direction, which removes the chance of artefacts in the render, but at the expense of a slightly longer
render time.

Raytracing Options:

 Enabled: Turn or off reflection and refraction in the scene.

 Max Depth: The level of recursion for tracing rays. A higher value will result in slower but
more accurate rendering of reflective and (especially) refractive surfaces.
 Min. Contrib: This parameter is for limiting the amount of reflections in the scene and is
directly related to the “reflection” value of a material. When that value is lower than the Min.
Contrib. setting, no reflections will be calculated for that object
 Limit: This value controls how much a ray has to contribute to the scene to be included in the
final rendering calculations. Increasing this value can reduce rendering time at the expense of
accuracy.
Render Engine: This provides the same function as Model's Preferences option and is included as a
convenience.

11.2 Background
The background settings are found in their own aspect, as shown below:

 Color: A single color is used as the background. The color itself can be set by right clicking on
the icon in the Rendering Options Toolbar.
 Image: An image is used as the background (stretched to fit the screen). The image to use as
the background can be set by right clicking on the icon under the Rendering Options Toolbar.
 Clouds: This is not supported under V-Ray. Only the Background color from the Clouds
settings would be used, so the Color background option should be used instead.
 Graduated: This is not supported under V-Ray. Only the Top color from the Graduated
settings would be used, so the Color background option should be used instead.
12. HDRI
HDRI is now supported under V-Ray as well as under Lightworks. The various HDRI settings are
found under the Environment parameters in the Global Illumination options and are explained in that
section, but for backwards compatibility the Model-side interface (the same one as for Lightworks
HDRI) is still available. When using this legacy interface, most of the settings for V-Ray work in the
same way as the settings for HDRI under Lightworks, so please see the chapter “HDRI” for details.
Differences from HDRI under Lightworks are noted below.

HDRI makes this abstract object look real, thanks to the shadows and reflections(by Mike Harris)

12.1 HDRI Settings

Shadow Computation: HDRI lighting is evaluated using Irradiance maps in case of V-Ray (similar to
V-Ray GI). Thus the quality of shadows cast by HDRI light map is much better than in case of
Lightworks. On the other hand, in case of V-Ray it is not possible to compute HDRI lighting without
shadows (this is an inherited limitation of irradiance maps).

Background Smoothing and Angle parameter: When the HDRI environment image is displayed as a
background, V-Ray smooths the image to remove pixellation and color banding, giving a better quality
result for the background. Because of this, the Angle parameter is not required (as it is intended to
introduce blurring to avoid the pixellation and color banding) and has no effect on HDRI when
rendering using V-Ray.

Mapped Shadows: V-Ray does not support mapped shadows, so selecting this under the HDRI Shadow
options will have no effect.
Samples and other parameters: Although the other parameters are functionally the same way as HDRI
under Lightworks, you may need to change the values under V-Ray in order to achieve similar results -
for example, you may need to raise or lower the Samples attribute in order to find an equivalent balance
between speed and quality.

Some examples are given below on how the various HDRI parameters affect the result from V-Ray.

12.2 HDRI Examples

Samples = 7 Samples = 20 (note smoother shadowing)

Saturation = 0.5 (colors from lighting are more muted) Saturation = 0 (no color at all from lighting, only surface
colors remain)
 Light Intensity = 1 Light Intensity = 2.5

12.3 HDRI Notes and Tips

Global Illumination Settings
Since HDRI calculations use Irradiance maps, some of the settings under the GI aspect will change how
HDRI is calculated (even when the GI Checkbox is left unchecked and GI is not selected).

HemiSamples: Has no effect on HDRI lighting, is replaced by the HDRI Samples parameter.

InterSamples: Will affect HDRI in the same way as it affects GI, please see the section on Global
Illumination for more information.

QMC Samples and Depth: Will have no effect on HDRI lighting, as these relate only to bounced light
in the scene. No bounced light is calculated for HDRI on its own.

Min and Max Rate: Will affect the pre-passes for HDRI in the same way as they affect GI, please see
the section on Global Illumination for more information.
13. TUTORIALS

Choosing How to Render in V-Ray

V-Ray offers many different methods of rendering and many different options. If you are used to other
render engines, it may take some time to “rethink” a scene in terms of how V-Ray renders, and it may
be tricky to decide just what effects and options you want to use for a given scene. You could just turn
on everything and hope for the best, since Global Illumination, Caustics, HDRI and soft shadows all
improve the look of a scene, so why not just use them all each time?

To help you make an informed decision, here is a quick guide to approaching rendering in V-Ray!
There is of course no right and wrong in the answer, and what follows is to help guide you in your
choice. The biggest decisions facing you will be relating to the quality of the end result, against the
time taken to render it, as even a fast engine such as V-Ray will need time to calculate Global
Illumination and Soft Shadows and Caustics combined!

13.1 Quick and Simple

Regular V-Ray render (2 spotlights, 1 infinite light)

A good way to start is to render the scene quick and simple! Just because there are options for
HDRI, Global Illumination, Caustics and more does not mean you have to use them. Certainly for
initial rendering while modeling or setting up a scene, leaving the more advanced options
 deselected will help speed your workflow – and may well be enough for a simple render for an
illustration or diagram, for example.

13.2 Soft Shadows

With Soft Shadows enabled

Perhaps one of the quickest and easiest changes you can make for rendering your scene is to add
soft shadows. Depending on how many lights you have used in your scene, these should not take
long to calculate, and yet can add a “less computer generated” look thanks to the softer shadows.
Since the shadows appear “hard edged” when close to a shadow casting object, and grow softer
with distance, this can add a dramatic amount of realism and interest with comparatively little
overhead in render time.

13.3 HDRI for Reflection Only

 HDRI reflection only (no lighting; but with Soft Shadows)
HDRI has two main benefits – one is the realistic reflections and refractions for glass and metal
objects, and the other is the lighting and shadowing. However, you can take advantage of the
reflections without the overhead of calculating the lighting– for example, if you are satisfied with
your lighting using soft shadows alone, but you want to take advantage of the benefits of the
reflections and refractions in your scene, to get a result like shown above.

Note that since HDRI uses irradiance maps, the same as

Global Illumination, then V-Ray needs to do multiple
passes in order to calculate the lighting from HDRI (which
means there can be a benefit to using Soft Shadows only
with regular lighting in the scene).

To get the effect of the HDRI reflections only, simply set

the HDRI Light Intensity to 0, but leave a value for Back
Intensity. This will indicate that no lighting calculations
should be done for HDRI lighting, but the effects of the
reflections will still be calculated.
 13.4 Full HDRI

HDRI (lighting and reflections)

If you want a render that looks very realistic or one where an object blends into a background
environment or scene, then HDRI can be an extremely good solution. This is particularly useful for
scenes with objects in isolation. For example, if you have an entire closed room with most of the
items of furniture fully modeled, then HDRI is not a good solution – while it is true that light from
the HDRI scene will come in through the window, there will be very little benefit from HDRI,
since all the objects will already have something to reflect and refract from the modeled room, and
the majority of the lighting will not be “environmental” lighting from a surrounding scene, but
instead will be lighting bouncing from one object to the other – Global Illumination would be a
more satisfactory solution in that case.

However, if you have a close up of a cup on a kitchen table, without the rest of the room being
modeled, then HDRI with an environment of a kitchen would be an ideal solution. Similarly, if you
are modeling a car on a street, then an HDRI environment of outdoors will provide realistic
lighting and reflection (most likely you will also want to model the pavement and sidewalk for the
car to “stand” on, just as you modeled the kitchen table for the cup).

Even a collection of quite a few objects which are outside will render well with HDRI, as they will
reflect each other where necessary, and reflect the background environment from the HDRI when
there is nothing in the scene to reflect, plus the lighting will give them a realistic and consistent
look – so modeling a playground, or a house, or a street, could all be good examples of when
HDRI will be a good solution.
The trade off for the quality and realism is that the render times may increase significantly-
however, when realism and quality is paramount, HDRI can be a very good solution indeed.

13.5 Caustics

Caustics (also with Soft Shadows)

Caustics – the reflection or refraction of light from mirrored or glass objects - add significantly to
render times, as they are quite complex to calculate. It is also surprising how infrequently they will
add much to a scene, so be sure to give a lot of thought before enabling caustics in your render.

If you look around you in the real world, it is surprising how little caustic effects occur in most
situations, and if they do occur they are often so slight or unimportant as to not be missed if they
were not there. Perhaps review your photograph albums, take a look at when caustics really were
vital to the picture and when they were incidental, or simply not present. Indeed, sometimes their
presence can act as a distraction or interference with the main focus of an image.

Just because you have a dining table with glasses and shiny cutlery laid out on it does mean you
must enable caustics. The car you render in the brightly sunlight street may well cast a caustic
reflection from the chrome hubcaps onto the nearby pavement. However, the scene may well look
natural and suit your purpose entirely without them, and it may not occur to the viewer that there is
anything missing.
Of course, there are times when caustics are the whole reason for a render, and then they become
worth the extra render time. They can at times make or break particular images.

If you have the same dining table as above, but are focused in entirely on one glass of wine, then
the caustic effects of light shining off that glass and passing through the glass and the wine may be
critical to the image looking realistic. Or a close up of your chrome hub cap on the car may too
look incomplete without the caustic effects – or simply look a hundred times more dramatic if they
are included even if it looks fine without them!

Other scenes may be greatly changed by the inclusion of caustics - a close up of a diamond or gem
may benefit from the reflected sparkle on the surface on which it rests; a view of a dresser covered
in perfume bottles, and with a large mirror at the back, may also benefit from the interplay of
reflected and refracted light; or perhaps a chandelier or disco ball, where you want realistically
calculated effects rather than simulated ones using project lights and similar.

The point here is to consider whether caustic effects really are what your render is about. If they
are not the focus of attention, or vital to the focus of attention, then consider leaving them disabled,
otherwise you may add significant amount of times to your renders for fairly insignificant changes
in the end result - just because you have a tool available does not mean you always have to use it!

Combining the previous approaches, with HDRI (reflections only), Soft Shadows, and Caustics
 13.6 Global Illumination

Global Illumination, showing how light and color bounce off the car onto the ground

Global Illumination is best used when you want very realistic scenes, in particular where light is
required to “bounce” from one object to another. This is ideal for any render that requires realism,
particularly for indoor renders showing rooms and architecture, since frequently an entire room is
lit by a single light source (be that a window, or a lamp) and most of the room is lit not from the
direct light, but from the way the light bounces from walls and furniture.

GI can be quite intensive to render, though with good settings it need not increase render times too
much, depending on just how much fine detail is required in the Global Illumination effects.

13.7 Combining Global Illumination and Caustics

 Global Illumination plus Caustics (the Global Illumination was saved as an Irradiance Ma
prior to rendering with Caustics)

Combining both Global Illumination and Caustics can be effective, and the best way to do this is to
take advantage of the ability to save Irradiance and Photon Maps. Work with just GI or just
Caustics, adjusting the settings until you have the effect you want. Then simply render to save the
Irradiance map (if you have been setting the GI first) or the Photon map (if you have been setting
the Caustics first). After that you can then adjust the settings for the other effect while simply
loading the map for the other effect, saving on render time.

13.8 Combining Caustics and HDRI

 Caustics (saved as a Photon Map) and HDRI used for reflection only for a dramatic result

Another combination that can be effective is using HDRI and Caustics. Here the best method is to
save the Caustics calculations to a Photon map, which can then be loaded while you adjust the
HDRI settings. You can use the HDRI as a reflection environment only, as done previously, or you
can use the effect of the HDRI lighting also.
 Here HDRI Lighting and reflection is used, in combination with a saved Photon map for Caustics

As you can see from the above examples, you can achieve a vast range of different effects
depending on how you choose to render using V-Ray. The almost-limitless choice can seem very
confusing, so always keep in mind what it is you want your image to achieve – think of the look
and the result, and what is important about your render, rather than thinking about the technology
itself and what you can enable just because it is there!

The above examples will guide you in making a decision as to what sort of look will best suit your
purpose, so that you can get the results you desire while keeping your render times as short as
possible by avoiding unnecessary effects.

Working with Materials, by Manfred Moersner

Materials are sometimes a bit of a mystery. They can appear very different depending on lights, on
other materials that are reflected and of course also on the parameters set in V-Ray. One big difference
is whether your are using global illumination (GI) or not. GI handles a lot of lighting automatically,
while settting the lights manually until you are satisfied can be a lengthy job.

Hopefully this manual has described the setting of parameters adequately, but what does it really look
like? Here we have some experimenting to see the effects. This is only a very small insight but should
prepare you for experimenting on your own whenever you get one of those ”standard“ materials that
seem to look just as you wanted, but turn out quite different during rendering. Instead of being
disappointed, think about the effects and then change to get the result you originally were looking for.

First we've done a standard setup:

4 glass plates
9 spheres – one spot light that has its focus on the middle sphere
The glass plates have some reflecting effect, focusing the spotlight should show coloring between
shadows and lights and the number of spheres shows different angles and reflections.
So we will put first material on each sphere now and let VRay go, without GI.
This is supposed to be “Dull Metal”. Not that bad. OK, so how about if we switch on GI now ?
Wow, what a difference, from black to white, but why? That must be a mistake?
Well, let's try the next metal we have, “Polished Metal”:
First try with GI off and only the spotlight lights the objects. OK, now what happens here when we
switch on GI?
Same effect, mysterious? No, not really. If we inspect the scene we should notice that both GI renders
are brighter than those only done with spotlight. Could it be that leaving only one light enabled (our
spotlight) and then additionally enabling GI could have such an effect? Yes, this is indeed the case.
Leaving any of our standard lights on while rendering GI has also another effect, rendering time can
increase significantly. In our case one can notice this when rendering happens in the area of the
spotlight with GI enabled. But as we will see, there is more that influences materials.

Let us look at another effect we have, “Environment”, where we can set a surrounding picture for our
scenery. This is of importance for reflective materials. So let us try the “Cool Chrome” material:
Hmmm, it reflects like chrome, but to be honest, it doesn't really look like it.
OK, then let us get an environment bitmap, something covering the background to give a little bit of
graphic noise that can be reflected. Searching around, it looks that hair from the trueSpace texture
folder should do it. Let's use the bump version so that color won't influence the scene.
Wow, what a difference:
Almost like all of a sudden the curtain raises up, the flashlights start working. Yes, looks almost as if
the Beatles returned on stage.
But what do we actually have? The background simply is reflected and each sphere reflects the other
spheres. In a real project it will of course be different. There we have all kind of objects mostly
differently shaped and colored. So there it will look more natural. Environment bitmaps can have a
significant influence on the appearance of materials as the following example shows, first without GI
and bitmap:
What did we do here, well just used the flame texture from the trueSpace texture folder as the
Environment bitmap. Now we have on one hand the “lightening up” when rendering GI with external
light (our spotlight) and the environment shows those beautiful reflections. With one last picture we
will end this section which was supposed to encourage everyone to inspect, think and to experiment.
Reality never is what it looks like!
Sample V-Ray Materials
The starter library of V-Ray materials contains a wide range of surfaces to get you started:
Let's render out our test scene using each of these materials. This time we still have the glass plate with
the spheres on it, but around this scenery we build a box and add a sky light. Renderings were done
without GI but we learned above already to be aware of differences. Examining the pictures should
give some idea of how especially materials with reflections act different in their appearance. The light
should now be reflected by the surrounding box while our spheres will reflect the box and the other
spheres. Color of the box is a very light gray.
Notice that it seems those two spheres left in the middle row seem to have a tip showing towards us. It
is just an optical effect, they really are still round spheres!
The last two materials are only there to show that the other ones really are glassy.

A final example shows the first 9 materials with another setup. We have glass plates on the bottom,
back, left, right and on the top of the box. Below bottom a light gray plate: