Light and Render an Arch-Vi

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Laurens Corijn on Jul 10th 2009 with 37 comments

Apart from the default render engines that come with 3ds Max, several extra renderers are available. Of all the

3rd party renders on the market, however, V-Ray has proven time and time again to be the most popular. In this

tutorial, you will be introduced to lighting and rendering an outdoor scene with V-Ray in 3DS Max.

This tutorial will walk you through the process of taking a finished model from its default rendered appearance,

to a correctly set-up, and realistically lit final result. You will learn the basic V-Ray settings, that should always

be set up for any scene, how to use a Gamma correct workflow, how to set lighting and global illumination

settings, and how to optimize those settings. Note: This tutorial is meant to introduce a user, familiar with basic

rendering in 3DS Max, to using V-Ray in a correct workflow. It will not teach you how to model the scene used

in the images, as that is not our focus.

The software used will be 3DS Max 2009 together with V-Ray 1.5, but using another version of 3DS Max should

not be a problem, although minor differences in settings might be necessary. You can download the project file

from the following link if you would like to look at (or play with) the settings, but you will need to have the

above mentioned software to open it.

Project File

download

Final Effect Preview

ht and Render an Arch-Viz Style Outdoor Scene with V-Ray and 3d... file:// /D:/Dvd programas/vray com gamma/Light and Render an Arch-V...

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Step 1First of all, when rendering scenes with realistic global illumination, it is very important to work with gamma-

correct settings. In short, this means we adjust 3DS Maxs settings to display brightness levels as you perceive

them in real life.

Go to Customize > Preferences, and select the Gamma and LUT tab. Any settings that you need to

change, or pay attention to, will always be marked with a red border. It is very important to make sure that your

screen or videocard display settings are set so that the gamma preview image blends together as one single grey

value when viewed from a distance.


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Step 2

Next, go to Rendering > Render Setup (F10 on your keyboard). The Common tab should be active. Scroll

all the way down, and open the Assign Renderer rollout. Hit the button next to the name of the Production:

renderer to get a list of installed render engines. Choose V-Ray 1.50 from the list and hit OK. The tabs in the

Render Settings dialog should change to include, among others, a V-Ray tab.


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Step 3

For now, close the Render Settings. Hit F9 to start a first test render with V-Ray. You will notice V-Ray

renders with small squares running across your render, these are called buckets. My scene is Tod Williams

1978 Tarlo House in Suffolk County, NY. I chose this subject because it was easy to model, yet still looks

interesting enough as a subject for this tutorial. You might notice that my background color is grey instead of

black. You can do the same via Rendering > Environment, or hitting 8 on your keyboard, but it is not

really important since we will change this in a few steps anyway.


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Step 4

The first thing you should always do when setting up rendering, is change your Antialiasing filter. Hit F10

again, to bring up the Render Settings window, and go to the V-Ray tab. The rollout we want is the Image

sampler (Antialiasing) rollout. Change the drop down for the filter from Area to Catmull-Rom. Area isthe default filter, which looks blurry and un-sharp compared to other more advanced ones. You dont have to

use Catmull-Rom, Lanczos, and Mitchell-Netravali are also okay, but I prefer the crisp look

Catmull-Rom gives me.


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Step 5

Close the Render Settings, and render again by hitting F9. The difference in changing the Antialiasing filter

should be visible already.

Step 6

Next, you will set up a camera. In 3ds Max, you can create a camera from a view by pressing Ctrl + C in a

perspective viewport. So, try to find a camera angle that is aesthetically pleasing, and hit Ctrl + C. This creates

a default 3ds Max Camera, as you should be able to see from other views. You can switch a viewport back to

perspective mode by hitting P while in it. Hitting C will return the viewport back to camera mode, or present

you with a list of cameras if there are multiple cameras in the scene.


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Step 7

V-Ray has a special, proprietary camera, called a V-Ray Physical Camera. This camera behaves like a

real-life camera with F-number, shutter speed, and ISO values. The main reason you should use it is because you

have more realistic control over your renders, and you wont have to tweak your V-Ray light settings, since

their default values are meant to work with the Physical Camera.

In the Primitives tab, go to the Cameras section, and change the drop down to VRay. Create a PhysicalCamera at about the same location as the standard camera. Now, use the Align tool (highlighted red in the

top left corner) to align your Physical Camera to the standard camera. Do the same thing with the Physical

Cameras target.


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Step 8

Delete the standard camera (you wont need it anymore). Change your view to look through your new V-Ray

Physical Camera. Now hit F9 to test render again. You should immediately see that our render has gone a lot

darker. This is because the brightness the Vray Physical Camera expects from lights is much higher than the

default brightness of standard 3ds Max lights. You will also notice the Antialiasing quality has gone down.

This is actually normal, since V-Ray adapts its Antialiasing quality based on brightness and contrast(remember the Adaptive subdivision sampler from the Antialiasing rollout).

Step 9

To fix your brightness problem, you need to set up some lights. We are going to use a Daylight system to

create a sunlight in our scene. The advantage of this system is that it has an easy interface for correct sun

positions and movement. Go to the Systems button, of the Create tab, and create a Daylight object, at the

center of your scene. The size of this object does not matter. Once created, you can rotate it to change thecompass direction.


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Step 10

The Daylight system automatically created a sunlight attached to it. Select this light, called the Assembly

Head, and change the highlighted drop downs to use a VraySun, instead of a standard light, and disable the

Skylight. The Skylight is not an object in V-Ray, but a render setting (we will talk more on this later).

Remember that adjusting the VraySuns parameters happens through here. Since we are using a PhysicalCamera, however, this is not necessary, as the default values will work fine.


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Step 11

With the Daylight Assembly Head selected, go to the Motion tab. Here you will change the suns azimuthand altitude to your liking, by using the Time settings. What is interesting here, is that you can also select a

location somewhere on earth and the daylight system will automatically adjust the sun to behave like on that

location. Click Get Location, and click on a location on the world map to select it. I used the approximate

location of Suffolk County, NY.

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Step 12

Once you have a basic set up, hit F9 to test render again. With a default VraySun, and a default Physical

Camera, your result should look like below. At this point, feel free to make more test renders, to find a sun

position that is to your liking.


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Step 13

The previous renders were a little overblown, so select your Physical Camera to change some of its settings.

There are quite a few, but F-number, Shutter Speed, and Film Speed (ISO), are the most important ones

for the moment. In real life, there is a rule in photography called the Sunny 16 rule. This rule states On asunny day, set aperture to f/16, and shutter speed to the ISO film speed. So in our case, we will go for an

F-number of 16, an ISO of 100, and a Shutter Speed of 125 (a small deviation is fine). These numbers

are a starting point for further tweaking. Keep the following in mind regarding these three settings: the lower the

F-number, the lower the Shutter Speed, and the higher the ISO, the brighter your image will be.


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Step 14

Render again. You will notice the scene got darker, and now seems a bit under lit. You will also probably notice

that your shadows are completely black. This is because we have not activated a Skylight with Indirect

Illumination yet. Once we do this, we will get much more realistic lighting results.


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Step 15

Open your Render Settings again. In the V-Ray tab, open the Environment rollout. Enable the GI

Environment (skylight) override by checking the tickbox. Change the color from a slight blue, to white. This is

how you activate a skylight in V-Ray, as mentioned earlier.

Step 16

Next, go to the Indirect Illumination tab. Activate it by checking the tickbox in the upper left corner. This tab

has a wealth of options and possibilities, but for this tutorial, there is no need to complicate things, as default

settings will mostly work fine. It is important to lower the quality of the Irradiance map (a method for

calculating Indirect Illumination) for test rendering purposes. This will reduce render times by a magnitude of


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up to 4, with more than adequate visual results for previewing. Just change the dropdown to Low instead of

High. Checking the Show Calc. Phase tickbox tells V-Ray to show you what it does while pre-calculating

the Irradiance map, making rendering less boring to look at.

Step 17

Time to render again. After a render, with an interesting pre-pass or two, you should see a result thats starting tolook more like what we want. Shadows are not pure black anymore, and the lighting generally became a lot more

interesting to look at. The only problem on the image below, is how the light seems to reflect a little bit too

strongly in some corners.


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Step 18

The strong light reflection is because, until now, the material in the scene was pure white. This is almost never a

good idea, just as using pure black, red, green, or blue on an object is not done. Change the material color to a

warm white value. To make the scene a little bit more interesting, assign a VrayMaterial with reflectionsenabled to the windows. To change a standard material, click the material name in the top right, and select a

VrayMtl from the list that is presented. The settings for this reflective material are highlighted. You can skip

this step if you like, as it is not the focus of this tutorial.

Step 19

Render again. The results of the newly chosen materials should be obvious, as the strong light bounce is almost


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completely gone.

Step 20

The previous image is still a little bit under lit. Playing with the shutter speed will show that a value of 90 looks

best (remember that lowering shutter speed increases the image brightness). Adjust the white balance to your

liking, choosing a warm, orange-ish white as balance will cool the image colors down, while choosing a cold,

blueish white as balance can warm the image colors up. The default blueish white makes for a result that is much

too warm, so change this color to a warmer white. Optionally, you can increase the vignetting value a bit more,

to make the darkened vignet edges more obvious.


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Step 21

Time for another test render. The changes should once again be obvious, and this result should be adequate

enough to end our test rendering phase. We can now start increasing the settings for our final image. This render

might still be a little bit under lit, and can do with some more balancing of the brightness levels, but instead of

spending a lot of time on this in 3ds Max, we will opt to change these settings in Photoshop afterwards.

Remember, in 3D, the final result is what matters, so if getting there through Photoshop is easier and faster, then

there is no reason not to do so!


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Step 22

Go back to the Indirect Illumination settings. For higher quality renders, an Irradiance map setting of

Medium should do the job most of the time. A setting of High should only be used when absolutely

necessary, as it increases render times almost to a disproportionate level. An interesting way of increasing qualityis by enabling Detail enhancement. This tells V-Ray to locally increase the lighting quality where necessary,

and can even allow for a Low preset to be used, instead of Medium or High in some occasions. Detail

enhancement also adds quite a lot to render times, but in certain cases, it is almost a must (the smaller and the

more geometric detail your object has, the more necessary this option becomes).


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Step 23

Change your camera angle so it is a bit more to your liking. I chose for a more dramatic wide shot here.

Step 24

To illustrate the effect of Gamma correct settings and workflow, I saved the image without Gamma

correction, and then blended between the two. It would have been a lot more difficult to tweak the settings to

look the same without Gamma correction. Especially the Indirect Illumination suffers from not usingGamma correction.


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Step 25

Once youre happy with your render quality, and resolution, save it, and then open it in Photoshop. In this case,

using Image > Auto Color, and then Edit > Fade Auto Color to 50% should prove enough to fix the

levels. Feel free to try anything else you want in Photoshop. Image > Auto Levels or Auto Contrast might

also work, but Fading them might prove necessary either way.

Final Result

Click on the image to open a High-Rez version.


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By Laurens CorijnI'm Laurens Corijn, a recent Digital Arts & Entertainment graduate from Belgium. I've been doing CG for 4

years now, mainly focusing on mechanical subjects such as vehicles. I equally enjoy working on high-end

rendering, and optimized, real-time, video game art. Besides doing CG, I like to spend my time listening to music,

and riding and maintaining my motorcycle. My website can be found at: laurenscorijn.com.

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Light and Render an Arch-Vi

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