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Realistic interior lighting with V-Ray

  By Denis Keman • September 20, 2015 ,

Lighting up your scenes will either make or break your scenes. When i say break your scene i don’t mean like literally crush your scene, but if your scene lighting is not realistic then your entire scene will end up looking fake. By using V-Ray as your render for your interior scenes you can get some near photorealistic results if you know how to setup the general settings for the Global Illumination, the V-Ray light parameters and environment lighting parameters. Well in case this is something that you didn’t know how to do or tweak you are in luck as this post is going to cover most of the basics for lighting an interior scene with V-Ray.

Initially i intended to make this into one video, but when i started recording it simply got to the point when i had to make a choice if i want to have one long 50+ minute video, or break it down to two individual videos so that it can be easier to watch it. As a personal preference i hate watching long videos and prefer to stick to 30 min tops especially when it’s a tutorial video, but if you guys would prefer to have it all into one longer video leave your thoughts as a comment so i know what works better for you in the future. You might also want to check out the Exterior lighting with HDRI post to give you more information on how HDRI works. So lets cut it short with my ranting and lets get down to seeing what the actual videos are about.

LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE SCENE USED IN THE VIDEO

In the first video we will see how we can light up our scene by using a V-Ray Sun, then we add an environment map and see what it does for our scene. After that though we are going to take a look at how to deal with the most common issues that arise when you are lighting your scenes like splotching, and general GI noise. But go ahead and watch the first video so you can see for yourself what i am talking about. Oh and after you are done with watching the first video come back and keep reading on as the second video is basically going to continue on the same scene.

Ok so if you are finished with the first video it’s time to hop on the second one and check out a few more tweaks you can do for your interior scene lighting. In the second video we are going to take a look at how we can light up our scene with an HDR Image, learn how to control the quality of the HDRI as well as how to control the shadow subdivisions and in turn control the noise in the shadow portion of your renders.

So after watching these two videos you should have some basic grasp on how lighting an interior scene is done with V-Ray. As you could see it’s really not that complicated to get around the basics of lighting with V-Ray. I hope this was helpful for you guys and girls and that you managed to learn something new today. If that is the case then toss a like on the facebook page, subscribe to the YouTube channel, like and share so it can reach more people.

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Modeling Vines and Ivy in 3ds Max

  By Denis Keman • September 17, 2015 , ,

Ivy_GrowthWhen you get a project in which you need to model some exterior scene, there is a pretty good chance that you will need to either model a garden or maybe some flowers or even vines and ivy growth. This on its own can be a bit of a problematic issue if you have never had the need to do it, and frankly you don’t know where to start from. A perfect example for something like this is the image on the side where we can see some vine overgrowth on top of the column.

So if you want to learn how to model something like this you are in the right spot.

In order for you to be able to follow along with this video you will need to download a plugin called Ivy Generator from Guruware. (Click the link, in case it wasn’t obvious). Once there download the plugin and follow the instructions on how to install the plugin and as soon as it’s installed you should be primed and ready to follow along with the video.

A while back i remember that i shared some textures for leaves and foliage on the Facebook Page, so feel free and toss a like on there and scroll back and see if you can get to the textures. ( I know, shameless advertisement right).

In any case in the video you can learn the basics of the parameters that the plugin has, and also how to control the growth of the ivy in order to get it to take the shape that you have in your mind. You will see how you can make the vines grow on top of an existing mesh. Then we will see how to make the vines grow in a confined mesh. And after that we will see how to make it grow out of a given mesh and at the end we will see how to get the vines to grow on a brick wall geometry but keep the growth in the mortar and not on the bricks.

Again i hope this video was helpful for you guys and girls and that you managed to learn something new today. If that is the case then toss a like, comment and share it around so it can reach more people and maybe help them the same way it helped you. And don’t forget if there is anything that you guys would like to see, leave a comment on the site, or on the YouTube channel and i’ll see if i can make a video about it.

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Lighting with HDRI and V-Ray Sun

  By Denis Keman • September 11, 2015 ,

Ok so similar to the previous post where i got a request to make the post about the bed in Marvelous designer, i got another request to make a video about lighting a scene with HDRI images. So lets start from the beginning and first of all explain why should you use an HDRI for lighting.

HDRI stands for High Dynamic Range Image, which in turn means that it is an image that contains a lot of information, especially information that can be used as lighting information by V-Ray. The main difference between using HDRI and for example a single V-Ray Sun is that the HDRI emits light from all the sides depending on the image you have. So if you are using a HDRI with a cloudy day you will get an overcast feel to the scene, if you are using a sunny day HDRI you would get that same look, and on top of it all that HDRI can also be used to get some realistic environment reflections.

So now you know what HDRI does, but where do you get some high quality HDRI images? Well the answer to this question is not a straight forward one as it depends. If you are looking for a High quality HDRI for commercial projects then you probably want to go and actually buy some HDRI that range from 5000×5000 up to 40kx40k resolution, but if you are looking for some HDRI’s that you can use for your projects or in some cases you can even use them professionally check out HDRLABS. These guys are offering a wide spectrum of HDR images that are rather well done and give some nice results. Also there are multiple sites that offer freebies through Facebook ads, so you might want to keep your eyes opened there as well, and also you can Like check out my Facebook DKCGI page if you haven’t already and check out some of the older posts there as i have links to free HDRI’s and sites offering Textures.

Ok so since you know where to get HDRI’s now you can go ahead and jump over to the video. In this video you will learn how to add HDRI image to a V-Ray dome light, how to control the intensity of the light by changing the HDRI. Then i’ll explain why would you want to add a V-Ray sun to the mix and use both V-Ray sun and HDRI together, and even how to link them so when you are controlling one you are actually controlling them both and in turn getting a lot more control over the scene. So enough reading, feel free and go and check out the video.

So i hope this video was helpful for you and you managed to learn something new then like it, comment and share it around so it can reach more people and maybe help them the same way it helped you. Also if there is anything else that you would like to know ask in the comment section and i’ll see if i can make a video about that.

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