This skylight is treated as primary bounce GI, so in this scene, there is no direct light. There is no sun, so it's a bit like a cloudy day: casting light evenly from all directions. Think of this as a real sky illuminating the scene. The image below is lit with Vray's skylight. This is of course very slow, but also very exact. So even on very flat surfaces where lighting is very even, every point will be calculated. This method computes the GI in every single shaded point. As the name already suggests, it requires brute force to calculate the lighting. There are still very dark places, this is where the primary light bounces almost don't reach. Note the shadows and the interior part are not black anymore. V-ray divides the indirect illumination into two main parts: primary and secondary bounces.īelow, the same image now with GI turned on and only the primary bounces active.

This means that the effect of the first bounce on the final lighting will be a lot bigger than for example the 63rd bounce. Also, the loss of energy has an exponential curve, so in fact the light energy fades out pretty quickly after a few bounces. To calculate an infinite amount of light bounces would be crazy, so Vray has some ways to optimize this. So after an infinite amount of bounces, the lights energy reaches zero. Each time a bounce occurs, the light loses a bit of energy, depending on the properties of the surface it hits (it gets reflected more or less, gets absorbed more or less depending on the surface material properties). In reality, light keeps bouncing around until it loses all its energy. This results in much more natural and photorealistic lighting compared to traditional non GI renderers. Renderers that use global illumination algorithms take into account not only the light coming directly from light sources (=direct light), but also the light that is bounced off all surfaces (=indirect light). It is an extension to 3DS Max, not a replacement! For example things like the material editor, creating and manipulating objects, modifiers etc should all be familiar before trying to learn Vray. This tutorial was created with Vray version 3.0, please do not email me with questions about this tutorial if you are using a Vray version prior to V-ray 3.0, since the answer to your question is most likely that you're using a older version.įirst learn 3D Studio Max, then start with Vray.

We will not go into detail about every setting, it's just a general guide. This tutorial covers some basics about global illumination, and the different algorithms V-ray provides to calculate it. Feel free to link to this page of course! (see also Terms of Use) I don't like the tutorials to float around in 10 different versions and places on the net. Please don't translate or copy these tutorials elsewhere. Free - Global Illumination methods in VrayįREE Vray Tutorial - Global illumination methods.

Vray light