Realistically Light and Render Interior Scenes Using 3ds Max and Vray

Realistically Light and Render Interior Scenes using 3ds Max and Vray
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3d-studio-max/realistically-light...
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Pratik Gulati on Feb 19th 2010 with 77 comments
Tutorial Details
Program: 3Ds Max, Vray
Completion Time: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: Intermediate
Discover the secrets behind properly lighting and rendering interior scenes with 3ds Max and Vray in this easy to follow, step by step walkthrough. Scene
setup, modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering for realistic output will all be discussed, so there is literally something in here for everyone!
In this tutorial, well be using real units, so the first thing would be to open the menu Customize > Units Setup > US and choose Standard > Feet
w/Decimal Inches as the unit.
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When you are trying to get a photorealistic quality it is very important to make sure that your object scale is accurate. This will play an important role in
achieving a good render. Also, as you can see the scene is quite simple just a small lobby (mostly modeled with boxes). Note: It is important that it is a
closed room, and there are no openings for the light from environment to enter.
Press f10, and from the assign renderer tab choose Vray. This will enable Vray as your renderer, and also enable Vray materials in your material
editor.
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Assign a simple Vray material to all the objects in the scene, and set up basic scene lighting and render settings. This is to finalize the lighting and render
settings and save time, since a plain material renders much faster than reflective and glossy materials which will be added later.
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Now to work on the lighting and render settings to achieve the final result.
Add a Vray physical camera to the scene by going to Create Tab > Camera > Vray > Physical Camera.
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The settings for a physical camera are:

Type Determines the type of the camera. Set it to Still.
Film Gate Specifies the horizontal size of the film gate in millimeters. Set it according to your scene.
Focal Length Specifies the equivalent focal length of the camera lens.
f-number The width of the camera aperture and (indirectly) exposure. If the Exposure option is checked, changing the f-number will affect the image
brightness.
Vignetting When this option is on, the optical vignetting effect of a real-world cameras is simulated.
White Balance Allows additional modification of the image output according to the color or preset chosen.
Shutter Speed The shutter speed (in inverse seconds) for the still photographic camera. For example, a shutter speed of 1/50 s corresponds to a value of
50 for this parameter.
Film Speed (ISO) Determines the film power (sensitivity). Smaller values make the image darker, while larger values make it brighter.
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Now to place the various Vray lights. Lights 1-4 affect the scene directly, whereas light 5 has been placed in a downward direction, and will affect the scene
in an indirect (in the
form of bounced light).
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The basic parameters of the Vray lights are:

Color The color of the light.
Multiplier The multiplier for the light color. This is also the light intensity determined by the Intensity units parameter.
Invisible This setting controls whether the shape of the VRay light source is visible in the render result. When this option is turned off the source is
rendered in the current light color. Otherwise it is not visible in the scene.
Subdivs - Defines the samples, or the quality of the light. 8-10 should be used for test renders, and 15-20 for final renders. Increasing the samples will
significantly increase your render time.
IES stands for Illuminating Engineering Society. The photometric data is stored in these files. A photometric web is a 3D representation of the light
intensity distribution of a light source. Web definitions are stored in files. Many lighting manufacturers provide web files that model their products, and
these are often available on the Internet. We as artists can use them to replicate the real life phenomena of light in 3d.
Go to the Lights tab, choose Vray from the drop down list, and create a Vray ies in the right view. Then instance it below all four steel holders.
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The main settings for the ies lights are:

Browse Button - Click it and browse for the ies file that you want to use.
Color Mode If you choose this option, you can change and affect the light intensity through the color picker.
Temperature Mode Allows you to accurately change the light intensity through the color temperature.
Power - Determines how bright the light will be.
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Through the following steps, you will configure the rendering settings in Vray. Press F10, then under Global Switches, uncheck Default Lights. This
will cause the default lights in the scene to be switched off. For the Image Sampler type select Adaptive DMC, and Catmull Rom as the filter. Also,
change the min and max subdivs as shown.
Lastly, change the Color Mapping type to Exponential. This mode will saturate the colors based on their brightness, and therefore, will not clip bright
colors, but saturate them instead. This can be useful to prevent Burn-outs in the very bright areas (for example around light sources etc).
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Under the Indirect Illumination select Irradiance Map and use Light Cache as the primary and secondary engine. Also, change the Preset to High,
hsph subdivs to 50, and interp samples to 20.
Irradiance Map Computes the indirect illumination only at some points in the scene, and interpolates for the rest of the points. The Irradiance Map is
very fast compared to direct computation, especially for scenes with large flat areas.
Current Preset Allows you to choose from several presets for some of the irradiance map parameters.
Hemispheric Subdivs (HSph. subdivs) Controls the quality of individual GI samples. Smaller values makes things faster, but may produce blotchy
results. Higher values produce smoother images.
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With a Light Cache, the light map is built by tracing many eye paths from the camera. Each of the bounces in the path stores the illumination from the rest
of the path into a 3d structure (very similar to the photon map). In the Light Cache put 1500 for subdivs and 8 for no of passes.
The Subdivs determines how many paths are traced from the camera. The actual number of paths is the square of the subdivs (the default 1000 subdivs
mean that 1 000 000 paths will be traced from the camera).
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Your settings for the test render are done. If you hit render now, you should see the same image that was shown before. Now all you need to do is apply the
materials, and increase the Irradiance Map and Light Cache samples for the final render.
Now to texture the scene (actually its quite simple). The basic parameters that will be used in materials are:
Diffuse The diffuse color of the material.
Roughness - Can be used to simulate rough surfaces or surfaces covered with dust.
Reflect The reflection color.
Reflection Glossiness Controls the sharpness of the reflections. A value of 1.0 means perfect mirror-like reflections; lower values produce blurry or
glossy reflections. Use the Subdivs parameter below to control the quality of the glossy reflections.
The shader for the tiles on the base is a simple vray material with a de-saturated texture in the diffuse and a noise map in bump.
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The wood rack is also made of a Vray material with slight reflections and glossiness.
The material for the wall is again just simple cream and black colors with no reflections.
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The shader on the wall on which the paintings are hanging is made of steel and white wall. The wall part also has a grainy texture assigned to it.
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Your scene is now textured! You can add any other props or objects you like to fill up the scene. The above rendering settings are good for test renders, but
for production quality you will need to increase the samples for the image sampler, Light Cache, and Irradiance map.
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Here is the final result! Hope you learned something new!!.
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5 people like this.
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By Pratik Gulati
Hi friends, this is Pratik. I am a 3d artist from India. My areas of expertise include texturing, lighting and rendering. 3d art is my passion and profession, and
my hobbies are Photography ,music, movies, computers, latest gadgets, cars and all sorts of tech stuff. Here to learn, inspire, and grow!
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Realistically Light and Render Interior Scenes Using 3ds Max and Vray

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Realistically Light and Render Interior Scenes Using 3ds Max and Vray

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Realistically Light and Render Interior Scenes using 3ds Max and Vray

Pratik Gulati on Feb 19th 2010 with 77 comments

08/03/2011 02:56 p.m.

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The settings for a physical camera are:

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The basic parameters of the Vray lights are:

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The main settings for the ies lights are:

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Here is the final result! Hope you learned something new!!.

5 people like this.

08/03/2011 02:56 p.m.

08/03/2011 02:56 p.m.

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