Professional Documents
Culture Documents
You are here: Home / Basic Vray HDR Lighting Tutorial with Linear Work ow
I am going to outline a few easy steps for using High Dynamic Range Images with Vray 1.5 SP3 and 3D Studio
Max. This should apply to any HDRs you may have in your texture and lighting libraries. Most of you are probably
already aware of these basic steps but for those that are not, I will try to walk you from the beginning without
going into too much detail and theory.
Open up Max and browse to the top menu bar: /Customize/Preferences/Gamma and LUT/ and make sure the
following parameters are set:
Privacy - Terms
https://www.hdrsource.com/vray-hdr-tutorials/ 1/8
2/16/2021 Basic Vray HDR Lighting Tutorial with Linear Workflow
I almost always try to at least approximate the dimensions of my 3D models even if the measurements
aren’t
completely accurate.
Browse to /Customize/Units Setup/ and set your parameters to your local system of measurement:
4) Right click your model, select move from the context menu, and zero out the coordinates in the XYZ boxes at
the bottom of your screen so your model is centered.
5) Create a plane in the top viewport near the center of the scene. Usually, I start to drag out the object as I’m
holding the control button down – this way the plane is created from the center instead of an edge. I usually
“zero out” all of my models.
https://www.hdrsource.com/vray-hdr-tutorials/ 2/8
2/16/2021 Basic Vray HDR Lighting Tutorial with Linear Workflow
6) VRay works best if you use Vray materials instead of standard ones. On large scenes, sticking with
VRay
Materials can shave o several minutes of rendering time.
Please note that with LWF, pure white colors (255, 255, 255) can lead to excessive render times. I usually reduce
my white values by several points out of habit. In this case I set my values to 254.
7) Create another Vray material of your choice. For this example, I’m using a basic chrome material as it
demonstrate good re ections. Apply the material to your model:
Privacy - Terms
https://www.hdrsource.com/vray-hdr-tutorials/ 3/8
2/16/2021 Basic Vray HDR Lighting Tutorial with Linear Workflow
Camera Setup:
8) Create a VrayPhysicalCam in your scene:
Privacy - Terms
https://www.hdrsource.com/vray-hdr-tutorials/ 4/8
2/16/2021 Basic Vray HDR Lighting Tutorial with Linear Workflow
9) Press ‘c’ on your keyboard after laying out your camera in order to view the scene as the camera sees it. You
may want to adjust the position of your camera with the rotation controls in the lower right-hand side of your
screen. My Physical Camera settings for HDR images usually render nicely at F1.2. Sometimes, I will also set the
White Balance settings to neutral.
HDR Setup:
10) Now we will set up the HDR lighting. There’s several ways to insert a HDR into a scene, but Vray provides a
very e cient light called a domelight. This light can be inserted anywhere in your scene as position does not
matter.
Occasionally, inserting a domelight into a scene may cause the colors in the viewport to shift. Simply press ctrl+l
several times in a viewport to change the default lighting setup until you nd a lighting mode that works or
resets it.
https://www.hdrsource.com/vray-hdr-tutorials/ 5/8
2/16/2021 Basic Vray HDR Lighting Tutorial with Linear Workflow
Please note that there is a resolution number which defaults to 512 under the Texture section of your
light.
This
number can be changed (I used 1024 here) depending on the quality desired. This also increases rendering time
especially on very complicated scenes.
You can also choose Spherical (full dome) under your light’s Dome light options (not shown) if you want the light
to completely encompass the scene from an angle below the horizon. In most cases this will never be seen and
will only add the lighting calculations.
11) Drag the VrayLight VrayHDRI Material over to an empty slot on your Material Editor and select instance on
the pop-up window.
I selected a HDR from one of my HDRSource libraries. HDRSource HDR images t the Spherical Mapping type.
You can usually tell which mapping type you have by looking at the material preview window. If the Material
Editor Preview image looks distorted, try selecting other types of mapping.
https://www.hdrsource.com/vray-hdr-tutorials/ 6/8
2/16/2021 Basic Vray HDR Lighting Tutorial with Linear Workflow
12) Now we are ready to run a test rendering. Open up your rendering setup window from the top menu
bar:
/Rendering/Render Setup (shortcut =F10.) I’ve provided a very e cient test rendering setup below:
Privacy - Terms
https://www.hdrsource.com/vray-hdr-tutorials/ 7/8
2/16/2021 Basic Vray HDR Lighting Tutorial with Linear Workflow
2) Sometimes I’ll add a Vraylight set to sphere, No Decay checked, and a slightly tinted yellow in direct position of
the sun. This can add a more de ned shadow as well as a little bit of warmth to your scenes. You may need to
adjust your light multiplier. This is really dependent on the HDR being used and also the look you are going
trying to achieve. In the image above, my teapot is in the shade (just like the HDR which was shot) and I’m ne
with the lighting. I could dial down the F-Stop of the camera .5-1.0 to make it a little bit brighter.
3) You can try out as many HDRs as you like by simply loading them in the Material editor.
4) You can change the camera angle manually, or turn the actual HDR by entering in new ‘Horiz. rotation’ values
in the Material slot.
5) When you are ready to render the nal image, adjust the “Width” and “Output” size under the “Common”
render tab. The “antialiasing lter” found under the Vray render tab will produce sharper edges. Under the
“Indirect Illumination” tab, you can change your “Primary Bounces” to “Brute Force” (default settings) or
“Irradiance Map” (change to medium or high settings.) Set your “Light Cache” to ~1500 subdivs. Finally, you can
raise the “Global Subdivs Multiplier” under the “Settings Tab” to 2 or 3 (even higher) if you’d like to increase the
overall rendering quality.
Privacy - Terms
https://www.hdrsource.com/vray-hdr-tutorials/ 8/8