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foreign
hey there thanks for joining us today in
this lesson we'll learn how to set up
light and create a 3D indoor scene using
v-ray for 3ds Max we'll work on creating
a sun and Sky system using image-based
lighting and discover some techniques to
improve the final image
I've got the interior lighting day start
seen open which you can get from the
link in this video's description this
scene shows a simple living room with a
few pieces of furniture
first let's set up the camera move
around in the perspective viewport to
get a good view of the scene when you're
satisfied with the view click the v-ray
physical camera icon on the v-ray
toolbar this will create a v-ray camera
based on the perspective viewport making
it easier to set up our rendering
in my example the camera is outside the
room so when we switch to a shaded view
we can only see the outer wall
to keep the camera's position and the
image's composition go to the camera
settings and locate the clipping options
enable camera clipping and adjust the
near clipping plane
now when we render we'll see inside the
room and it won't affect the scene's
shading additionally go to the Tilt and
shift Tab and turn on automatic vertical
tilt this will remove any Distortion in
the vertical lines making them perfectly
straight
let's start rendering our scene to see
what we've got
go to the v-ray toolbar click and hold
the render button then click the start
IPR icon to begin interactive rendering
the result is all black because there
are no lights in the scene let's fix
that
the v-ray Sun and Sky system is an
excellent way to light your scene it's
easy to use and gives realistic lighting
to set it up click the v-ray sun icon on
the v-ray toolbar then in one of the
orthographic viewports left click and
drag to create the v-ray sun when you
release the mouse button v-ray will ask
if you want to create a Sky Map
automatically choose yes the sun
object's position in your scene doesn't
matter only the sun angle affects the
lighting now we have some light in the
scene but it's not perfect
let's improve it by moving the sun to a
better angle when you click an
orthographic view v-ray starts rendering
through it making it difficult to move
the Sun and see updates in the render
ideally we want to render through the
main camera and use side views for
changes to do this lock the render view
first make sure you're rendering through
the correct view by left or middle
clicking it
in the render settings common tab click
the padlock icon where it says view to
render now we can work in the side views
while keeping the interactive render
locked to the main camera allowing us to
adjust the sun's position easily let's
change the render settings for a better
interactive rendering experience
focusing on lighting currently there are
many materials in the scene which can be
distracting and slow down rendering
temporarily overriding all materials
with a generic one is a good practice to
do this stop the render and go to the
global switch's rollout under the v-ray
tab
enable the override material
click none and assign a v-ray material
now all objects in the scene will use
this material temporarily keep in mind
there's actual glass on the windows in
this scene if we render now windows will
be opaque blocking outside light we want
to preserve the glasses refraction we
can either exclude the glass material
from being overridden or preserve its
refraction let's choose the second
option click on the override material
settings and choose to preserve
refraction and opacity from the
available options this way we assign a
generic material to all objects while
preserving their original materials
refractive and opacity settings
next let's improve the render's
interactivity go to render elements and
Add a v-ray denoiser switch the
denoising engine to either the Nvidia
Aid noiser or the Intel open image
denoise
both are great for look development
providing a clean image from a noisy
result for quick iteration and changes
the Nvidia one uses a GPU and needs an
Nvidia GPU while the Intel one works on
the CPU and is compatible with both
Intel and AMD CPUs choose what works for
you remember these denoisers are best
for the look development stage as their
results can be inconsistent to make the
denoiser more responsive go to settings
and under the system tab
increase the effect update rate to 100.
ensure the auto switch to effects result
button is checked
start the interactive render again
the scene now has a simple Shader and we
can focus on lighting even with the
interactive denoiser enabled we'll get
fast feedback for any changes if the
render is still slow lower the
resolution by clicking the percentage
resolution button in the frame buffer
this updates the resolution without
restarting the render
adjust the sun position a bit more
once the sun angle is right but the
render is too bright adjust the camera
exposure select the camera and navigate
to color and exposure settings
apply exposure control using exposure
value or physical exposure settings
which controls scene brightness
exposure value is easy to use increasing
it darkens the render while lowering it
brightens it
adjust until you have a nicely exposed
image
v-ray can automatically adjust exposure
in the camera section of the render
settings click Auto exposure and v-ray
will handle it do the same for white
balance to remove color tint from
lighting both require light cache as a
secondary GI engine which is the default
option
Sun hot spots may still be Overexposed
but we'll fix that soon
first let's adjust the sun settings in
my case the sun is low like at Sunrise
or Sunset since v-ray Sun simulates real
Sun Behavior a lower position means
warmer light we can change this by
changing the color mode to override
keeping the sun position but using
neutral white light
we can also change the Sun's size
multiplier
increasing it will soften Shadows
without affecting light output
foreign
to fix the Overexposed parts of the
image apply a filmic tone map this
normalizes hot spots and adds overall
contrast
a trick to make lighting more
interesting is adding objects that cache
Shadows without being directly visible
to the camera for example place an
off-camera tree blocking part of the
sunlight go to the chaos Cosmos browser
pick a tree model
and drag and drop it in the viewport
adjust its position to cast an
interesting shadow
make another copy of the tree and place
it behind the window for a visibility
outside
although the Sun and Sky system provides
General lighting we can add more lights
to highlight scene details this scene
has a spotlight fixture with a v-ray is
light inside
enable it and increase its intensity to
illuminate details
now that the lighting's set up we can do
a production render with all materials
go to render settings and disable the
override material
add more render elements for
post-processing like v-ray light mix for
adjusting individual lights and v-ray
cryptomat for Pixel Perfect masks
give default settings for most cases for
production quality images it's a good
idea to use the default v-ray denoiser
in this case high quality settings make
denoising the final result unnecessary
so delete the denoiser render element
go to the light cache and increase
subdivisions to 2000 for more detail
to get a good quality image set the
image sampler to Progressive and lower
its noise threshold depending on your
scene the default value might work but
for this example lower it to
0.005 if using the default v-ray
denoiser keep the default value or
increase it this achieves a nice
trade-off between speed and quality a
higher noise threshold speeds up
rendering and the denoiser cleans
remaining noise but may compromise fine
details
since time is not a concern for this
example we'll go for the best quality
option and lower the noise threshold you
can also make the picture bigger if
needed now that we have everything ready
let's start the final rendering and wait
for it to finish
now that the rendering is done we can
make the image look even better by
changing the colors a bit we can do this
in the v-ray frame buffer which has many
tools for editing the image first we can
change the settings of the lights to
make them brighter or change their color
just remember that you need to add the
light mix render element for this to
work next we can make the scene brighter
by increasing the environment lights
multiplier but be careful not to make it
too bright or it might create noise in
the image
we can also control how strong the
sunlight is
and change its color if we want to
now we can make the image more
interesting by adding more contrast
using the curves color correction tool
we can use the cryptomat we added
earlier to change the color of specific
objects without affecting the whole
scene just add a hue saturation layer
then add a crypto matte mask and click
on the object you want to change
this way you can change any object you
like
to make the bright areas look better we
can add a bloom and glare effect to the
image turn on the lens effects and see
how it looks on the window if you want
to remove it from other parts of the
image use the cryptomat again to limit
the effect to just the window
if you think it's too strong you can
decrease its intensity a little once
you're happy with your image you can
save it as a PNG
but if you want to make more changes
later save your image in the v-ray
history tab this keeps the image on your
computer with all the details and lets
you edit colors whenever you want if you
don't see the history tab press the H
key in the frame buffer if it's grayed
out and won't let you save press the S
key to open the settings go to the
history Tab and make sure it's enabled
you can save images in a folder called
vfb underscore history in your 3ds Max
project path or choose a different
location
once it's set up click the save icon and
the image will be stored
now let's look at another way to light
an interior scene instead of using the
Sun and Sky system we'll use image-based
lighting I've already turned off the
lights we made earlier so the scene is
completely dark I also set the denoiser
to a faster mode for quick results
to set up image based lighting it will
use the v-ray dome light click the
create dome light icon on the toolbar
and then click anywhere in the top view
the lights position doesn't matter the
v-ray dome light makes a half sphere or
sphere around the scene that casts light
right now it uses a white color for even
lighting from all sides
to make it more natural we can use a
panoramic High dynamic range image hdri
go to the dome light properties in the
modify panel make sure the map option is
checked and assign a v-ray bitmap
load an hdri or Exar image that stores
lots of details
these images create realistic and easy
to set up lighting you can find them
online or make your own if you like
photography
once you load the bitmap make sure the
mapping is set correctly drag it to the
material editor and choose spherical for
mapping type now the dome light uses the
intensity and colors of this image
we can adjust the horizontal rotation in
the bitmap parameters to see different
results
you can also lock the texture to the
icon so rotating the dome light in the
viewport also rotates the hdri
just make sure you only rotate on the
z-axis for natural results
chaos Cosmos has a big collection of
hdris you can use for your scenes turn
off the dome light we just made and open
the chaos Cosmos browser I've picked a
few hdris I like to test them out drag
and drop one into your scene a dome
light is automatically created with the
hdri set up correctly now just rotate
the light until you get a result you
like
for example this one gives a moody
Sunset look
turn it off and try another one
and another
different hdris give different results
so pick one based on the look you want
also consider adjusting the color
Corrections when you change the lighting
add a lookup table layer to try more
color Corrections
load some Lut files and see how they
change your image
click the icon to see a list of Lut
files in the folder hover over them to
preview how they affect your render's
colors
pick one and lower its opacity if needed
v-ray has a useful feature that lets you
use multiple dome lights this means you
can render a single image with many dome
lights and different hdris then use
light mix to separate them
foreign
let's turn on all the dome lights we
tested and switch the denoiser back to
the default one since we're doing a
production render
when we render the result will look too
bright and wrong because the lighting
from all the different dome lights is
added together but we can use light mix
to isolate each dome light
in light mix turn off all of them and
toggle them on one at a time you can see
all the information is there and we can
get different lighting variations with
just one render using multiple dome
lights may slow down the render but this
setup is flexible and can save time by
doing one render instead of many
in this tutorial we learned how to light
an interior scene using v-rays sun and
Sky system and set up image-based
lighting with the v-ray dome light we
also learned how to set up render
settings to get the most out of
interactive rendering and used features
like multiple dome lights for more
flexibility in post-production check our
channel for more helpful and in-depth
tutorials I hope you found this tutorial
useful if you did please give it a
thumbs up if you have any questions or
requests for future tutorial topics
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