hello and welcome to our introductory
QuickStart tutorial for v-ray next for
3dsmax
in this video we will go over the basics
of using v-ray in 3ds max and how to get
productive right away we will introduce
you to the v-ray interface as well as
how to quickly get started rendering
with your scene to begin let's head over
into 3ds max I will be working in 3ds
max 2019 but you can use earlier or
newer versions of 3ds max as well okay
I've opened up the project called
introduction start which you can
download in the description of this
tutorial
when v-ray for 3ds max is installed
you'll notice that it adds the new
toolbar to the interface by default this
toolbar is stocked vertically to the
left of the 3ds max viewport window it
is separated into seven sections
providing you with an easy shortcut to
some of the most commonly used Furai
components on top of the toolbar our
different rendering related options then
below that we have the very light lister
and then the cameras section below next
we have shortcuts to the different types
of via lights you can use followed by
the specific very dynamic geometries to
choose from
lastly we have the very material
utilities and registration and help
button which takes you to the v-ray
documentation site ok now that we've
gone over a quick tour of the toolbar
let's click on the v-ray render settings
shortcut to review some of the rendering
options we have with v-ray when you open
the render settings for the first time
you will be prompted to set v-ray as
your default render engine let's select
yes to continue and you'll see that the
3ds max render setup window opens up if
we switch over to the v-ray tab you'll
see that we have here all the essential
settings for rendering
however these settings are specific to
rendering only on the CPU if you'd like
to switch to GPU rendering you'll need
to switch the render engine by going up
to the render or drop-down list here you
will see the two v-ray render options
very next for CPU rendering and Viera
GPU next for GPU rendering fury next is
the original full feature render engine
while very GPU is our newer inter engine
that renders using GPU hardware
acceleration keep in mind that there are
some differences between the two engines
a best practice when you start a project
is to decide on which one you want to
use first based on which engine is best
suited for your hardware
note that v-ray GPU next also works with
CPU hardware and can utilize both CPU
and GPU devices with the hybrid
rendering mode in my case since I have a
powerful GPU on hand I'm going to switch
to the v-ray GPU next renderer once
again let's switch to the v-ray tab here
you'll see that the settings are similar
but slightly different on veer a GPU
next now that we've selected a v-ray
render engine we can press the render
button and start rendering the scene
with v-ray or we can press the start I
PR button to start the v-ray interactive
production rendering mode the IPR mode
is the specific render mode that allows
you to interact and make changes to your
scene while rendering and the changes
will be rendered automatically both
v-ray next and very next GPU can use IPR
and you can also start an interactive
render from the v-ray frame buffer or
VfB for short
let's close the render settings and open
up the VfB which is the render display
window for v-ray renderings that
includes a number of very specific
features we'll discuss in more detail in
a bit for now let's go ahead and start
the IPR by clicking on the little teapot
with the green arrow at the bottom right
and see what we've got in our scene here
so far we can tell it's rendering
because of the progress bar at the
bottom which shows the progress of the
render however you can see that
everything is dark and we're not seeing
anything in the VfB this is because we
don't have any lights in our scene yet
to add some light let's go to the v-ray
toolbar and select the viewer a Sun the
v-ray Sun gizmo consists of two parts
the sunlight source and a target in the
viewport let's click and drag to place
the Sun source and draw out its target
direction in our scene next we will be
prompted if we want to add a VA sky map
in the environment slot let's choose yes
since the v-ray sky map will
automatically change in accordance with
the sun's position this creates a very
easy setup that enables us to try out a
variety of natural-looking sunlight
scenarios simply by moving the sun's
position around now you'll see that the
vfv immediately updates to display the
sunlight let's go ahead and tweak the
position of the Sun by bringing it up
above the ground level a bit on the z
axis
as we move the Sun higher you'll see on
the VfB preview that our image quickly
becomes overexposed this is because we
haven't set up a camera in our scene yet
to adapt to the sun's exposure value to
create a camera from our current
perspective
let's move the VfB over and then select
this perspective I have already arranged
in advance in the viewport on the right
then click on the viewer a physical
camera shortcut and a camera will be
created and applied to the perspectives
position you also notice that the
exposure in the VfB has automatically
updated as the render is now taking into
account the physical cameras exposure
settings if you'd like to tweak the
exposure further you can head to the
camera settings in the modify tab we
will find controls that emulate those of
a real life camera these include the
film speed or ISO the f-number shutter
speed and many other options alright you
may have noticed that many of the
objects in our render have a generic
gray material applied to them to create
some new materials let's open up the
material editor and then maximize the
viewport view by pressing alt W in
3dsmax
and explore how to create and apply
viewer materials to our scene creating
new materials in v-ray is easy simply
right-click on the material editors
canvas and in the materials menu you
will see a v-ray section which contains
all of your race material types also if
you go to the maps menu you will find a
v-ray section there too with maps that
only work with v-ray materials ok as you
can see here we already have three
viewer materials I have prepared in
advance to use in our scene let's go
ahead and apply each of them by simply
dragging their outputs to the
corresponding objects in the scene now
you can see as the render updates that
our image is quickly becoming much more
realistic looking with the added
materials and we get an updated preview
right away thanks to the IPR mode all
right now let's explore how we can do a
final production render close the
material editor press stop to stop the
IPR and exit the VfB and then let's open
the render settings once again first in
the common tab let's increase the
resolution of our final render by
adjusting the output size I'm going to
set it to 1440
by 1080 but you can feel free to use a
different resolution if you'd like from
the v-ray tab let's also change the
sampler mode from progressive to bucket
mode so far we've seen progressive
sampling when using the IPR mode it
generates a preview of the whole image
as it renders and cleans up the noise
which is useful when you need
interactivity it also gives you control
over stopping the render early if you
are okay with the result for a final
production render however bucket
sampling is generally advantageous as
less data is kept in memory especially
when working with render elements in
addition buckets can also cut down on
network traffic for distributed
rendering and reduce the risk of losing
information if a server goes offline
another setting you can tweak to improve
the quality of your render is the noise
threshold when rendering v-ray will
continuously clean up the noise in the
image over time so that the image
becomes clearer the noise threshold
determines if a pixel needs more samples
the lower the threshold the less noisy
and higher quality the final image will
appear but the longer it will take to
render since I prefer getting a faster
render result than achieving the highest
possible quality we can add a v-ray
denoiser render element in the render
elements tap the denoiser will smoothen
out the image and give us a clean
looking render result faster the noising
is generally a fast operation which
makes it useful for getting rid of noise
when you don't want to touch the noise
threshold number note that the v-ray
denoiser has two engine options the
default be rate denoiser and the nvidia
ai denoiser the Nvidia AI denoiser is
generally best for getting a fast
interactive preview of your scene when
using the IPR it does not give
consistent render results however so for
final production renders and animations
we recommend using the default the array
denoiser since we're doing a production
render let's leave it on that okay now
we can start a production render by
pressing the render button and once it
starts you'll see how the buckets appear
and begin rendering the image
all right now that we're a finished
rendering I'm going to maximize the VfB
so we can have a better view of the
rendered image then let's zoom in on the
glass door and to double check that the
denoiser worked we can toggle the RGB
button here to switch between the
default RGB image and the effects result
the effects result Channel holds the
result of the de noising operations and
the lens effects that are executed over
the image you can see that the denoise
image is a bit smoother looking overall
particularly in the glass and shaded
areas now since our image looks a bit
too yellowish and flat for my taste
let's explore how we can apply some
color Corrections to it if we click the
button at the bottom left of the VfB the
v-ray color correction toolbar will
appear on the right here you'll find
parameters for further tweaking the
image such as exposure white balance
curve adjustments and more let's click
to expand the exposure parameter and
check the box to enable it so that now
its controls will affect the image I'm
going to adjust the exposure value the
highlight burn which corrects the
exposure of only the highlights in the
image and tweak the contrast a little
bit next I'm going to tweak the white
balance parameter which offers a slider
with values in Kelvin temperature higher
values will make the scene appear warmer
whereas lower values will make the scene
bluer in tone you can feel free to play
with these settings on your own and
adjust the image to your liking when
you're done you can also save your
current color correction settings for
later use or even load in a pre-existing
color correction file by clicking on the
Global's option up top in this case I'm
going to load in a color correction file
which you'll find in the assets folder
for this lesson and right away you'll
see how quickly the image changes as the
new color Corrections are applied
alright moving on with the VfB tools we
also have a history panel for saving and
comparing images which is marked by the
H icon at the bottom of the V of B
toolbar first click the power button
icon to enable it and specify the
directory where the image will be saved
as V our image files then we can save
our image to the history with the color
Corrections applied by clicking on the
disc icon at the top
left we could then even apply different
color corrections to the image and save
another version to the history following
the same steps I'm also just going to
save the image as a standard jpg file to
my hard drive by clicking on the disk
icon at the top center of the toolbar
and the VfB note that you can choose
from a variety of other image formats
using this method as well alright now
you've seen a quick overview of how to
get started rendering and working with
very next for 3ds max
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you
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