TOPICS COVERED

1. Exterior Lighting
2. General Scene Setup
3. V-Ray Displacement
4. Night Scene Lighting Setup

Download Shack.zip (Textures are NOT included)

V-Ray Global Switches Settings

- As always it is a good idea to disable default lights
- Since I am using displacement in this scene I make sure displacement is checked in the geometry section.

V-Ray Image Sampler

- I stuck with the default settings. Adaptive subdivision with the area filter was used.

Global Illumination Settings

- As always make sure GI is enabled.
- Primary bounces multiplier was set to 1
- Primary bounces GI engine was set to IR map
- Secondary bounces multiplier was set to 1
- Secondary bounces GI engine was set to QMC

V-Ray Environment Settings DAY

- GI Environment Override is enabled with a multipler of 0.3. The background image bitmap has been added in the map slot
- Reflection/Refraction is enabled with a HDRI map in the reflection slot. The multiplier is set to 1.

V-Ray Environment Settings Night

- GI Environment Override is enabled with a multipler of 0.2. The background image bitmap has been removed in the map slot
- Reflection/Refraction is enabled with a HDRI map in the reflection slot. The multiplier is set to .3.

Target Direct Light Settings

- Shadows have been enabled and set to V-Ray shadows.
- Multiplier for day is se to 1.0
- Multiplier for night is se to .35
- Notice the color differences for the lights

V-Ray Irradiance Map Settings

- For the final image I set the current preset to high.
- I enabled show calc phase so I can see the IR map calculation
- The mode is set to Single Frame for the still image. For the animation shown above I set the IR map mode to Multiframe incremental

Wireframe

- Here is a wire showing the layout of the scene.

- Remember you don't necessarily have to model geometry that isn't seen by the camera or has an impact of the GI solution.

Another Wireframe

Screen grab of the shingles.

- I modeled about 20 unique old/worn wooden shingles for this scene and copied and rotated them to make them look random.

Screen grab of the entourage.

- Here is a shot showing some of the detail in the scene. With a scene like this you could probably keep adding to it forever. However, at some point you just have to stop and click render.