Total Noob V-Ray Question

[amoroso]

Hey guys Im fairly new to V-Ray. Im on 3DS 8 and running Vray 1.5. I purchased a tutorial online from Gnomon workshop and was trying to firgue out why when I start off with the Vray render with no light at all that my renders are the same as the built in renderer in 3DS. The Vray Render should be noticably darker especially with a black background...

 

 

That is what I get from the VRAY render,

 

and this is what I get from the standard Mental Ray:

 

 

I do have GI activated and still having this problem... thats why I am confused. Ive been also been following basic tutorials of lighting objects and again I dont get dark renderings at all when I start off in VRAY

 

Below is a pic from the tutorial from what Im talking about... and how it looks like when vray is loaded and when you F9 render it with no settings set at all. It is noticbally dark but not totally blacked out. You can see the shadows and all that and the darkness... compare that to my first rendered image from vray... not even close in comparison... how does a plane and a teapot look like when you render with loaded vray settings?

 

 

 

 

Thanks guys!

[Koper]

yup, thats how it looks (your render) cause you haven't actually told the renderer how it should calculate the lights and shadows and so-forht.

 

enable 'indirect ilumination, and then you will see that the two different colors of the plane and teapot will start bouncing of each other. After that, enable the 'GI environmet skylight overide

 

then, and here is what many forget, if you don't use your own light source, max will use its own default light system, so turn it off by going to the global switches and de-select the 'default lights, (when you add your own lights this setting should automatically be turned off)

 

hope it helps man!! and welcome to the comm.

[amoroso]

Thanks for that info!

 

What I find wierd and confusing is that the tutorial... (the last image) he is not using any lights at all and it looks like he is getting shadows. From the video it looks like he is running 3DS Max 6 and Vray 1.09... He just assigned the vray renderer and pressed F9 and that was his result. He added no lights and changed any other settings in Vray. I was wondering with the same process why his and mine do look anything alike.

 

Thank you again!

[Rick Eloy]

Turn on the GI Environment.

[amoroso]

GI Environment override?

 

Thats been on... again the tutorial did not alter any of the vray settings, Im just curious as to why when I follow the same steps as the tutorial... why our renders differ. Is it because he is running on older versions?

[Horhe]

Did you apply vray material to the objects? Seems to me that the tutor did...

 

If your on about the dark colours and the objects dont have vray materals on them, that simply means that the material color (under object attributes and not material editor) was set to dark grey.

[amoroso]

I dont think that has anything to do with it really. The tutorial did not do anything when he rendered... it was the first minutes in the video. He loaded VRAY as his renderer and pressed F9 and got his render (the last image in original post). He didnt put any lights in it, nor materials. He just rendered it and it looked like that last image in my first post. When I followed the same steps (first image in first post) with vray loaded not touching any of the settings like the tutorial, it looks totally different. He did not load any presets either. I am just asking why my render differs from the tutorial lol. Its not a trick question really just curious as to why its different from the tutorial, that is all

[Horhe]

Do you have the tutorial scene set up? If so load it into max and then follow the tutorial.

[Rick Eloy]

Please, show us the GI-related tabs so we can see what your settings look like.

[amoroso]

 

my settings once vray is loaded.

[SandmanNinja]

I just recently purchased both interior and exterior lighting from Gnomon.

I find them pretty good.

 

i found it easier to learn if I wrote down the settings as we went. That way, I can re-visit the scene without loading the video.

 

be sure to turn on v-ray environment: GI Environment override else there wont be any lighting. And when you start using HDRIs, the light comes from the graphic file itself. And I think the multiplier has to be crank up to 3 or 4 or 5. I can't remember (I'm onto the interior lighting tutorial now) and I have a major headcold. So, thinking is a bit of a challenge.

 

Even tho the tutorials are "only" 3 or 4 hours long, I will spend twice that long (or more) as I go in and play with the different settings. I got 'involved' with spec and rglossiness when we went to do the highway/overpass part of the tutorial and spent 2-3 hours alone. But - I know have a good idea of how to muck with the different maps and what-not. It's like an onion, layer upon layer upon layer with the maps.

 

Also - don't forget to user VRAY with your maps and colours...

 

M

STANDARD

VRayMtl

[it changes its appearance at this point]

diffuse (colour)

click the box/button next to Diffuse

Bitmap

and load your textures that way. It lets v-ray 'see' them.

 

But - I'm a noob - take what i say with a grain of salt.

 

But I intend to re-visit the tutorials after I finish them.

 

Grumble: I wish gnomon had given you some of the textures/uvw unwraps for some of the scenes. The instructor says, "i went ahead and unwrapped this scene and did it up in photoshop. We'll be using this a lot for this chapter..." sigh. Kinda hard to get motivated to unwrap the highway overpass, photoshop it exactly like the instructor did, plus have the spec and other maps just like he did.

 

I mean, it's a lighting tutorial, but an unwrap tutorial - it would have made following his example easier.