vray 1.5 for Rhino
Screenshot
	Do you want to way the most simple way to learn Vray? This is the workflow for you. We will cover sketchy render, vray sun & sky system, HDRI +sun/shadows and interior. Here we would use vray 1.5 for rhino.
Uses Tool(s)

Camera

All of these rendering options deal with the camera in VRay. This is very similar to the functions of an actual camera, where the final image requires Shutter Speed, Film speed, F-Stop and White Balance. These will control the brightness and sharpness of the render. Below are suggested speeds for each type of render but will vary depending on the time of day selected and the variety of lights in the scene.

Default Render

This is the Default render image when rendering an empty cube. Use this image as a reference for the changes we will be going through in the steps below.

Rendering sketchy

• Open vray. Load default settings and press render. you will get this result:

• turn on ambient occlusion in the indirect illumination menu adjust the radius of your ambient occlusion to the size of your model
• in order to get good results for this kind of renderings, you should always use Irradiance map for primary and Brute force for secondary secondary.

• you will get this result:
• note, your shadows are much sharper and the model appears much more defined, you can adjust the amount

• turn on physical camera in order to control the brightness of your scene.
• Set shutter speed to 20 and film speed ISO to 125
• adjust the shutter speed and the film speed in order to adjust the brightness of your scene. Lower shutter speed values make the image brighter, lower ISO values make the image darker.

Rendering with the Vray sun and sky system

• type in sun in the command line and choose SunDockBar
• turn the sun system on, select the date and location of your scene, that's it. You don't need to place any sunsource in this version of Vray anymore.

• Turn on the physical camera and adjust the shutter speed and Film speed ISO
• For a daylight scene with the sun being the only source of light, your shutter speed value should be around 300-500 (depending on the daytime in the sun settings) and the ISO should be around 100-150 .

• your result will look like this.
• the scene looks a bit too yellow. In order to adjust that, select a slightly yellow color in the white balance box.

• your result will be this:

• Connect your sun to the environment of the scene
• Go to environment , click on the m next to GI and Reflection/refraction (background) and connect the sunsystem to the environment by selecting TexSky on the left side first and then chosing Rhino Document Sun on top

• your result will look like this
• Adjust the white balance to a more blueish tone and correct the shutter speed as well as the ISO value.

• In order to get the most realistic light calculation you should change your primary engine to irradiance map and the secondary engine to lightcache in the indirect illumination menu .

• After adjusting the engines turning on the ambient occlusion and a blueish tone for the white balance, the shutter speed of 600 and the ISO of 100. Your result will be this:

• In order to get softer shadows from your sun you can increase its size in the environment menu:

• with a size value of 10 your scene looks like this:

• Now you have a nice lighting set up. In order to get a realistic result you have to add some textures. Use the Vray material editor in order to load some materials and apply them to the surfaces:

Rendering with HDRI plus sun/shadows

Turn on the physical camera. set shutter speed to 425, Film speed(ISO) 1oo. Adjust white balance

• Click on the m next to GI and Reflection/Refraction
• Select TexBitmap on the left side in the texture editor first load your HDRI image (you can use a regular image, too), select UVWGenEnvironment and (depending on the type you are using) Spherical . Click OK.

• In order to get the most realistic light calculation you should change your primary engine to irradiance map and the secondary engine to lightcache in the indirect illumination menu. The result looks like this:

• Depending on the brightness of your HDRI you can adjust the intensity of the lighting. Just increase the multiplier values in the environment menu.
• Probably you will have to adjust the camera settings again, too.
• Turn on the ambient occlusion in the indirect illumination manu.

In order to add shadows to your scene you will have to add the Vray sun to get the best result.

• In order to control the intensity of your sun when rendering with HDR images you have to connect the sun to either the Reflection or Refraction in the Environment menu:
• In order to have an illumination that is dominated by the HDRI mapping you have to decrease the intensity of the sun to at least 0.05.
• After connecting the sun to the reflection or refraction option you click ok and uncheck the reflection option again in the environment menu, so your reflections or refractions are coming from your HDRI instead of the Sun system.

• Your result will looks like this. Sun intensity of 0.05 a shutter speed of 100 and an ISO of 100.

Rendering with HDRI plus sun/shadows

• we are using the settings of the final sun and sky. If you render an interior scene with those, this is the result:

• The scene is too dark which means we have to adjust the camera settings first. So increase the ISO value to 400 and lower the shutter speed to 200.

This is your result now:

• There are some “burned” areas where the sunlight hits the floor/ceiling and the sky is not visible outside of the window.

• In order to get control over that, first of all you have to change the color mapping to HSV Exponential.

• By only changing the color mapping to HSV exponential the “burned” spots disappeared and the sky is visible in the background. Now you can adjust the ISO and shutter speed again in order to get a brighter lighting result.

• If you are ok with the general lighting, add some materials to get a realistic result.

• The last scene has a shutter speed of 40. if you add materials you have to adjust the shutter speed again. The brightness of the image also depends on the brightness/colors of your textures.