Sun Study with VRAY Free?

[particlerealities]

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to create a realistic sun study using VRAY Free? If so, perhaps some general settings would be nice, and a general method.

I've been messing with this all morning, and the VRAY renders look so much better than the VIZ radiosity renderings, so I'd rather use VRAY, but I can't get a convincing look.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[particlerealities]

Apologies

My apologies, I posted this in the wrong section.

[Nenad]

http://www.vray.info

[sunny]

I've produced a couple of Sun Studies that I can post up tomorrow (provided my FTP is functioning).

Creating sun study is really no different to any other image. You just need to setup your sun in the right position using Max/Viz's sunlight system. That gives me a position for the sun, then I create a new direct light in the same position and delete the sunlight system. I prefer the freedom on the standard direct light over Max's sunlight.

SunnyC

[Psy]

I'd also be interested in some sun studies sunny.

lotta s's near the end of that sentence.

[sunny]

Bit of a mouthful isn't it?

By they way Psy, thanks for setting up an account for me on
your domain. Luckily I won't have to impose on you though, cause
I spoke to my web designers and ask them to set something up for
me on our own website (which is still under construction).

Thanks heaps for your generosity though.

If I can't manage to post the image, I'll email you Psy.

SunnyC

[sunny]

A bite late, but better than never. Here's an example of a Sun Study we did recently. Mind you we created it using Adv but I'm sure Free can do it as well, because there isn't anything special about it. Please ignore the artifacts. This was a quick and nasty render.



It just occured to me that the type of sun study you were talking about is an animated sun study. To achieve this I would simply animate your light source according to the position of the sun which you can find out for the Daylight system.

Hope it helps.

SunnyC.

[particlerealities]

I tried using the VRAY Free animated light source, simulating the sun in the sky animated from sun-up to sun-down. I basically created a circle, linked a dummy to it, and linked the direct light to the dummy. Then I animated the light by rotating the circle. I turned off Animate, and rotated the circle from the side to simulate the sun angle in the sky. I know this is very rough, but I was not looking for an exact method of simulating the sun location. I only wanted a quick simulation.

My problem was that when I tried to animated the light position, it blew out the exposure, and washed out the image. I finally ended up just using the VIZ radiosity/daylight, which worked okay, but took much longer to render.

I'd eventually like to figure out the VRAY method, and light/environment settings, to simulate the color of the sun at different times of the day.

[sunny]

I see. I haven't actually tried to animate the light source yet in VRay but I think I understand the "blowout" issue you're having. Perhaps you could post your settings and some images.

Is your colour mapping set to exponential? I found that helps me sometimes.

Sunny