Just switched to V-Ray for C4D and have a few basic questions

[pierre_tessier]

Just switched to V-Ray after a few years using Physical. I have a few basic questions on how to tackle this new "beast". First, I'm pleased with it so far, specially on how faster it is. The quality of the renders seem very good but I'm thinking they will get better as I get more accustomed to it. Here are my questions :

1. What is the best and quickest way to learn V-Ray?
2. Should I switch to beta V5 right away?
3. In general, are the default render settings pretty much the best? So far, I've used the default GI setting and it gives me good renders. Should I spend time trying to tweak these settings or is it a waste of time? And again, this is generally speaking.
4. Can I convert my numerous existing materials to V-Ray and if so, what's the best tool?
5. Any suggestions on where to purchased quality materials for V-Ray C4D?
6. Is there such thing as Team Render with V-Ray?
7. I noticed that when I have a V-Ray light on, I don't see the texture on my objects, even in Gouraud shading. Everything is black. It makes it impossible to position a texture on an object. Any idea how to solve this?
8. Is there a volumetric light option in V-Ray?

I hope someone is kind enough to answer some or all these rather basic questions.

Thanks in advance.

Pierre

[sirio76]

Hi Pierre,
I'll try to answer to all of your questions

1- I would say follow an advanced course, there are some basic free tutorials but many of them are not correct or up to date, so be carefull.
Also, V5 is around the corner and all the existing training is for older version (included our), it's much better to wait a few months for updated courses.
Then you have this forum, there are quite a few talented artists and many of them will be happy to help, Chaosgroup developers are here to help as well.

2- Personally I would say yes, if you start to use 3.7 you will need to learn everything again with V5 since it's really a brand new software.
Even if Vray5 it is not 100% functional it should be good/stable enough for average works, here is a scene I've made during the alpha testing and I've had no major issues: https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...5-for-cinema4d
To start using V5 we have some quick introduction blogpost: https://www.3dtutorialandbeyond.com/blog/ and videos on our channel:

As said those are just quick start videos, but we will offer a very advanced course as soon as Vray5 is released.

3- Don't waste time on render settings, default are usually your best bet. I use progressive for quick tests and bucket sampler for final images, just tune the Antialiasing threshold until you get a clean enough render, then use denoiser to get rid of the remaining noise. You also have IPR for interactive editing, it's very fast.

4- No, there's no such a tool as far as I know, even if does exist it would be nearly impossible to get decent results(except for very basic shader setup), plus keep reusing old materials is the best way to NOT learn a new software and improve your skills.
Rebuild materials from scratch gives you the opportunity to discover new things and become a better artist over time.

5- We do sell Vray shaders but to be honest I would not advice to purchase them right now since they are made on the old version and will be largely incompatible with the upcoming release, of course this is true for everyone who sells Vray for Cinema4d shaders, not just us.
My advice is to wait for proper Vray5 shaders otherwise you will waste money IMO.
We are already building high quality material collections for Vray5, if you want to test some of our shaders (here you can see something we are working on: https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...ng-with-metals ) or you have question about V5 material system let me know and I'll be happy to help.
We have also made a quick introduction video:

6- Yes, Vray comes with is own Distributed Rendering system, is not ideal for animation but for still images is a lot faster compared to Team Render.

7- This should not happen, I don't know what's going on but textures should be always visible except for some special shaders. If needed post the scene and I'll let you know where the error is.

8- Volume effects are not integrated in the light system, on Vray 3.7 you have several options, from the volume aerial perspective for quick atmospheric effects to proper volume with scattering using environment fog or volume material.
On Vray5 for now you only have volumetric fog, we talk about that here in our blogpost: https://www.3dtutorialandbeyond.com/...enderelements/

[pierre_tessier]

Thank you so much sirio76 for answering all my questions. This is very much appreciated. I can see the key thing here is the V-ray5 version. Do you know when the full version will be available for C4D? As for question 7, I tried it with a simple cube and light and you are correct, it does work well! I had a problem with a few specific scenes, so if I ever come across that problem again, I will post it here. I will try the Distributed Rendering system. I do a lot of animations, sometimes as long as 2 or 3 minutes. I often use transparency to show the inside of machines. Even with a fast render engine, it can take forever to render. And when I'm done rendering, I see some errors or problems with the animation, so I have to render all over again. Very time consuming and sometimes frustrating. Is there a way to render animations in "draft" mode? Thanks again!

[sirio76]

There's no official date for the Vray5 release, usually from the public beta it take a few months to get to the final version. The beta was released over a month ago and judging by the progress (I was involved since the private alpha) my bet is very early 2021, I'm not a developer though so I really don't know.
Vray Distributed Rendering is ideal for stills, it works perfectly on animation as well, but if you work on very large scene with tons of assets, there will be latency due to the fact that DR will need to create a vrscene file and send scene/assets again for every frame and this may cause a slowdown.
For example for scene like this https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...5-for-cinema4d scene/assets sending is not an issue and you will be perfectly fine using DR even for animation, for scene like this: https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/...ar-and-veranda it would be more efficient to use a proper render manager since there are several GB of data to be computed/sent for each frame. You also have Chaos Cloud service, prices are very affordable and it works seamlessly with Vray, it will be even included in the interface so with a single click you will get your final renders done in no time.
Of course you can render animation in draft mode, just lower the antialiasing threshold until you get a decent preview and you will get your frame completed in seconds, you can also use the integrated denoiser to get noise free results.
Once released you will also have the option to use Lavina, is Chaosgroup interactive renderer based on game engine technology and quality/speed ratio is outstanding.

[Stefan_Laub]

Hi Pierre,

in addition to what Sirio said, here some starters maybe:

- i would start with 3.7.vray 5 beta is great but many htings arent yet fully implemented(it is a beta),i would not use if for work,
- use bflc in 3.7,that also what v5 uses then.
- use the vray standart materal in 3.7,it is most close to the vray 5 material, so the switch later to v5 will be easy for you
- you can find high qualitymaterials, and toolsdirectlymade for vray use, on 3dtools.info (our site)
you can render "drafts" in using progressive rendering, and kist let it render grainy, this gives you an accusrate preview without rendering long (you can also use buckt mode and set the AA threshold to a high value,this also gives you a fast preview (noisy a bit but accurate)