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**jujubee** · 04-02-2006, 01:09 AM

What is your knowledge of Vray? I ask because render settings often correlate with lighting quality. Just trying to narrow down such a potentially broad topic.

**CXStudios** · 04-02-2006, 09:47 AM

I've just recently switched over to V-Ray from finalRender. So I've only been using it for about two weeks now. From what I've noticed from my renderings, and others out there, is that it's not just the lighting program that makes a good rendering, but the person behind the lighting setting up the scene correctly to produce even better results from the lighting program.

Like I said most of my projects in the past have been very large exterior scenes, which I mainly use a Sunlight system to cast the main shadows. I used this to accuratly portray the lighting conditions of each particular site. We didn't get in to much interiors, as the turn around time was usually a day for design, and a hand renderer could finish an understandable rendering in 2 hours, with materials etc.

Being on my own now I'm starting to do more interiors, and I suppose that would be my main focus for learning. One big thing I've learned at the company I was at, is photo realistic renderings are not always the best goal for a project. The clients always seemed to enjoy/approve those that still left room for the imagination.

To clarify, I don't expect anyone here to teach me classes etc. But more to point me in the direction of the listed aids. Thanks for the reply!

**jujubee** · 04-02-2006, 01:27 PM

You have a broad question and it may seem overwhelming at first. Without going through every thread - a good starting point would to be a previous piece you worked on and admired - and trying to improve upon that.

My first step would be to convert basic materials on over, experiment with different Vray lights in your scene (sun, openings, and fill lights), and then render out a battery of small images. When you encounter an issue, the search section in this forum comes in very handy.

Unfortunately, there's really no 'magic-bullet' formula as even the most experienced users run into questions and issues. Hence the thousands of posts here. There are also some tutorials on Spot3D located here:

http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/VRayHelp150beta/

**RErender** · 04-02-2006, 02:14 PM

I it works well to create a scene spend some time with it and then post a render and go from there. Also if you post the scene people are usually happy to give it a go and share their results/methods.

**CXStudios** · 06-02-2006, 01:09 AM

Thanks for the replys guys. I guess I was more directing my question to lighting in general, not specifically for V-Ray. Light colors, studio lighting, set lighting, lighting methods, lighting theories, etc. Like possibly a local school offering lighting classes, online classes, etc. I'll start posting some of my work and getting some feedback.

Thanks again.

**Mirko** · 06-02-2006, 01:48 AM

This is the book to start with:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/156...Fencoding=UTF8

Digital Lighting & Rendering (Jeremy Birn) describes the basic principles of lighting and rendering.

It's a very good book!

**Da_elf** · 06-02-2006, 06:08 AM

actually if you want real world lighting there was a book published by ERCO that was very interesting and contained all the info on how to light certain spaces and what to light it with.

**CXStudios** · 06-02-2006, 08:46 AM

Thanks Mirko, picking up that book today.

Da_elf, I'm not sure if I found the book from ERCO you're talking about, but I did find their Handbook of Lighting Design on their website.

http://www.erco.com/usercgi/km_ls_do...ia/20_handbook

I also downloaded some of their IES setups, thanks for the direction on that.

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