Best Advice for Getting Started?

[Tim in Hollywood]

Hi all,

We have been using 3DS since v2 for DOS and have been using MAX since it was first released.

We've gotten pretty good results from the scanline renderer, but we know it's time to do everything with MAX/V-Ray. <B>We purchased a copy of V-Ray a few days ago.</B>

We know almost NOTHING about how V-Ray works, but are eager to learn.

We have watched some of Chris Nichols V-Ray / Global Illumination DVDs, but not being familiar with things, the content was a bit over our heads.

Can anyone offer us some suggestions for getting started with V-Ray. Getting started with MAX itself is easy, since there are very rudimentary tutorials ("this is how to create a box" "This it how to create a circle," etc.)...that expand from there. We have not yet found anything similar for V-Ray.

Any suggestions you can offer will be greatly appreciated. Do any super-basic tutorials exist to simply get our feet wet with V-Ray?

Thanks for your help!

[natty]

HI Tim and welcome mate..

there is a wealth of info all over the web its just a case of finding it i guess, there is a vray book i believe, so maybe worth while taking a look at that, Vlado has a few tutorials with the user manual online..

you can take a look here .. http://www.vray.info/vray.asp some good info to be had or here .. http://www.vrayelite.com/mytutorials.php .. there is also evermotion, they offer some dvd's with vray scene's that you can study.

But with everything as you know . .practise makes perfect.

Regards

[MoonDoggie]

These tutorials are very helpful and might be a bit too much in certain cases, but check them out and bookmark them anyway, you'll need them.

http://www.aversis.be/tutorials/vray/index.htm

also check the manual on spot3d

http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150R1/

-Colin

[Brian Bradley]

some good info to be had or here .. http://www.vrayelite.com/mytutorials.php ..

Hi,

Couple of things to throw in here. Firstly we would encourage everyone
to start going through the 'front door' at Vrayelite as in just a little while
all the old .php pages will be pulled. We left them up when we changed
the site just to help avoid confusion, but any newer tuts that are going
to be added will only be on html pages,

http://www.vrayelite.com/MBM_VrayEli...site_tuts.html
& http://www.vrayelite.com/MBM_VrayEli...site_tuts.html

Secondly, for VRay for absolute beginners, start to follow through
with us on our overview series at MentalBoutMax, it may be just what
you need.
www.mentalboutmax.co.uk/vray/index.html

Regards
Bri

[JeffG2]

Check out SolidRocks : http://solidrocks.subburb.com/

For a few dollars it will help you get the hang of the Vray engine - it's an automated process with 6 or 7 quality levels. That will free you up to spend time learning the vrayphysical camera, the lights and the shader setup.

Buy a set of Vray shaders from Evermotion.org so you can see how all kinds of shaders are setup. (also check out http://www.vray-materials.de/) While you are there you may want to look at one of their packages - Archinteriors or Archexteriors - depending on your work. Though Evermotion doesn't do everything they way the pros on this forum might do it, this will let you see how a decent scene is set up.

By far the hardest part is learning to control the zillion settings in the engine - Solid Rocks will go a long way towards taking care of that for you. The rest is just play... and time.


... oh, and welcome to Vray. It is a blast. You will love it.

[pixelstudio]

Well you are already on the the biggest resource there is about vray, this forum.
Use the search function and you'll find loads of stuff for what ever you need.

Then also print the manual and read it, take a look at the examples included this weill get you started quick.