I have to admit I am quite intimidated in presence of such enlightened Vray Society.
May I bashfully and diffidently ask you for a tiny piece of advice, some recommendation?
I am about to make first steps into Vray for 3Ds Max with some serious apprehension and intimidation.
Particulary seeing the content, knowledge and experience emanate here.
I am looking for a comprehensive, written in a rather hammer-way printed guidance/book for beginners.
There are quite a few lovely covered books I have found being offered on web (amazon, etc).
Alas, I am not able to know their learning value.
That is why I kindly ask you, gurus for any recommendation.
Depends on what you want to learn exactly. Why books? Maybe video tutorials are more up to date. Not really sure. I remember buying the Vray bible by Francesco Legrenzi about 7 years ago, but the software has changed a lot and not relevant to todays standards anymore.
I can recommend the tutorials “Mastering VRay” and “Mastering Lighting” by Grant Warwick. Really knowledgable guy and in depth explanations. Worth every penny. I would start with Mastering VRay.
Keep in mind that while this is a very high quality tutorial, parts of it (especially about scene optimization, sample rates etc) are a bit outdated, but nothing too bad.
Thank you Senior Members for your recommendations.
Why books? - I thing a well written book is better organised, easier to find any references in Often one has to find a tiny piece of information which could be primordial for any advancement (especially in a case if all is almost new for a simple beginner).
Absolutely disagree with you on this. A well done PDF, or a video with annotations, time stamps, etc. is way more efficient and dynamic regarding content updates, usability and scalability. It’s just that many people dont use the tools at hand and instead try to reproduce a paperback thing online or in the form of a video which is like trying to drive a car with wooden carriage-wheels.
I followed Grant Warwick’s Vray course too, some videos might be irrelevant, but I have learned A LOT from this guy. How to look at materials and recreate them, how to optimize settings etc. Most of the stuff I knew from Vray was quite wrong or I didn’t understand it correctly, Grant taught me a lot in quite a short time. Even how to work with 3dsMAX which I thought I knew more or less. Too bad he’s not producing videos regulary anymore. The last few years have been quite slow. But the Vray course is quite complete for getting a good basis to start from.
I do thank you for your precious opinion.
I really do appreciate your advice and helpfulness as Seniors and axperts having huge experience in the domain.
Art48, I have never (yet) thought of annotations video courses.
V-Ray has come a long way and I am not sure how much you need to know anymore. I mean, I haven’t touched a setting, for the most part in a year. I spent that last few months learning my new DSL camera, with dozens of buttons, but my photography didn’t get better. Composition, lights, and shadow are what makes my photos better. Now, I can shot in manual mode, but auto does a great job by itself. The same thing goes for V-Ray now. I don’t know, just my opinion. Basic art theory and architectural photography might be a better avenue to develop your skills.
Bobby is generally right, but it really depends on what area you’re working in. If you do close-up high-end product shots or VFX you might need more software skills than doing everyday-ArchViz. Absolutely no offense here, it just really depends. Some areas need more technical skills, others need less, but they all need a good eye and “soft-skills” like the ones Bobby mentioned.
I am in total agreement. With Grant’s work, I didn’t appreciate it as much as some because to put that much work into one material is insane and the render times, to render one little shader ball, were astronomical. I guess it all depends on what you are using the software for.
I would highly recommend this for start : http://mographplus.com/product/the-u…y-for-3ds-max/
You can check some free samples on their Youtube channel
Grant course is great but for advanced users .. it is for sure not the best course to start with .
I have been working with SU and Vray, occasionally with Thea Render.
Since ages I have been trying to start seriously to jump into, well walk slowly into Max and Vray which are more advanced tools especially in my domain - this is Urban Design and Landscape Architecture.
I have been using with lot of satisfaction (of clients) and success Lumion (also Twinmotion, but rarely) which is a really fast-delivery-product piece of software.
Thus my goal is to move finally into serious illustration. Of course (and perhaps this has been always a case) I am truly blocked by the amount the material to acquire and the complexity of the software - 3ds Max vith Vray, particularly after using Lumion and TM.
I wouldn?t worry about VRay so much, it is quite ?fire and forget? nowadays. set desirable noise level and you will get an image. 3ds max on the other hand is this prehistoric monstrosity that you should focus on. it takes time.
Thank you, Piotruś for encouraging me, concerning Vray and the contrary in 3Ds Max aspect.
I wonder why you have associated a such epithet with the last piece of software.
3ds Max is very dated product and it shows. mostly in the user interface but also under the hood years and years of developement made it quite ?untidy? acumulating a lot of legacy features. compare it to something modern like Allegorithmic stuff or Modo - clear UI, much more intuitive inside.
That is why it seems to me quite intimidating and extremely complex.
I have already playing a bit with Cinema 4d and I?ve found it more friendly and welcoming for the common mortal approaching the serious 3D adventure.