Basic Vray Sketchup Tutorial Series 2

Hello! Here is Nomeradona again. I want to welcome you with my second segment of this Basic VRAY SketchUp Tutorial Series. In case you missed the first part you can access it HERE

Introduction:

In years of visualization, there are many workflow that helped me in managing my scenes and saving rendering time. Once I am satisfied with lighting, I don't immediately jump with material settings. I normally do this next important part; "Saving my Irradiance and Light Cache maps.


Step 1: Low settings for other settings except for my primary and secondary engines.

The first step is bringing down all the other settings except for the primary and secondary engines. First I enable (ticked) the "Override Materials" in the Global Switches except the glass material. (see the first segment of this series how I do this.)

The image sampler. 

This is the single parameter that can make your render quick and absolutely days if you want. In this tab, I either use Adaptive Subdivision (when less blurry materials, DOF and soft shadows). I maintain the Min-rate at -1 and further bring down the Max Rate to -2 or even -3. Then the anti-aliasing filter is not enable (unticked).

I also use Adaptive DMC for my image sampler (if the scene has many soft shadow, blurry reflections and DOF). I maintain the Min Subdivision to 1 while the Max subdivision is 2. This is the one I will use in this tutorial since I have soft shadow (sun).

The output
I usually use even lower than 640 x 480, but for this tutorial I will make it 640x480px

Now for the Indirect Illumination I make my setting high with Ambient Occlusion on. Primary engine is IR, while the Secondary engine is LC.

Irradiance Map setting is shown below.

Light Cache setting has shown below. Subdivision is 1500 ( you can even use 2000). The rest is default.

Here is the render. Actually I don't have to wait for the rendering stage. I normally stop once the LC and IR passes were done.

Step 2: Saving the IR and LC Maps.

In order to save the IR and LC Maps, all you have to do is to scroll down the current map section of IR and LC engines. Click "Save".

Save the current Irradiance Map in the desired folder. Name the map.

Likewise, scroll down the LC engine and look at the current map. Save it. You will also notice that the samples were written together with the size of the map. It is advisable that once you don't need them anymore, erase them to free space to your hard drive.

Save the current Light Cache in the desired folder. Name the map.

Step 3: Reloading the IR and LC saved maps.

This time scroll down again the mode. Go to the Mode section and use the down arrow. This time select "From File". Click the small box on the File and browse the previous saved maps. Below is the screen grab for the IR Map.

Ir map is loaded.

Likewise for the Light Cache, go to the Mode section and use the down arrow. Select "From File". Click the small box on the File section and browse the previous saved maps. Below is the screen grab for the LC Map.

LC map reloaded

Step 4: Re-adjusting the parameters (high quality setting).

Global Switches. Untick the Override materials.

Image Sampler..

Option 1: Adaptive DMC. Increased the Max Subdivision to 32, you can make it up to 99, but I think that is too much. Color Threshold is lowered to 0.003 (this will produce a very smooth rendering. You can make it 0.002 or 0.001 but I think its not necessary. For faster rendering you can even make it to 0.005. Anti-aliasing is enabled. I normally choose Catmull Rom (for me the most sharp AA).

Option 2: You can also use Adaptive Subdivision. Raise between 2-4. But I think this is slower.

Output. You can increase your output now. For this tutorial I will use the Viewport size.

Saved the Visopt if you want. Hit Render...

Here is the render. 

See you in the part 3 of this segment.