SketchUp and Vray Resources

MTM Series 2012 #34 Warm Corner by Virgo Oktaviano

2012-03-10T03:03:00.000-08:00

Here is another MTM from, we should say one of the best VRAY SketchUp user in the workld, Virgo Oktaviano. We can always learn on Virgo's attention to details. Thanks Virgo for this excellent MTM.

You might want to also see:
MTM Series 2011. VIrgo Oktaviano
Q and A with Virgo Oktaviano

MTM Tutorial Virgo Oktaviano

View more documents from Nomer Adona.

MTM Series 2012 #33 a Cozy Living room by Renos Sigounis

2012-03-09T17:18:00.001-08:00

Renos Sigouinis shared this new MTM.. A cozy Living area. Thank you Renos for this another great entry. In this MTM, Renos shared his knowledge how to create a wall relief using bump material. For those of you who missed the first MTM of Renos, see it HERE.

Q and A with Jonald Magistrado

2012-03-08T04:16:00.000-08:00

SketchUp-Vray- Artists was founded on March 2, 2011 by Arch. Jonald Magistrado. For more details about the history of SVA click HERE.

We requested an interview with our founder and here is the the Q and A with him. enjoy and be inspired.

SVR: Can you please tell us more about yourself. Tell us what is in your mind when you decided to form the SVA FB Group.

JM: The group really started to life when I got to answer a simple question on my FB message about SketchUp, then just got an idea why not try to make a group on Facebook concerning all of my Sketchup colleagues on CGP Forum who are active on Facebook. I guess is the fastest way of communicating and chatting. First it was just four of us members or shall I call twin brothers. Then I told them we can share and posts works here together while showing techniques and tips for the noobs; that was really the intention. Then came the idea to asks you, Nomeradona and other Sketchup Gurus to be the admins of the group and make it formal at least, because it just keep on growing that time with so many requests.

SVR: Did you expect that this group will grow and develop into a successful FB group? Please recall on what your initial feeling?

JM: Nope, I never ever thought that there were enormous people out there who would join the group. It's just we are already happy answering few questions and explaining with mini-tutorials while posting at the start.

SVR: How do you see this group in 10 years time? Any plans?
JM: I am no web designer/artist so I will leave the website to you Nomeradona. As far as it goes I'm already happy viewing posts of other members, seeing improvements of new members and of course, other artists posting such great renders and links. But sure I got plans of at least yearly EB's and other actvities but only if time permits.

SVR: What is your message to the new group members? to the old members? to the Admins?

JM. All I can say, for the newbies: thank you very for joining our group, just continue to see post, comments and practice. I know you'll love SketchUp even more. For the the oldies; I can tell that we have accomplished, learned, shared and laugh a lot. Though it is not in a material way that we are in touch with each other, I know we are all here because of our love for Sketchup and Vray; and I am happy for all of us.
Thank you Nomeradona and SVA.

SVR: Well said Arch. Jonald Magistrado.. Thnak you also for your time!

View the MTM done by Arch. Jonald Magistrado HERE

Rewind FInalists

2012-03-08T03:36:00.002-08:00

Cgpinoy.org in cooperation with nomeradona.com and sketchup-vray-artists organized a competition featuring these 5 SketchUp models made by Mel Patrick Kasingsing which can be downloaded HERE

Benguet Center
Capitol Theater
Galaxy Theater
Jai Alai Building
The Aduana
El Hogar Filipino

A big thanks to Neil "bokkins" Cristobal who is the brain child of this competition.

This Filipino competition ran in two months and culminated on MArch 5, 2012. Here are the 15 Finalists.

MTM Series 2012 #32: Bungalow Exterior Render by Leo Valenzuela

2012-03-07T06:29:00.001-08:00

Here is a world class MTM from Leo Valenzuela. Thanks Leo for always sharing your knowledge to the community.

MTM3 Leo Valenzuela

View more presentations from Nomer Adona.

MTM 2012 Series No.31 Bathroom by Louie Castillo

2012-03-06T23:12:00.000-08:00

Here is a very nice bathroom by Louie Castillo. In this MTM Louie shared his workflow from Autocad to SketchUP then finally using VFSU. Thanks Louie for this excellent MTM.

My mini the making bathroom louie castillo

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MTM Series 2012 #31: Marc Rhob Rondon's Bedroom

2012-03-06T03:40:00.000-08:00

Here is our 31st MTM for 2012. Thanks to Marc Rhob Rondon for providing this MTM to all of us.

Here is the Final render for this MTM

SketchUp Screengrab

VRAY Settings: Image sampler

Raw render before Post Process

Post Process

Noise Reduction

High pass for sharpening

Final Image

Preview of the next Basic Sketchup Vray Series

2012-03-03T20:54:00.002-08:00

Preview of the next Basic Sketchup Vray Series (Maybe 5-6 more). Still preparing all my materials.

Includes:

- Materials and UV mapping:
- Bump and Displacement
- Reflection and Refraction
- Emissive mapping
- Composition and Camera Set-up

- IES lighting in VRAY SU, (How to ensure you don't have to put millions of multiplier)

Basic SketchUp Vray Tutorial Series No.4..
In this tutorial, I will be sharing UV mapping and how to control texture. Also how to preview your texture (bumps, dirt etc.)

Basic SketchUp Vray Tutorial Series No.5..

In this tutorial, the focus will be with Reflection and Refraction

Basic SketchUp Vray Tutorial Series No.6.

In this tutorial the focus will be with Bump and Displacement

Basic SketchUp Vray Tutorial Series No.7.
In this tutorial the focus will be with Camera set up and composition

Some compositional strategies like..

Tilt

One point perspective

Others: Rule of third, angular, photographic cropping, etc.

Basic SketchUp Vray Tutorial Series No.8. IES Lighting

all images (except for the last) are RAW RENDER

Thank you

2012-03-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

Started this site barely before May 2011, there is no doubt, how much we appreciate the monthly report of pageviews; we are almost hitting nearly half a million pageviews and an average of nearly 9000 a month.. Big thanks again to all our contributors and blog readers.We hope we can bring more and this site will become one of the main resource with SKetchUp and VFSU.

MTM Series 2012 #30: Minimalist House by Renren Persigan

2012-03-01T06:58:00.003-08:00

Here is our 30th MTM this year courtesy of Renren Persigan. Thanks Renren for this excellent MTM.

Renren persigan

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Tips and Tricks Series No.4

2012-02-29T07:14:00.001-08:00

How to create Vray light components.

I have seen many times, there are several VFSU users who edit their lights one by one. Why not create components to that when you edit one light all the lights will be edited at the same time. How to do it? Here it a simple tip.

Step 1: Create a receptacle and make it into component.

Step 2: Type the name of this component. (say ies)

Step 3: Open the component/group

Step 4: Place the IES light inside the component and close it.

Step 5: Copy the component

Step 6: Edit the IES light inside the component.
Notice all the ies light icon were selected at once. When you edit one of the lights the other lights will be edited too.

MTM Series 2012 #29: Nostalgic Patio by Juan Antonio Medina

2012-02-28T05:00:00.001-08:00

Here is our 29th Entry on the 29th of February...A special MTM from Juan Antonio Medina. In this MTM, Juan Antonio focused in sharing his knowledge with texturing.

Welcome to SVR Mr. Johnson's class

2012-02-27T08:25:00.003-08:00

Welcome to SVR. Today you will learned how to create prisms and Cylinders using GoogleSketchUp.

Mr. Nomer

Tips and Tricks Series 3: Tilting the camera

2012-02-27T06:37:00.001-08:00

Here is a simple trick which I know sometimes we don't see as useful. But for me its a good compositional trick. Tilting the camera.

To do this you need to hold the middle of the mouse and hold CTRL key of your keyboard at the same time; while holding both drag your mouse. Observe the rotation is different from orbit when you just hold the middle key of your mouse. This time you can make the camera tilting from left to right.

Tips and Tricks Series 2: How to speed up SketchUp by Zernan Suarez

2012-02-27T01:51:00.003-08:00

Here's a tip on how to speed-up SketchUp when working with big scale models.

Download PDF HERE

Advanced VFSU Tutorial Series 2: Masking

2012-02-26T05:14:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many of you have read my previous tutorial: Basic Vray Sketchup Tutorial Series No.3. In this tutorial, one of my main emphasis is knowledge with layering. My hope in this tutorial is you will have a good ground and good grip with VRAY material's layers.

As I have explained in this tutorial, these layers could be stacked together and the layer placements can have an impact to the material properties. This will be an advantage to those of you who use Photoshop or Gimp. Let me take this further to our next Advanced tutorial series. Let's start!

Step 1: Set-up
Let me use this mirror in my Basic Vray SketchUp Series.

Step 2: Create/rename VRAY Material

Select the Mirror material and go to Vray Material editor, rename your Vray Material.

Step 3: Create Reflection Layer

When you created reflection layer, VRAY will stack it on top of your Diffuse Layer. Notice also that the Reflection layer has no Map applied, therefore this is a perfect mirror material wit 100%reflective property.

Here is the render. The mirror material is showing.

But now I want to achieve this type of material, I want the reflection to happen, but at the same time I need to put the dust, scratches, letters etc.

Step 4: Creating the Dust, scratch material in Photoshop (mask map)

I would like to thank Zernan Suarez aka Zdesign for this beautiful material which you can download HERE.

I will use this initial texture material and re-do it in Photoshop.

Here I loaded the material in Photoshop

Double click the Background in the Layer window tab and convert it to Layer 0 (or rename it to whatever name you like). Create a new layer (with transparent BG and place it below Layer 0

Go to Layer 0 and select color range (you can also use the magic wand). Select the white area and click OK.

Here is the selected layer.

Press the DELETE button to delete the white areas. See the result below.

Now use grunge brushes, scratch brushes..You can download a lot of these brushes HERE or any other Photoshop brushes sites. I choose this Grunge spatter brush and loaded them in my Photoshop brushes root folder.

Use these brushes with low opacity and paint whatever effect you want.

Here is my finished one. In this screen grab I put white Background to see the effect better. When you save this material be sure to remove the white background. I also re-sized the material for a better ratio with my mirror material in SketchUp. Be sure to save in PNG (to support transparency). You can also download the file below, this is the same map I used on this tutorial.

Step 5: Creating Second Diffuse material

At the moment you have these stack.. The reflection material over the diffuse material.

Now let us create another diffuse layer.

Rename this layer as Mask Map

Now Here is your current stack.

Step 5: Mask Layer as top Layer

Move the Mask layer (the second diffuse material) on top of the Reflection Layer.

Step 6: Load the created Mask Map to the Bitmap box.

1. Mask Layer (2nd diffuse map renamed as Mask map)
2. Click "m" to load Map
3. Select TexBitmap
4. Load the Png file that was created.

Step 7: Use color texture as transparency

Now this is the most important in this mask layer. Tick color texture as transparency.

Back to SketchUp interface. Here how the map has been applied.

Step 8: Reposition the Pins

Now let us reposition the pins of the texture

.

Here is the render. The texture map on top of the reflection layer. With this workflow, I think it will open up with many possibilities when it comes to using masking... You can even put as many stacks of Diffuse layer as you want...I hope many of you will try to help me in exploring these possibilities.

The good thing with SketchUp, you can always edit this texture, by clicking the orange arrow on the right of texture image material.

Here I tried to re-edit my map.

Once saved, the image will be automatically updated.

Here is the render Image

This is the same technique I did with this one..

Here I also use the same technique on top of the Emissive layer

TIps and Tricks Series 1: Saving and Restoring Toolbar

2012-02-26T02:51:00.001-08:00

There are so many shortcuts, tips and tricks for easy workflow with SketchUp and Vray SketchUp. Here is the first one; saving and restoring SketchUp toolbar.

Have you ever experience these jumbled toolbar and you spend lots of your time closing or repositioning them one at a time?

Here is the tip on how to restore them quickly.

Step1: Load all the toolbar that you are using often.

Step 2: Save the toolbar position

Once satisfied with your toolbar position, go to view/ toolbar/ save toolbar positions.

So next time you will have the same problem as the above, normally after SketchUP crashes, do the next step.

Step 3: Restoring toolbar position
Go to View/ toolbar/ restore toolbar positions.

The previous saved positions of your toolbars will be restored back.

Tutorial: How to create anaglyph image for your finished rendered images

2012-02-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting tutorial from Juan Manuel Ariza. Anaglyph images for 4d viewing... I guess if you ask your client to were those 3d glasses, your presentation will gonna be impressive. Thanks Juan Manuel for this important contribution.

Here is the tutorial

Anaglyph image by_juan_manuel_ariza

View more presentations from Nomer Adona.

Advanced VFSU Tutorial Series 1: Caustics by David Brufau

2012-02-24T18:08:00.001-08:00

We are starting another series Advanced Vray For SketchUp Series. Our first is courtesy of David Brufau aka "dBrenders".

Final Image

The Process

Step 1
Build a simple pool, and apply pool- tiles material

Step 2
Use sandbox tool. Create a plane surface from scratch. The more subdivisions the better

Step 3

Increasing the number of subdivisions is better, but of course more processing time is needed

Step 4
Use sandbox' smoove tool. You can also use the sculpt tool of Artisan plugins. Use these tool to sculpt and displace the surface.

Step 5. Drag your camera below the water surface. Adjust the angle of your sun for the incidence of lights and shadows. Make sure to view the front face of your surface, otherwise water material wont work properly

Step 6. Edit the reflection layer of your water material, in reflection layer, choose Fresnel Map with IOR set to 1,332 (typical water Index of refraction value).

Step 7. Diffuse color white, transparency should be Tex Acolor and apply white color for full tranparency

Step 8. In maps option slot, add displacement. Use 0,25 and disable "use global'. Choose noise map. Increase the size for nicer huge waves.

Step 9. In the output tab, tick caustics. Use the following parameters that are shown in the below image. You need to make some trials for sharper caustics. Be patient!

Step 10. In the Environment tab, apply the following sun parameters. The higher caustic subdivision the better

Step 11. Render it!.

Final Image

Tutorial: 2 point Perspective rendering using Vray for Sketchup by 3dita

2012-02-23T06:54:00.002-08:00

Here is a nifty tutorial on how to render 2 point perspective in VRAY SketchUp. Thanks to 3dita for allowing us to share this tutorial here.

Download Vray toys by Thomthom HERE

MTM Series 2012 #28: "Bedroom" by Mark Joseph Mercado

2012-02-23T03:54:00.000-08:00

Here is our 28th MTM for this year courtesy of Mark Joseph Mercado.

Tutorial: How to sychronize the render output with viewport by Onel Pabico

2012-02-22T22:30:00.001-08:00

Here is another tutorial from Onel Pabico on how to synchronize the render output with viewport.

MTM Series 2012 #27: "The Living" by Cesar Vazquez

2012-02-22T04:53:00.002-08:00

Here is our 27th MTM series for this year. Thanks to CESAR VAZQUEZ for this very interesting MTM.

Post Processed image

Original render

Click Full screen (bottom right)

Cezar Vasquez MTM

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Architectural Visualization Post Processing (AVPP) Series #8

2012-02-20T05:42:00.000-08:00

This is our 8th AVPP series courtesy of Rio Adona. Rio shares his workflow how he prepare his channel in 3DMax so as its easier to work the image during post processing stage.

Basic VRAY SketchUp Tutorial Series 3

2012-02-19T06:57:00.000-08:00

The next segment of this Basic VRAY SketchUp tutorial focuses in introducing Nomeradona's approach with material. This is just the beginning overview. There will be more sub-topics coming soon.

If you missed the previous segment be sure to read them first.

Basic VRAY SketchUp Tutorial Series 1
Basic VRAY SketchUp Tutorial Series 2

Ok let's start!

1. The VRAY Material Editor

The icon for the material editor is the firs one "M".

2. Adding keyboard shortcut

I love putting my shortcuts in SketchUp. I also assigned "m" for my VRAY material editor. If you want to create your own keyboard shortcuts, go to system preference. (see image below). This is a very good time saver. Once the shortcut has been assigned, you can automatically open the VRAY Material editor using the keyboard shortcut (in my case, I assigned "m").

Creating New VRAY Standard Material

If you apply the material in SketchUp, VRAY will automatically create a VRAY material. You can also create and load vismat materials. In this segment let me concentrate in doing a new "standard" material (other materials will be tackled in other tutorials). To create a VRAY Standard material, all you need is to highlight "Scene Material" then right click mouse (another tab will appear). Highlight create and again you will have 5 different types of materials (angle blend, SKp two sided, standard, toon and two sided). Click Standard.

Once standard material was clicked, this new material will be created. You will notice Vray will stack in the very last and name it "Default Material". This default material will have three properties (diffuse, options and maps)

3. Renaming your VRAY Material

Renaming material is pretty simple. Highlight the material you want to rename and right click mouse. Click rename material and type the desired name.

Note: Using the same approach, you can save, pack, duplicate, remove, import, apply or even select all objects that use the material.

4. VRAY Layers

Each VRAY MATERIAL does not only have properties, but can have also different layers. Vray layers are like stacks of paper or transparencies on top of each other. This understanding must be noted as early as possible. The reflection layer is like a varnish that you apply on top of the stacks. You can apply as many layers as you wish. In this tutorial, I wont talk about UV and I want to do a separate tutorial just for this subject.

5. Creating VRAY Layers.

To create Vray Layer, you need to highlight the material you want to add layer. Right Mouse click then highlight create layer. Four layer types (emissive, reflection, diffuse and refraction) can be selected.

The Reflection Layer

Refraction Layer

Emisive Layer (self emitting layer material)

6. Removing Layer

To remove layer, all you have to do is to highlight the layer, right click mouse and select Remove Layer.

You can also add as many layers as you want. For advance materials, usually you can play with two different reflection materials, or two different diffuse materials. You can also change the position of this layer by moving the layer above or below the stacks.

7. Adding/loading Maps
Once you see a small "m"in any box, this indicates that you can load a texture map here. If a capital "M" is showing in this box, this means a texture map of any type is applied. To apply or load a texture map, simply click the small 'm'. In the particular example below, I clicked the "m" in the diffuse layer. Once clicked, a new tab will appear. The small square window is the preview window. This is a very useful tool to preview the material. Under it is a small scroll window where you can load the different texture map types. On the right is the property window that display the different properties that can affect this texture map.

8. Texture Map Types
There are different map types that you can load here: TexAColor, TexBitmap, Texblend etc. Let us use the the common one the "TexBitmap".

Note: All other Map types are procedural maps except the TexBitmap

9. Texture Bitmap Properties

Each texture bitmaps have different properties. Below is the Window properties of Texbitmap.

10. Loading Bitmap File
To load bitmap file, click the small box on the right of File. (see image below).

Browse the location of the file you want to load and click open.

11. Applying Vray Material
Although you can apply the material using the VRAY Material Editor, I will not advise this especially with high poly-models - its very very slow. To apply the material, use the native SketchUp paint bucket .

Note: The highlighted material in VRAY material is the same material selected in the Native Sketchup Material Editor once paint bucket is selected.

To apply the material, simply select the faces you want to apply the material.

In the image below the material has been applied. Notice that tiling (repeat of texture) is so obvious. I purpose applied a non-seamless material so as to help you in the very beginning how to manage your bitmap texture.

12. Nomeradona's strategy with SketchUp Materials.

The first thing that one must remember is the texture file size. Using hi-res photos in VRAY SU is a no-no with me, because of two main reasons: I notice that they need much memory, which actually you should allocate during rendering and second I notice that parsing and rendering time is a bit longer.

My first step is finding the balance. I usually re-size my texture to 520px width using Photoshop. You might asked me but how about printing big image.. Printing big image is another issue but you can always use other software on this matter.

The second thing is making the texture seamless in order to avoid obvious tiling.There are lots of software design in creating seamless texture. My favorite is Pixplant and Crazybump. You can also use Photoshop using this quick tutorial.

Step 1: Load the texture

Step 2: Use filter/other/offset

Below is the effect of offset tool. It will shift the edges of original texture both vertically and horizontally.

Step 3: Use Patch tool.

Select the seamed area and drag it to another area.

Step 4: Use Clone stamp tool.

You can also use the clone stamp tool by taking some sample and stamping in on the areas you need to correct.

below shows the corrected texture, the obvious line is gone.

I reloaded the corrected texture in the File tab.

Here is the corrected texture. Tiling is not obvious anymore.

Step 5: Adjusting the texture UV
I normally adjust my texture UV using the native editing of Paint bucket.

13: Region Render.

Another good addition with VRAY is the region render. You don't have to render the whole image. I normally use the region render to render the area I want to see. During this stage, I also use the save maps (see Basic VRAY SketchUp tutorial No.2). Click the region render icon and drag to the area you want to render. Then hit render.

14. Mirror Material

The screen grab below shows the finished render. But wait what happen to the wood material we applied on the table. This one looks like mirror.

Well it's look like a mirror because in the Reflection Layer, there is no map loaded. Notice the 'm'.
Be aware that if there is no Map type loaded in the reflection layer, VRAY will read the reflection as 100% reflective. So any material you put in the diffuse layer, the reflection layer will disregard it.

15. Fresnel Map Type in the reflection layer

Now let us load fresnel map in the reflection layer. Click the 'm' box beside reflection. Under the map type select the TexFresnel.

Here is the TexFresnel properties window. For the moment click ok.

Here is the finished render using the render region. Ohh it looks like plastic.

16. Blurry Reflection
In order to create blurry reflection, we need to lower both highlight and reflection glossiness to 0.85 and adjust the Subdivision to 16.

Here is the finished render using the render region.

Bonus...

Download the materials I did. We will use these later.

Diffuse map

Displacement/bump map

Specular map.

Finished render during this stage

MTM Series 2012 #26: Bedroom by Bui Nam Cuong

2012-02-18T03:47:00.000-08:00

This is a special MTM done by Bui Nam Cuong showing a quick workflow from 3DMax to Sketchup and finally rendering using Vray SketchUp.

Here is the Tutorial

The mini maker turorial of the bedroom

View more documents from Nomer Adona.

Architectural Visualization Post Processing (AVPP) Series #7

2012-02-18T03:08:00.000-08:00

This is our seventh segment for our AVPP series. This one is coming from Trox Pagunsan.

Architectural Visualization Post Processing (AVPP) Series #6

2012-02-15T03:31:00.000-08:00

This architectural Visualization series is courtesy of Omar Estévez Castañeda. The audio is in Spanish, but the video is a graphic tool and you can follow easily. Hopefully Google can invent where the audio is in Spanish then the output will be in your language.

Architectural Visualization Post Processin (AVPP) Series #5

2012-02-13T17:55:00.000-08:00

Here is our next AVPP segment coming from Onel Pabico. This is a simple post processing tutorial on how to quickly post process your Architectural rendering raw output.

Basic Vray Sketchup Tutorial Series 2

2012-02-12T06:30:00.000-08:00

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.

MTM Series 2012 No.25_Bui Nam Cuong's Simple Scene

2012-02-10T22:57:00.000-08:00

Good day everyone. Here is our next MTM coming form a Vietnamese national.. "XIn Chao Vietnam!" Thanks to Bui Nam Cuong for this nice MTM.

Download PDF File HERE

Bui Nam Cuong also share some of his VISMATS HERE

MTM Series 2012 No.24_Matthew Haguisan Sorianosos' Filipino Inspired Bathroom

2012-02-10T01:36:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone again. Welcome to another MTM segment. This time courtesy of Matthew Haguisan Sorianosos - a Mini-the-Making of this Filipino inspired bathroom.

The making of filipino inspired bathroom

View more presentations from Nomer Adona

News: SketchUp Vray Materials

2012-02-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

SketchUp Vray Materials blogsite is born. This site is a sharing and tutorial site that focus on VRAY Materials or "vismats".

Sample materials that you can download directly.

Poly Acrylic Material

Water pool Material by Juan Manuel Ariza

MTM Series 2012 No.23_Dindin Hadiyan's Bedroom

2012-02-08T02:52:00.000-08:00

Good day everyone! Thank you to Dindin Hadiyan's MTM for this beautiful bedroom

Donwload the PDF File HERE!

MTM Series 2012 No.22 _Reynaldo Pabilona's Night Exterior

2012-02-06T04:04:00.000-08:00

We are very happy to present this next segment of MTM shared by Reynaldo Pabilona. Thanks Reynaldo for this one..

Finished image

SketchUp Screen Grabs

Vray Materials

Camera Settings

Rectangular Light settings

Vray Options

Post Processing

SSMDS 7: KItchen Scene by Juan Manuel Ariza

2012-02-04T21:24:00.000-08:00

Juan Manuel shared this scene to us in his MTM. We want to share it again as part of the SSMDS (SketchUp Scenes and Models Download Series)

You can download the SKP File HERE.

You can also visit the complete work of Juan Manuel in his BLOG.

MTM Series 2012 No.21 MArk Angelo Perez's Bathroom

2012-02-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

Our 21st MTM Series came from Mark Angelo Perez. In this MTM, Mark showed how he used "specular or reflection map" to his scene. Thanks Mark for this one.. "Mabuhay!"

Final output

The Process:

SU Screenshot

VRAY Materials with Reflection Maps

VRAY Options

Post Processing

Basic Vray Sketchup Tutorial Series 1 by Nomeradona

2012-02-04T02:44:00.000-08:00

I really want to influence everyone to dive with visualization. I know the feeling of being new with it, you dont know where to start. In this tutorial series, my main goal is to lead you specially the new users with VRAY SketchUp. And for the veterans, I know there are still some tips and workflow here that you will get.

Introduction:

One of the common mistake in learning VRAY SketchUp is adjusting all the dials at the same time without knowing what the dials are for. If you do this then you are in jeopardy to frustrate yourself. I did! I was overwhelmed with many dials and parameters.. By the way, my name is Nomer Adona, I have been using this software since its beta phase with SketchUp, I believe I am one of the guys who started using it when it was announced. If you want to see how I began with, check this Blog Entry. Five years ago I ran at many pitfalls, learning was rather slow due to the fact the VRAY SketchUp Manual was not even made, there were no tutorials, and we only rely on asking ASGVIS guys and coppying notes on every experimentation we made. I have written my first tutorial with VRAY Sketchup and posted it at www.cgpinoy. but I felt it's already outdated now and need to be reworked. So in the course of writing this tutorial, I am very mindful with the fears of the new users, the new UI of SketchUp VRAY 1.49.01 and how to easily learn it by tweaking the most important dials.

So to all newbies with Rendering and with VRAY SketchUp this is for you. May God bless this simple series and hopefully it will help you to start rendering.

Resources:

Download the Free trial of Vray SketchUp 1.49.01 HERE

Download the Manual, Installation Guide HERE

Download the Scene we will be using HERE. This scene is very simple and feel free to use and test it.

All textures that I used in this scene are courtesy of SketchUp Texture. Rosanna Mataloni and yours truly are very committed in giving the best resources when it comes to SketchUp and Vray SketchUp.

Note: I am using Google Sketchup 8 and Vray SketchUp 1.49.01. If you want to follow this step by step, be sure that you have the same software.

Ok let us start!

1. SketchUp File

Here is the old SketchUp file I have use in my previous tutorial. One of the things I dont like with this model are the sharp corners.

2. Rounded Corners

Based on my experience, rounded corners look much better. I used Round Corners by Fredo. Be aware that if you opt to use this script, you need to also hae the latest Libfredo.
.

3. SketchUp Texture

Here is the SketchUp screen grab. Notice that the corners are now rounded and I also applied new materials courtesy of SketchUp Texture.

4. Effected Override Materials

For the glass, you can load the VRAY clear glass material. This material is one of the materials you can find in the standard VRAY SU installation.

If you want the material not to be effected by the Override material, you need to UNTICK the box "Effected by Override material. By doing this, all the materials will be affected by the override except our clear_glass material.

Note: If the material has been highlighted in the Vray material editor, the selected material will be the same material selected in the SKetchup Material tab. If you want to apply quickly, refrain from applying the material in VRAY Material Editor (it's very slow), rather apply the material using paint bucket tool of SketchUp. It is faster.

5. Now go to the VRAY Options and be sure the Default setting is loaded. If not just click the Load Defaults icon.

6. Clay Render...

For me, I always start my rendering using clay render. Vray will render the scene using the assigned override material color. There are several benefits in using clay render; faster and you can see the blotches easily. I also use this in detecting possible VRAY crashes. (This matter won't be tackled here.)

To do clay render, open the VRAY Options and click the Global Switches tab. Tick Override materials. You can also change the Override material color if you want.

Note: A while ago we assigned the clear-glass material not to b effected by override material. It means that Vray will override all the materials with the chosen material color except the "clear-glass" material.

Here is the render. The override color was applied except the clear glass applied to the glazing of our window. If we did not untick the box "Effected by Override material", the whole thing will be black because the glazing is not transparent.

You may realize that the sun is not coming inside the room. Let us address this in the next step.

7. Affect Shadows:

In order for the shadow to showed and pass the glazed material, we need to tick "Affect shadow", If you want the fog color to affect the light cast, then tick "Affect Alpha".

Here is the render, the shadow is now showing. Notice the edges of the shadow they are really sharp.

8. Soft Shadows

Soft shadows appear more realistic than sharp shadows. In order to do that let us go to the Environment Tab. Click the "M" on the left of GI color.

Once the "M" was clicked, another tab will appear. Notice in default setting, "Text sky" is loaded. In order to achieve soft shadow, we need to increase the size of the Sun.. Change the Sun size from 1.0 (default) to 6.0. I always use between 2.5-3.5. But in this tutorial let us use 6.0 to see the effect. To achieve much smoother shadow, you need to increased the Subdiision multiplier. I put 16 in this tutorial.

Here is the render, notice the shadow is softer, but take note, the rendering time also increased.

9. Additional Vray Rectangular light

I feel the light entering the room is not enough, some increased the sun intensity. But I wont suggest that because increasing it usually causes some burn highlights. Instead, I recommend adding additional "invisible" Vray Rectangular light outside the window.

Click the Vray Rectangular light icon.

Create a rectangular face, same size as the window, then move this face around 10-15 cm from the window. If you are using one sided, be sure the positive side is facing the interior. Now let put the intensity at 30 and tick invisible. The light will have an effect into the interior but hidden in the camera.

Here is the render Vray rectangular light + sunlight. Notice that more light penetrated the scene, less blotches specially in the ceiling and walls. But notice once, we introduce the Vray rectangular lights we can see some grains and noises. We will address this in the next step.

Note: To avoid blotches, use the technique of adding invisible Vray rectangular lights.

9. Correcting Noise.

Now go to the Image Sampler tab, the default IS is "Adaptive DMC". Now look at the Color Treshold parameter. Change the default 0.01 to 0.005.

Here is the render. Be mindful that the noise was lessen, but the downside was the rendering time.

Here is a much better setting (Color Threshold of 0.001) but again the rendering time is much much longer.

Let us see the render without overriding the material. That's it for this segment.

SSMDS_6: MS House by Juan Manuel Ariza

2012-02-03T22:21:00.000-08:00

Here is the MS House by Manuel Ariiza complete with settings. This will be our 6th SketchUp Scenes and Models Download Series (SSMDS). We would like to thank Juan Manuel for his generosity in sharing this Model to us.Of course credit to Ronen Bekerman for the original Model. For me this is one of the best rendering setting in Vray SketchUp.

Download HERE

SSMDS_5: TV Plasma by Nomeradona

2012-02-03T22:15:00.000-08:00

Here is our 5th SketchUp Scenes and Models Download Series.. Plasma TV by Nomeradona. This image has already the EMissive material.

Download File here

SSMDS_4: Lampshade by Nomeradona

2012-02-03T22:13:00.000-08:00

Here is our 4th Sketchup Scenes and Model Download Series (SSMDS)..Lampshade. This lamp has its VRay material already.

You can download it here:

MTM 2012Series #20 : Animation of Quadracci Pavilion by Apiwat Hngimhyun

2012-02-02T18:48:00.000-08:00

In August 2011 we featured Apiwat's Hngimhyun the making of contemporary kitchen. In case you missed it, here is the LINK.

Our MTM series 2011 today is a bit in different form; its by way of video tutorial. We hope the video is more than enough to see the workflow of Apiwat using SU Animate, SketchUp, VRAY for Google SketchUp and Adobe After Effects.

In this MTM, we would like to feature also Apiwat's excellent VRAY rendering of Quadracci Pavilion.

SketchUp View

VRAY SketchUp Rendering

This is one of the screengrab used in the animation.

Here is MTM by way of Video Tutorial of Quadracci Paviliob by Apiwat. aka "starsheep".

Animation

Q & A : David Brufau aka. "DbRenders"

2012-02-02T00:04:00.000-08:00

Featured Artist: David Brufau

Good day again to all of you. We have again another segment in featuring exemplary artists and visualizers. This time we want to feature David Brufau or better known in our community as "dbrenders". If you are follower of RonenBekerman you will realized that 3 out 4 of David's render where voted as winners in the 2011 Forum. We have a very high regards of David's passion to Visualization. His visual art background could be seen in his work instantly. In the past this emerging artist also shared to us some of his tutorials which we posted in this Blog (see this modeling tutorial HERE).

SVR: Tell us more about yourself?

DB: My name is David Brufau, I’m from Barcelona Spain. I started working as freelancer one year and 4months ago. As many of you know, I’m a SketchUp user - an addict might be the right word.

SVR: You started as visual artist, now you are doing visualization and design; can you tell us the connection.

DB: Yes, you are right, I think visual arts and visualization should not be branded as separate disciplines. For me they are one. I have the notion of manipulating objects digitally and I was attracted with visualization. This passion led me to work in design office. Here is where I got exposed with visualization which is art in itself.

In the office, there are times clients need specific furniture or models that you can’t find in the internet. I have to learn advanced modeling in order to provide their needs. This year, I started my own collection of models in the 3DWarehouse site, which I’m very thankful of. In order to give back, I decided to put some of my new models here and share them with fellow SketchUp users.

Now did I forget Visual arts? No not all, for me its a continuum.

SVR: Interesting! Can you tell us how did you start with SketchUp and VraySketchUp?

DB: Sure! With SketchUp I started with Version 5 when I was working in a big office using other 3d software. One day while browsing other software, I found it and I realized how cool this program is; simple, easy, and fast. I realized that it is going to be a great tool for me in the future. With VRAY the story is shorter, I started just one year and few months ago when I started my own freelancing firm DB Renders. (You can visit our site at www.dbrenders.com. Initially it was very overwhelming for me, VRAY has too many parameters to deal with. Slowly, through many trials; reading and watching lots of tutorials (also video-tutorials), I started to be comfortable with it and understood how it works. As I said many times, thank you very much for this site(SketchUp Vray Resources, one of the main sites for learning and understanding SketchUp and VRAY SketchUp. I want to take this opportunity to thank Fernando Rentas, for his great video tutorials which are very precious resources.

SVR: Thank you for your kind words DB. Can you tell us about your assessment with SketchUp and VRAY SketchUp so far. What do you like, and what do you think needs to be added and addressed by the developers in the future.

DB: I like this question very much! First, I must admit that SketchUp is really a nice program to learn, as if you are just just playing. The capability to be a great and powerful software is there with some add-on and plugins of course. Its fast feedback during modeling, and seeing the changes you are doing in real time. I hope it will support 64 bit memory and address the high poly issue in the future. As for VRAY SketchUp, I will be happy to see the new features they added for VRAY Rhino - Vray proxy, for saving memory and doing tons of detail geometries like vegetation. VRAY RT would be perfect too for having more control and instant feedback of your settings. Lastly, Vray light manager and light map to bake light.

SVA. You have written a nice tutorial using "Artisan", tell us your experience with this script so far.

DB: I started with Artisan when I was doing a terrain model for a scene. I found some difficulties in modeling terrain with the sandbox tool. Then, I started searching for alternative plugin. Here where I found Artisan or Smooth and Subdivide 2. Dale Marten's Artisan is a stunning script. Organic modeling is so easy with. I love it so much, and it makes your work absolutely easier with it.

SVA: You have a lot of beautiful renders in your gallery, tell us some of your secret.

DB: Think, work; experiment, work; read, work; try, work; learn, work; search, work; try again, coffee time and work; publish your result, wait for advices, then work on it again! Well.. these are my secret. As for my work, the most important thing for me is not what I see, but what I feel.

SVA: You are really an artist DB. Ok, this is our final question.. Do you have any advise to the young proteges (newbies) when it comes with visualization.

DB: Patience... Results does not come in two days time. Start joining the SketchUp Vray Artist Facebook Group, it is great place to start visualization. There are lots of good, young and talented artists there who are willing to share their knowledge to you. Think critically, and of course have fun in doing what you like most.

SVA: Thank you David..

Visit more of David's work at www.dbrenders.com

MTM 2012 Series No.19 Sierad Mujaddid's Living Room

2012-02-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

Hello again. Unbelievable that we managed to share 18 MTMs in January. Again thank you to all our contributors, and to our readers who continuously support this site. For the month of February we are sharing your our 19th entry for this series and first for this month. This one is courtesy of Sierad Mujaddid. Tremikasih!

Download PDF File HERE!

Tutorial: Modeling Frame using SketchUp and Foto-Sketcher by Nomeradona

2012-02-01T09:20:00.000-08:00

Here is the latest tutorial of Nomeradona using Foto-Sketcher and SketchUp..To view the tutorial CLICK HERE.

Sketchup Modeling Series #15 Padded Materials2 by Bayu Yudistiro

2012-01-30T07:21:00.000-08:00

With so much investigation and perseverance, Bayu Yudistiro shared again another padded material which is far more better than the first one. This one is pretty amazing and it shows the genius of Bayu. We would like to thank Bayu in sharing this tutorial to all of us here with the bonus SKP File in our scene and model section HERE.

MTM Series 2012 No. 18 _Dining Room by Juan Manuel Ariza

2012-01-30T06:52:00.000-08:00

Good day again to everyone. We would like to bring another entry for your MTM Series 2012. This time coming from Juan Manuel Ariza. Muchos Gracias Juan Manuel!

You can download the PDF File HERE. SKP File HERE.

You can also visit the complete work of Juan Manuel in his BLOG.

MTM Series 2012 No. 17 _Open Kitchen by Henry Widjaja

2012-01-29T02:18:00.000-08:00

This next MTM entry style is different from some of the MTM we have shared before, but Henry Widjaja has its own way in doing visualization. Thanks to Henry for this contribution.

Here is the finished image.

Sketchup Screengrab

IES Light Settings

Vray Physical Camera Settings

Vray Options Settings

Some Vray Materials Settings

Here is the Granite diffuse material

Using Baked Material like this one. Baking actual material can make the file lighter in SketchUp

Raw render

Post processing using Adobe Photoshop

Finished.

SketchUp Modeling Series # 14 "Bulol Sculpture" by Eldy Tendero

2012-01-26T22:26:00.000-08:00

First of all we would like to thank Eldy Tendero aka "tribal tuesday" for this excellent tutorial. So dear readers, here is the most awaited tutorial of Eldy Tendero- the Igorot's "Bulol" Sculpture. We hope many more Igorot sculptures will follow soon.

MTMSeries2012 No.16 by Mmhaw Tthoe Ttha

2012-01-26T00:48:00.000-08:00

Here is another entry for this MTM Series 2012. This time courtesy of Mmhaw Tthoe Ttha. Thank you Mmhaw for this entry.

This is the finish image.

SketchUp Screen Grab.
Modelled by Arya Siek

Vray Material - Glass

Vray Material - Wall Panel

Vray Material - Water Material

Vray Option Settings

Vray Rectangular Light Settings

Post Processing

MTMSeries2012 No.15 Mark Joseph Mercado's Sauna

2012-01-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

Good day everyone! Welcome again to our another segment of MTMSeries2012. We received lots of commendations so far with this new series and we would like to thank our contributors. Here is another one from Mark Joseph Mercado. This time an Interior rendering of Sauna. Thank Mark for this one.

Vray Materials

Adding Rectangular Light outside the window as light source emulating the light coming from the outside.

Vray Options Settings

SketchUp Modeling Series # 13 Pillows and Sofa by Yogie Stars

2012-01-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

Here is our next SketchUp Modeling series courtesy of Yogie Stars. Thnaks Yogie for this contribution.

1. Pillows using Subdivide and Smooth

2. Modeling the Sofa using Subdivide and Smooth

3. Here is the combined view

Architectural Visualization Post Processin (AVPP) Series #4

2012-01-23T18:59:00.000-08:00

There are some certain things we need to know to facilitate an easy workflow between raw render and post processing. In this simple but very important tutorial by Luis Carlos Mendez, he emphasized some easy to follow steps, but often neglected during the rendering process. The first one is the importance of saving in "png" format and the second one is the importance of matching HDRI with background environment. To explain further here is step by step AVPP of Luis Carlos Mendez.

Step1: Saving the Raw render

Here is the raw render image. Be sure that you have a png file format. Be sure also that in the Vray channels you selected both Diffuse and Alpha Channel.

Step 2: Adjusting the exposure

Adjusting the exposure, in the image below minimal adjustment of levels, color balance and brightness and contrast were done. I should say pretty stratight forward Autos...

Step 3: Adding the Backgound.

It is very important to consider between the ambient light created by an HDRI (especially in night time tutorial) and the background image. You can download the HDRI i used HERE. Below is the background image that I will be using for this AVPP.

Background added to the background. In photoshop is easy, all you need to do is to put the Background image below the render file. This is where png file is handy (png file supports transparencies).

Step 4: Adding diffuse glow.
Adding suttle glow using diffuse glow filter in photoshop

MTMSeries2012 #14 Rugchaipat Aphichortikhul's Bedroom

2012-01-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

I must say this is a special MTM from one of the best visulaizers of Thailand using SketchUp and Vray SketchUp- Rugchaipat Aphichortikhul. If you remember Rugchaipat was one of our featured visualiser and he inspired lots of us here. We were amazed by the quality of his work and render. This time through this MTM, we can peek a bit on the workflow of Rugchaipat. Here is our 14th entry to this MTM Series 2012.

The role of emissive lighting.

Some Materials

Vray Options Settings

Raw render

Post Process

Final Image

Nomeradona's Tutorial: Modeling and texturing Pillow

2012-01-20T20:09:00.000-08:00

Here is Nomeradona's newest tutorial, modeling and texturing pillow. Link here
http://nomeradona.blogspot.com/2012/01/tutorial-modeling-of-pillow.html

Free HDRI

2012-01-20T03:12:00.000-08:00

Andreas Reimer share these HDRI

http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=538959&id_affiliate=622364

http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=560137&id_affiliate=622364

http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=582654&id_affiliate=622364

http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=582655&id_affiliate=622364

http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=543611&id_affiliate=622364

All HDRI from www.the3dstudio.com

MTM Series 2012 No. 13 Randy Lim's Night Exterior

2012-01-20T01:11:00.000-08:00

Another segment here for our MTM Series 2012 coming again from one of the pride of the Philippines, Randy Lim. In this MTM Randy shared his visopt HERE. You can download it and open it in your VRAY options. Randy also shares his knowledge in Photoshop which we will also share to you in detail in our newest AVPP series. For the meantime here is Randy Lim's newest MTM.

Post prodcution

Final Scene.

MTM Series 2012: No.12_Allan Labarda's Two Storey Residence

2012-01-19T01:51:00.000-08:00

Here is our 12th MTM entry for this MTM Series 2012. Thanks to Allan Labarda aka "allanix" for this excellent contribution.

Download MTM PDF HERE

MTM Series 2012: No.11_Bonny Sukarta's Lobby Interior

2012-01-19T01:46:00.000-08:00

Welcome again to our MTMSeries 2012. This contribution and MTM came from Bonny Sukarta. In this MTM, Bonny also use Knoll Lighting. Thanks Bonny.

Download the PDF File HERE

MTM Series 2012: No.10_Renos Siguonis' Dance Room

2012-01-18T02:03:00.000-08:00

First of all, we would like to thank Renos for this wonderful contribution. When we saw this render, we were really surprised with the quality. Immediately, we contacted Renos and requested if he can do an MTM of this image. Renos gave his nod and here it is. I am sure everyone can learn on Renos workflow.

The Process: SketchUp Screen grabs

Emissive light material settings

IES Lights Settings

Vray Materials' Settings

Vray Options

Raw Render Image

Post processing using curves, levels, brightness and contrast.

MTM Series 2012: Renos Siguonis

View more documents from Nomer Adona

MTM Series 2012: No.9_Jave Villa Del Rey's Living and Dining Room

2012-01-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

We would like to thank Jave for this another contribution, this time with our MTM Series 2012.

Download the PDF File HERE.

Architectural Visualization Post Processing (AVPP) Series #3

2012-01-16T03:38:00.000-08:00

Here is our third AVPP courtesy of Michael Berber aka"oRangE.n.GreeN". Thanks Michael for this quick post-processing with reflected caustics.

You need to download the Caustics Generator HERE.

Image Below- Generated Caustics Map using Caustics Generator

The Photoshop process

Architectural Visualization Post Processing (AVPP) Series #2

2012-01-16T03:30:00.000-08:00

This is our second AVPP courtesy of Arch.Arnel Canaleja: Converting a day scene with night scene using Adobe Photoshop

Preview of Final Scene:

Step 1: Removing the Sky background
Loading the Image in Photoshop and begin removing the background image (the sky background).

Step 2: Creating the Diffuse Layer
Create new layer and select all the positive space (the sky is the negative space). Once selected, fill it with color like the image below.

Step3: Moving the reference image on the top layer

Send the diffuse layer at the back of reference image (perspective)

Step 4: Linear burn blending mode
Change the blending mode of the top layer into Linear burn

Step 5: The Light layer

Create a new layer. This will be the light layer. Choose a light yellowish color. This color will become the illuminated lighting in the scene.

Step 6: Painting the illuminated light source.
First, you need to put below the reference image(perspective), the"LIGHT" layer. Apply the illuminate light effect using a soft brush. You can also use the "lasso" or "rectangle marquee" tool (with feathering), to control the area where you want to apply the lighting effect. With the same techniques you can now create different layers of "LIGHTING" as needed.. You can also "blur" the other lighting layers to make it more realistic especially for the pinlights, car lights, etc.

Step7: Recreating the Background Sky
Create a new layer for your "SKY"background. Use the brush tool, or gradient tool or by pasting some night scene background (see the layer highlighted in RED).

Note:
Be sure that your sky image will not intersect with your first image (Perspective) As it will affect the color of your perspective since it is in LINEAR BURN mode.

Step 8: Windows and other openings.
For the glazings, glass windows and openings, You can copy paste some image from photos: You can also add store fronts, signage, cars, and other entourages. Of course this will vary from your choice, judgment and
creativeness.

Some useful keyboard shortcuts for this tutorial.

. Create new layer= CNTRL+SHFT+N
Image size= CNTRL+ALT+I
Creating new file= CNTRL+ALT+N
Copying an Object = click "MOVE" icon, then press / hold ALT key then (left click) drag the mouse
Send a particular layer at the back (one step back) = CNTRL+[
Send a particular layer at the back (at the very bottom of the layer order) = SHFT+CNTRL+[
Send a particular layer above the stack (one step forward) = CNTRL+]
Send a particular layer above the top stack = SHFT+CNTRL+]
Keyboard shortcuts menu = CNTRL+SHFT+ALT+M

Q & A: Virgo Oktaviano

2012-01-16T01:46:00.000-08:00

Featured Artist: Virgo Oktaviano

Well, well, well, we are back to normal after the holiday seasons. I hope everyone is the same. To our Chinese, Vietnamese and other nationalities who celebrate the Lunar New year; our greetings to you!"Chuc Mung Nam Moi" - "Cong Hee Fa Cai". Welcome to the year of the black dragon.

Our next Q and A is again another exciting event for this year after the initial surge of excellent MTM entries. It's exciting because our featured and guest artist is someone who managed to establish a good reputation in the field of visualization, the multi-talented "VIRGO OKTAVIANO". Virgo is known to most of us here. This man from Indonesia had won several challenges. He is also a regular MTM contributor and tutorial writer. We at SVA would like to take this opportunity to thank Virgo for allowing us to interview him and feature his work here at Sketchup Vray Resources.

image courtesy of Virgo Oktaviano

SVR: Please tell us more about Virgo Oktaviano.

VO: My name is Virgo Oktaviano but many people know me as "igho_1209" in CG forum. I am from Indonesia. I graduated in 2007 from Gunadarma University with Bachelors Degree in Architecture. Currently, I work as designer. I am interested also with art, music and photography.

SVR: How long have you been using SketchUp and VRAY SketchUp? Please tell us your personal story how you started with both software.

VO: I have been introduced with SketchUp since 2006 by my friend Abdullah Rofii or known as "ziegrusak"- the Admin of Indosketchup. I immediately liked this software because the layout looks simple and very easy to use, even to a common people. I started to learn and use it in my professional work since 2007. Afterwards, I started also to know about VRAY SketchUp and began to learn it until now.

SVA: Any special or memorable story with your visualization experience?

VO: The first time I used VRAY for SketchUp, the result was not very good and does not satisfy me at all. Some of my friends even laugh at me, when they see my images. Since then, I took it as a challenge and intended to produce good renderings using VRAY for SketchUp. I would like to prove that VRAY for SketchUp can also produce visualizations as good as VRAY 3DS Max.

SVR: For us, you are one of the best visualizer using VRAY SketchUp as rendering engine. Any secret? What are the keys in producing excellent render?

VO: Aside from 3D visualization, I am also interested with photography. Technically, photography has taught me many things. We can learn about camera angle, composition, scale, room ambience etc. in photography. I tried to apply photography related issues within my scenes. I used them as reference tools and tried to achieve my final results in rendering to be the same quality with images taken by the camera.

SVR: How's the SketchUp community in Indonesia?

VO: In Indonesia, there are increasing number of people using SketchUp as their main software. Besides with its easyness, Google SketchUp has also an open source product. You can even use Google SketchUp Free. Therefore, not only technical people could use it - everyone can! It is a must for architecture and interior consultants to visualize their concepts and could produce good perspective drawings for their presentation. Therefore lots of people are using it nowadays. In addition, there are so many friendly forums for SketchUp users in Indonesia.

SVR: For future development of SketchUp and VRAY SketchUp, what do you think they need to add?

VO: This question make me so excited. I think there are many improvements need to be developed and incorporated by Google but the support of high-polygons models is the top one. As for VRAY SketchUp, I think one of the most important element to be included is batch rendering.

SVR: Do you have a special advise to our readers, specially the newbies?

VO: Study, study and keep learning! People can become smart through continuous learning. We can learn from anything- books, tutorials, videos etc. If you want to be expert in the area of visualization, you need to take into account its long process and it cannot be instant. You cannot just directly produce good images by depending on other peoples' render options and settings. The "process" is the most significant issue in this area.

Another thing is experience, it is also the perfect teacher to develop yourself. Accordingly, the results that we achieve can satisfy ourselves greatly. In addition, keep joining many forums, because we can share and learn many things from other people who is more expert than us.

SVR: Thank you Virgo!

Some more of Virgo Oktaviano's render

MTM Series 2012_No.8_Yogie Stars' Dining Area

2012-01-15T03:45:00.000-08:00

We're glad to be graced by none other than Yogie Stars; one of the masters of VRAY SketchUp. You know what I mean once you have seen this next MTM. Thank you Yogie Stars for your time and for this excellent contribution that gave us a peek on how you do your vizualization.

Here is Yogie Stars Final Render

SketchUp Screen grabs

Interior Lighting Settings

Material

Environment Settings

Camera Settings

Other Render Options

Post Processing

MTM Series 2012_No.7_Burt Andrew Cimafranca's Masters Bedroom

2012-01-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

Here is another segment for our MTM Series 2012 courtesy this time of Burt Andrew Cimafranca.

Render Image

Workflow

Sketchup Model screengrab

Lighting Settings

Materials Settings

Vray Physical Camera Settings

Environment Settings

Other Settings

Other Render Views

Architectural Visualization Post Processing (AVPP) Series #1

2012-01-13T07:30:00.000-08:00

Hello there. We are beginning a new series called AVPP or Architectural Visualization Post Processing Series. This idea came from our first contributor - Ubaid Danang Febrianto. After the survey given to the community, we found that many were interested with this idea. So here is our first one courtesy of course by the one who gave us this series idea- Ubaid Danang Febrianto..

Download PDF HERE

MTM Series 2012: No.6_Leo Valenzuela's Exterior Night Scene

2012-01-13T00:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome again to another segment of MTM Series 2012. This time courtesy of Leo Valenzuela. Last year Leo shared to us his first MTM HERE.

This time Leo shares an exterior night scene. Thank you Leo for this latest addition.

Download PDF HERE.

Sketchup Modeling Series 12: "Beats" by Eldy Tendero

2012-01-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick modeling tutorial shared by Eldy Tendero using SketchUp and scripts:

Joint Push Pull
Subdivide ans Smooth

You can visit this SITE to download scripts.

MTM Series 2012: No.5_Dy Up Ternoon's simple interior

2012-01-11T02:38:00.000-08:00

Dy Up Ternoon is one of the upcoming Thai visualizers. We are very glad that he allowed us to share one of his render and do an MTM here. Thank you Dy for this excellent contribution.

SketchUp Screen grab.

Sun direction in SketchUp to allow the light and shadow playing drama in the interior space. Notice than in SketchUp I dont have to model everything. I just model the space visible to the camera. This is important to reduce file size.

Also in SketchUp model the grooves as much as possible. You may want to add some smoothing too if the groove is near the camera.

Beside the sunlight, I also added some IES lighting and emissive lighting.

Emissive Light Setting

Most of my materials are fairly simple setting. My wood setting is this.

Text Sky and SunLight Parameters

Camera Settings

DMC Sampler and Color Mapping

Image Sampler

GI Settings

Raw Render

SVA December 2012 Challenge Winners anoonunced

2012-01-11T00:13:00.000-08:00

Here are the winners of the recent SVA Rendering challenge. The challenge was to use the November challenge model winner done by Zernan Suarez and create an atmosphere and rendering related to Christmas.

Champion: Jonathan Pagaduan Ignas

First Runner up: Kenneth Yuzon

Second Runner up: Rafael Marpuri

MTM Series 2012: No.4_Setiawan Deddy's simple interior

2012-01-09T01:52:00.000-08:00

Good day again to our readers! Before we will share our next MTM, we just want to clarify what is MTM. Well MTM stands for Mini-the-Making. These are collection of images that share a general workflow and idea on how a particular project was completed. MTMs serve as preview that share and show artist's approaches. They should not be viewed as detailed step by step tutorials like manual; rather they should be seen as tools that give clues on how the artist did the visualization. There are times, artists/writers may give detail explanations, but sometimes not. In any case, the main goals of SVR for this series of MTMs are: to help readers to peek on the process of visualization, to inspire others particularly those who are new in the field and finally to serve as an avenue to introduce upcoming visualizers who are using SketchUp and Vray SketchUp.

Anyhow, here is another MTM entry courtesy of Setiawan Deddy. Thank you Setiawan Deddy for this contribution.

Post processed/ Render Images

SketchUp/Shadow

Important material settings

IS Color Threshold -lesser noise

LC subdivision_faster calculation

Camera Settings

MTM Series 2012_No.3_Arch.Kheireddine Bensemane's "Office"

2012-01-07T17:31:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our series again. We are very happy of the enormous turnout from our contributors. Here is our third MTM (Mini-the-Making) for this MTM Series 2012. Join me in thanking Arch.Kheireddine Bensemane for this excellent detailed MTM. In this tutorial, Khereddine showed us how to create fluorescent lighted setting and the use of reflection map. Enjoy.

Download PDF File HERE.

The Making of Red apple by DBrenders

2012-01-07T03:22:00.000-08:00

DbRenders kindly shared to us his tutorial; "The making of Red Apple". In this tutorial he showed how to model quickly the apple and use spherically mapping in sketchup. He also used different scale method. Thanks DBrenders for this video tutorial.

MTM Series 2012_No.2_Kenneth Yuzon's Bedroom

2012-01-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our second episode of MTM Series 2012. This one came from our regualr contributor and upcoming 3dVisualizer Kenneth Yuzon. Once again, thanks Kenneth for this excellent contribution.

Download MTM PDF File HERE.

MTM Series 2012_No1_ Ubaid Danang Febrianto_"Casa Provenza"

2012-01-06T02:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our new series of MTM or Mini-the-Making where contributors share their workflow, special set-ups, materials, settings and other relevant things leading to their final visualization. SVR welcomes and introduces artists who use Sketchup and Vray Sketchup in this MTM series.

Last year, SVR presented 24 MTMs which can be accessed HERE. We knew from different feedback, how the series had helped many in a small way to improve. This year we will be starting another MTM Series called "MTM Series 2012" We hope that you will enjoy and learn from this series. If you feel you have something to share and contribute to this 2012 MTM series, do not hesitate to contact us. Once again thank you very much.

Here is our first MTM for this year courtesy of Ubaid Dananf Febrianto. Thanks Ubaid for this "Casa Provenza" MTM.

Final Image.

SketchUp Setup

Sunlight coming behind the camera position.

Post Processing. Adjusting exposure, levels, and contrast.

FotoSketcher News: FotoSketcher 2.25 beta available

2012-01-05T22:48:00.000-08:00

FotoSketcher News: FotoSketcher 2.25 beta available: Hi all, I have just uploaded a beta version of FotoSketcher 2.25. You can get it here: http://www.fotosketcher.com/FotoSketcher_beta.exe ...