Here is an example of what can happen to a scene if the environment is too high. As you can see the entire image looks blown out and oversaturated. .
- Global Switches: Turn off Default Lights.
- VRAY Image Sampler: Use Adaptive Subdivision (for now)
- VRAY Indirect Illumination (GI): Make sure GI is turned ON.
- VRAY Indirect Illumination (GI): Use Irradiance Map (IR Map) for Primary Bounces
- VRAY Indirect Illumination (GI): Use QMC for Secondary Bounces
- VRAY Environment: Under GI Environment Check Override Max's and set color to the ambient color of your choice (Scene Dependant)
- VRAY Environment: Reflection/Refraction: Check Override Max's (this isn't important now but it will be for HDRI lighting)
- VRAY QMC Sampler: These settings may be a little high for now but we'll get into that later.
- VRAY Irradiance Map: Set the current preset to custom.
- Make the basic Irradiance Map parameters match those in the image (they are optimized for fast render times)
- Leave all other settings default for now
3. Night Scene
3.1 Set your GI Environment to .4 and pick a similar color to the one below. Even on the darkest nights in the middle of nowhere there will always be some sort of "ambient light"(varying degrees of course). Light from the stars, moon, or like in many night scenes, light from surrounding buildings and gereral "civlilization" can create enough ambient light to see an object...even if the object has no light source of its own. (All of this depends on the scene you are rendering) A good way to get this general ambient light is to use the GI environment.
3.2 Make sure the light Direct01 is off and then select and turn on the light "Inside Omni". This light simply provides some interior lighting so its not so dark.
3.3 Render the scene and you should get something similar to the image on the left.
2.2 Render the scene As you can see this approach produces shadows that are very soft and undefined. This method may work for you depending on the look you are after. You can add a bitmap to the GI Environment by clicking "None" and browsing to a bitmap of you choice. (Adding a bitmap to the GI environment is similar but but the same as HDRI lighting which we will cover later on)
The VRAY light material allows you to create a light out of any piece of geometry. I applied a VRAY light material to the sphere on top of the structure.
