Knowledge Base
Explore practical V-Ray guides, workflow tips and technical references from LearnVray.
Lighting
Set the V-Ray Sun by time of day
Place a V-Ray Sun with the 3ds Max Daylight system when the render needs a real hour and location.
Read the guide →
Light a daytime exterior with the V-Ray Sun
Place the sun on a finished exterior. The bakery scene is the worked example; the Daylight-system note stays the time-of-day reference.
Read the guide →
Light a second daytime exterior
Use the cultural-center scene when the massing is not the bakery.
Read the guide →
Add volumetric light with Environment Fog
Build fog that reads as light in the air.
Read the guide →
Light an interior with artificial lights
Set the restaurant when the sun is not the source.
Read the guide →
Light a scene from a Dome HDRI
Put an HDRI on a V-Ray Dome and match the light to the plate.
Read the guide →
See that Dome method on a finished villa
One project that shows the HDRI exterior. Not a portfolio index.
View the project →
Light an interior in five steps
Follow the Gravity scene from a blocked-in light to a finished interior.
Read the guide →
Cameras and exposure
Match the viewport to the camera exposure
Stop the perspective view blowing out by reading exposure from the V-Ray camera. Older exposure-control path.
Read the guide →
Keep a background from going dark
Turn off “Affect background” when the camera exposure underexposes a viewport or bitmap background.
Read the guide →
Make a V-Ray camera from the current view
Build a V-Ray Physical Camera that matches the perspective view. Older camera object.
Read the guide →
Materials and surfaces
Keep a displaced floor in place
Use a negative shift so floor displacement does not lift the surface through the furniture.
Read the guide →
Close holes at displaced corners
Use 3D mapping and keep continuity when wall displacement opens the corners.
Read the guide →
Round corners with VRayEdgesTex
Fake a small bevel in the bump channel, using world units, without editing the mesh.
Read the guide →
When that bevel fails on an imported model
Weld the open vertices. VRayEdgesTex does nothing while the imported mesh is unwelded.
Read the guide →
Show sharper textures in the viewport
Raise the 3ds Max viewport bitmap size, then reload textures that were already assigned.
Read the guide →
Set up interior light and materials together
The main interior guide: lights first, then the surfaces that respond to them.
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Preview the materials library
Public preview grid only. Not the full library, and not a second library URL.
Browse the preview →
Study one finished lighting and materials scene
Germán Fuentes’ Matrix scene, as a single worked example.
Read the guide →
Render quality
Harsh edges from the antialiasing filter
Sharp filters such as Catmull-Rom make edges harsh. The 5SRW path is an Area filter, then a controlled unsharp mask.
Read the guide →
A fast ambient-occlusion pass
Render AO from geometry only: lights and GI off, one override material.
Read the guide →
Go beyond a flat ambient-occlusion pass
What to do after the short AO override in the Knowledge Base note.
Read the guide →
Shorter renders at large resolutions
A very large frame can use looser per-pixel sampling and still look the same.
Read the guide →
Light Cache calculation that stalls
Older workaround: set default geometry to Dynamic. It applied to some older builds, not as a general GI preset.
Read the guide →
Trace splotches in the light cache
The splotches lesson.
Read the lesson →