Settings – for V-Ray 3 or superior

In the entire course, we always use this two configurations
These settings are valid for any version of V-Ray:

For the TESTS:

• Irradiance Map: Low
• Light Cache: 500
• Antialising: Adaptive (in old versions called ‘DMC Adaptive’, in the last one ‘Buckets’ – They are all synonims)
• Noise threshold: 0,01

For the FINAL Render:

• Irradiance Map: High
• Light Cache: 1500
• Antialising: Adaptive (min1 / max40)
• Noise threshold: 0,005

For V-Ray 3.0 or superior

If you are using the last versions of V-Ray you can use the power of “Progressive” :)
Speed up your tests, getting immediate feedback about your scene:

1) For tests always leave Progressive as antialiasing (default setting)
Just set Render Time to “zero”, so V-Ray will render until the Noise Threshold reaches 0.005

With Progressive you don’t have to wait for all the buckets, to have a general idea

2) Leave the combination of Brute Force + Light Cache (default value):
the render start immediately after the Light Cache pass, and if we combine it with Progressive, you’ll get an immediate feedback for every test you launch

The only reason why I suggest to reduce Light Cache Subdivisions to 500, is to get quicker previews

Consider that we run tests every second, that means a lot of time saved!

3) Use ‘Render Mask’ to add materials
After completing the Light Balance, when you’re 100% sure you have amazing ‘Chiaroscuro’
start adding materials enabling Render Mask > Selected

If you use this function, V-Ray will only render the object selected
and, thanks to “Progressive + BF + LC”, the feedback about the material will be instantaneous!

4) For the final render just remember to:

– raise up the Light Cache Subdivisions to 1500
– set Render Mask > None
– add VRayDenoiser render element (ONLY AVAILABLE from V-Ray 3.4 on), so during the render
You could evaluate when you are satisfied with the denoised version

– – – FINAL SETTINGS – – –

At this point you have two choises:

1) You can simply leave rendering Progressive + BF + LC
In this case “Final” means leaving rendering until the image is clean

2) You can change the settings to the FINAL (as shown in the course)
The render is usually faster and clean, just be sure your model has no imperfections
(imperfections are a big enemy of the Irradiance Map algorithm)

Note: If you use “Store with Irradiance Map” option in your light, don’t use it when using Brute Force, or the light won’t be calculated

What really create ’emotion’ in your renders?
Not these settings: the light is the key and 5SRW especially focus on this!
Since 5SRW is not about settings, you are free to use the settings you prefer

Anyway following these suggestions you can really speed up your test phase