Church of Light Tutorial

Written by Damien Alomar

Wednesday, 16 May 2007

This tutorial explains the settings and steps used to set up the scene "Church of Light by Tadao Ando" using
Vray for SketchUp

Basic Render Settings

Global Switches>Gamma>Output 2.2 (all other values default)

Camera>Physical Camera enabled>Still Camera>Shutter speed 125>Film Width 36>Zoom 1> F-number
10>Film Speed(ISO) 800>Exposure enabled>Vignetting enabled
Environment/Sky>GI enabled 2.4>Texture Editor (double click on "m") Common>Type Sky>Multiplier 1 (all
other values default)
Image Sampler>Adaptive QMC>Min 1 Max 16> Antialiasing enabled>Area 1.5
QMC Sampler>Adaptive Amount 0.9>Noise Threshold 0.01> Min Samples 6
Color Mapping>HSV Exponential>Dark 1 Bright 1
Indirect Illumination>GI enabled>Primary engine Irradiance Map
Secondary engine Light Cache
Irradiance Map>Min-5 Max-4>HSph. Subdivs 50>Samples 20 (all other values default) Detail enhancement
Enabled
Light Cache>Subdivs 500>Sample Size 0.02>Num. Phases 2

Global Switches
Physical Camera

Environment/Sky

Image Sampler

Indirect Illumination
Irradiance Map
(For faster test renders you can reduce the HSph. Subdivs to 30)

Light Cache
Sample Size 0.02 was used to reduce noise in the scene. Since this scene does not contain a high level of
detail this number was acceptable. Num. Phases was also set to 2 to ensure a low amount of noise in the
scene.

Lighting Set-up

Images 1 & 2 show the basic scene exterior and interior. The goal is to render the interior using the physical
sky/sun and physical camera available with Vray for SketchUp. It's important to note that Vray takes the sun
location and time of day from the SketchUp shadow settings as shown on Image 3.
Image 1: Exterior View of Model in SketchUp

Image 2: Interior Camera View in SketchUp

Image 3: SketchUp shadow settings

Image 4: Sun Location in the model is set to be perpendicular to the exterior wall with cross opening for this
specific scene where we want the light to come in directly behind the wall. Note the shadow direction which
is perpendicular to the wall with the opening.
Image 5: One Vray rectangle light was located directly outside the cross opening of the model to supplement
the sun light entering the space and ensure the light rays would enter the space perpendicular to the room.
This is typical for a lot of interior scenes. In some cases, where light is entering through glass, you may
position a rectangle light next to the glass on the interior.
Image 6: Vray Rectangle Light Settings

Materials Setup

In this scene, SketchUp materials with no textures were replaced with new Vray materials. Textured
elements in the SketchUp model were brought into the material editor as Linked Vray materials. This is
important to note since a lot of users will have existing SketchUp models that they want to render without
spending too much time re-applying materials and also, it's very easy to apply and adjust the textures on
objects using SketchUp controls

Image 7: Material Editor shows the Vray materials as well as the Linked Vray materials. Most elements have
a certain amount of reflection. This adds to the level of realism in a scene since most materials have
reflectivity in real life, even if it's barely noticeable sometimes. This image also shows the specific settings for
the Linked Walls material, it's important to note the level of reflection noted by the level of grey (22) as well
as the Glossiness factors (0.6). The glossiness was turned down to create the blurring effect of the light and
the reflection on the material.
Here is the final scene rendered by Vray for SketchUp using the rendering and material settings described
above.

The VfSU render options can be saved to be used on other scenes. Open the Render Options toolbar, select
File>Save, Load or Restore Defaults. VfSU comes with preset settings for low, medium and high quality
renderings. The above method is just one way of many, I encourage everyone to experiment with their own
settings based on their own scenes. I hope this serves as a good starting point.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 May 2007 )