VRay Training Manual For RHINO

V-Ray for Rhino 1.
www.asgvis.com
Table of Contents
01. Installing V-Ray for Rhino1.0 ........................................................................... 004
02. Activating V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 ......................................................................... 005
03. V-Ray for Rhino Toolbar ................................................................................ 006

Open V-Ray for Rhino Toolbar
04. ? ? ? ? ? V-Ray for Rhino? ? ? ? ................................................................... 007

05. V-Ray for Rhino Render Options ..................................................................... 008
Open V-Ray for Rhino Render Options
Load and Save Render Options
06. V-Ray for Rhino Material Editor ...................................................................... 012

V-Ray Material Editor
Diffuse
How to add new material
How to duplicate a material
How to change the name of a material
How to remove material
Others
016
07. Use Material .................................................................................................
08. Add Lights ..................................................................................................018
09. The Characteristics of Rectangular Light .............................................................021

Size does matter
Shadow changes according to the size
Impacts on reflective objects due to Visible and Invisible Rectangular Light
Double Sided Option
10. Material: Reflection Material ...........................................................................024

Adding Reflection layer
Fresnel Reflections Explained
11. Reflection and Highlight ................................................................................ 026
12. Other characteristics of reflectivity ..................................................................027

Reflection Glossiness
Reflection Filter
13. Material: Transparent Material ........................................................................ 029

Add transparent layer
Transparency percentage of material
The color of transparent material
Fog Settings Explained
The Refraction of transparent material
The Glossiness of transparent material
The shadow of transparent material
Double-sided material
14. Material: Transparent Material ....................................................................... 037

Add Emissive Layer
Adjust the Intensity
Adjust the Color
Texture Editor Setting
15. Material: Texture Mapping ..... ........................................................................ 041

Texture Mapping
UI types and adjustment
16. Material: Bump Map ...................................................................................... 045

Add Bump map
17. Material: Transparency Mapping ...................................................................... 047

What's Transparency Mapping?
The logic of Transparency map
Another way of using Transparency map
Other uses of transparency
18. Illumination: Environmental Lighting ................................................................ 052

Let's do a test first
Interior or Exterior?
Techniques to adjust the Brightness
HDR Environment light
Bitmap Environment light source
Environment light source for semi-open space
Issue of irradiant light
19. Render Engine ............................................................................................ 060

Primary Engine
Secondary Engine
Primary Engine: Irradiance Map
Primary Engine: Quasi Monte-Carlo
Secondary Engine: Light Cache
20. Depth of Field ............................................................................................. 067

What is Depth of Field?
How to find out the current setting of focus distance of the camera?
Size of Aperture
Change Focal Distance
21. Caustic Effect ............................................................................................. 070

What are Caustics?
Brightness
22. Liquid inside of transparent Glass .................................................................... 072

Strange Effects
23. Adjusting the Camera ....................................................................................073

Rotate the camera
Adjusting the lens
24. Lighting Dialog Box ....................................................................................... 075

25. Color Mapping ............................................................................................ 076
The Function of Color Mapping
Types of Color Mapping
26. Adaptive Subdivisions Control ..........................................................................077

Adaptive Subdivisions Sampler
Fixed Rate Sampler
Adaptive QMC Sampler
27. Resolution of an Image ....................................................................................078

Image size setting
File saving set up
28. V-Ray frame Buffer ....................................................................................... 079

Render image window tool box
Installing V-Ray for Rhino 1.0
1.Make sure Rhino is not running then install
VRayforRhino3_1.0.exe from the CD 2.License Agreement, click next to continue
3. Choose complete setup type, click next 4.Click install to begin installation
5. Installing 6.Installation complete
004 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

Activating V-Ray for Rhino 1.0
1. After finishing the installation, run the 2.The InstallShield Wizard will ask you to
Rhino program. Click Render on the tool bar select one of the options. If you haven't
to choose the Current Renderer as V-Ray for purchased V-Ray for Rhino, you can choose
“I want to evaluate V-Ray for Rhino, but I do
not want to activate at this time
4. Enter your serial number then click next.

3.If you already have a serial number, you It will start activating
can select the other option, “I have a serial
number and I want to activate V-Ray for
6.The activation for V-Ray for Rhino is now

complete. You will not need to activate it
5. Activating usually takes several seconds
to finish
V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 005

V-Ray for Rhino Toolbar
Open V-Ray for Rhino Toolbar
V - R a y f o r R h i n o ' s To o l b a r w i l l n o t o p e n a u t o m a t i c a l l y. U s e r m u s t o p e n a n d i n s e r t
it onto the screen. Use Tools>Toolbar Layout, click File>Open…, under C:\Program Files\Rhinoceros
3.0\Plugins\Vrayforrhino\Misc, find VRayforRhino.tb and insert it
1. From Toolbar Layout window, select Open

under File 2. Find Vrayforrhino.tb and open it
4. This is what you will see after you

3. Select VRay for Rhino and close the
insert the toolbar
window
V-Ray for Rhino toolbar consists of three major tools. They are VRay Materials, VRay Options and
Show VRay Frame Buffer. You can also find them from the tab above

? ? ? ? ? V-Ray for Rhino? ? ? ?
以上HDR以及著色圖片由Dosch Design公司授權提供給本手冊使用 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 007

http://www.doschdesign.com
V-Ray for Rhino Render Options
Open V-Ray for Rhino - - Render Options
The V-Ray for Rhino Options controls all parameters for
V-Ray. You can open this Render Options from the menu
bar above or click directly on the V-Ray Options from
the toolbar
Save and load Option settings

There are many Options settings in V-Ray for Rhino. Users can save their preferred settings, or save different
files according to different scenes, different render quality setting, or different GI engines.
Use File>Save to save Options settings. It will be saved as .visopt file format. You can save any Options scheme
so that they can be loaded to another scene later. Also, when you save your Rhino file all changes in V-Ray
Options setting will also be saved.
Use File>Load to load saved .visopt Options files. It will then replace the current setting. Use Restore Defaults
to restore all settings in Options.
Open “Cups-Original.3dm”. There are 3 cups and a ground plane in the file. None of the objects have any
materials assigned to them and there is no light in the scene. Click the blue render icon and you will get this
gray tone image without changing any setting in the V-Ray Options.

Open V-Ray Options window and pull down the Global
Switches, Environment and Indirect Illumination tabs as
1. Global Switches：
Uncheck Hidden Lights and Default Lights under the Lighting
section.
Hidden Lights refers to any lights that are either hidden or on a
hidden layer. By unchecking the Hidden Lights box, those
hidden lights will be disregarded by V-Ray. To prevent any
hidden lights from affecting the final render output, we
recommend you uncheck the Hidden Lights.
Default Lights are the lights that Rhino uses to illuminate the
model within the viewport. Users can not see or edit these
lights from the scene. If one uncheck the Default Lights and
does not check the GI below, the render will turn out totally
black.
2. Indirect Illumination：
Check the On under the GI section. That turns the Indirect
Illumination on, also called the Global Illumination. We will
explain those green dot items more later.
3. Environment：
Check the boxes before GI and Background.
These settings controls the appearance and brightness of the

Environment, and therefore, the main illumination of the
scene.
Please adjust those three items then render. You will get the
image with Global Illumination. Compare to the image without
Global Illumination, you can see the objects don't have dark
shadow because the whole environment is now providing the
illumination for the scene.

The image has a blue tone is because the default environment color of V-Ray is set in light blue(RGB
204, 224, 225). Please click the color box under GI to edit the color. Change the Sat from 51 to 5.
The color is changed to be almost white(RGB 250, 252,
255). Click OK to accept the changes and then click
Render. The image color becomes very close to white
like the image on the right.
By default objects which have not been assigned materials receive Rhino’s standard white material.
To assign materials to an object and make adjustments, we need to open the Properties tab
Two ways to assign materials in V-Ray

1 . Press Ctrl+A to select all the objects in the scene then click the Object under the Properties
window to select material. The objects are assigned materials by layers by default. Click Plug-in,
there will show three tabs: Browse, Edit and Create.

2. Click the Browse button, in the choose
material window, select
Default_VRay_Material, then click apply
3. Now the objects are applied with materials, so the Edit button is selectable. You can click on the
Edit button to open the Material Editor to modify the materials
Another way to assign materials is through material editor. Please refer to page 13

Material Editor in V-Ray for Rhino
Material editor can be pulled out from the icon under VRay for Rhino tool box, from Material Editor
from V-Ray tab, or by clicking the Edit button in Properties window.
V-Ray Material Editor

V-Ray for Rhino's Material Editor has three parts:
A . Material Workspace shows all the scene materials. Right clicking on different elements in the
workspace will provide added functions within the Material Editor.
B . Material Preview, the Update Preview button allows you to preview the adjusted materials.
C . Options for material control. This is where parameters for each material is modified.
Click the Update preview button to update the preview image of the selected material. This
preview is not updated in real time, therefore, it must be manually updated.

Diffuse:
Color：used to apply color on material. The m box on the right is used to apply a texture map to an
object
Transparency: used to adjust the color transparency. Black is opaque. White is transparent.
How to add new material:

1. Right click on Scene Material, select Add new material.
2 . Right click on Scene Material, select Import new material to import a saved material file.
3 . In the Properties window, click on Create button to add a new material

How to duplicate a material
Under Material Workplace, right click on the material you wish to duplicate, and select Duplicate.
This is another way to add a new material
How to change the name of a material:

Right click on the name of the material you wish to change, and select Rename. The name of the
material can not have space or numbers in the first digit.
How to remove material:

Right click on the name of the material you wish to delete, and select remove. If the material being
removed is applied to the objects in the scene, V-Ray will show a pop-up window to ensure that you
want to remove it.

Others:
Right click on the material you wish to export, and select export to export this material. The file
format is .vismat, the file is 1 KB. This file can be imported or sent to other users later on
By Right-Clicking on a Material you can also:

1 . Select Objects by materials: select the objects in the scene with this material
2 . Apply materials to object(s): Apply this material to selected objects in the scene.
3 . Apply materials to layer(s): Apply this material to selected layers. All the objects in the same
layer will be applied with this material
Any materials under the Scene

Materials can be applied to
objects by clicking Browse
under Properties.
Purge unused materials: Right click on Scene

Materials to select purge unused materials to
remove materials which are not applied on the
scene objects.
Rhino’s Undo does not affect V-Ray for Rhino Options or

Material Changes

Use Material
01 . Open Cups - GI.3dm Select all the objects. Under the Properties window, select material,
check plug-in and click Create to add a new material. Material Editor will show a new material
named DefaultMaterial under Scene Material.
02 . Rename this new material as Ground
The file has already set GI environment light and background color. Hidden Lights and Default Lights
are off. Other options are kept at their default settings.
03 . Select Diffuse to enter color selections .V-Ray's default color is R-127, G127, B127. Change the
color to light gray as: R230, G230, B230 then exit
04 . Right click on Ground material. Select Duplicate and rename as Cup-Yellow.
05 .Deselect the ground plane by holding CTRL and clicking on it. Then go back to Material Editor
and right click on Cup_Yellow and select Apply material to objects
V-R ay auto mati cally update s th e changes of mate ri als to th e obje cts. It is not necessa ry to apply mate ri als again.

06 . Click on Diffuse and change the color to R255, G191, B0 (yellow) and exit
07 .Render and see if you get the same result like the image on the right.
08 . Duplicate the Cup_Yellow material and rename it as Cup_Green. Repeat 06 and set the value to
R127, G255, B178 and exit.
09 . Apply this Cup_Green material to the bottom right cup
10 . Duplicate the Cup_Green and rename it as Cup_Orange. Repeat 06 again and set the value to
R255, G94, and B0 this time.
11 . Select the cup on top and apply the Cup_Orange
material to it.
13. Create a new material and name it

Cup_White. Change the diffuse color to white.
Select all of the objects on the layer named
12. Render and see if you can get the same Inner Cup and apply the material to those
result as the image below. objects

Add Lights
We didn't add any lights to the scene, however, the render turned out pretty good already. The
shadow is kind of smooth because we used GI as the only light source. So we still need to add more
lights in order to have more depth to the image
01 . Right click and hold on the Spot Light icon from toolbar above. A secondary toolbar will pop out,
select the fourth one from the left (Create Rectangular Light)
02.From Top view, follow the steps below to 03. Start from bottom left and make your
create Rectangular Light in the scene second left click to the bottom right of the
scene.
04. To complete creating the light, make your 05 Select this Rectangular light you just
third left click on the top left of the scene, created.
approximately the same distance as between
first and second spots.

06.Go to the Front view. Left click and hold 07. Render it and you will get a very bright
right on top of the light and drag it to the top, image like the one below. That's because the V-
approximately 5X of the height of the cup Ray's default setting of the Rectangular Light is
set to No Decay. Please follow the steps below
to adjust it
09. Uncheck the No Decay. This will make the distance between the light and
objects being considered while rendering. That means the object further
away from the light will recieve less light and become darker. To make the
object brighter, you can either increase the intensity of the light or move the
light closer to the object
08. Select the

Rectangular Light.
Under the Properties,
click on Object and
select Light.
11. Hit Render again and you will get a

10. When we uncheck much better result like the image below
No Decay, the default
setting of the
intensity is set to 1.
Please change the
Multiplier from 1 to 4.

Please see the images below for comparison of different intensities.

The Characteristics of the Rectangular Light
The Rectangular Light plays a very important role in V-Ray. Despite its ease of use, it also produces
a smoother final result. Unlike the Spot Light, Rectangular Light doesn't have the worry about the
angle of the light. Rectangular light also allows reflective material to bounce the light around the
scene because light is emitted from an area which has many points, as opposed to other lights which
only emit light from a single point. Below are some important characteristics about Rectangular
Light.
Size does matter

See images below and you will find the size of the Rectangular Light does affect its intensity.
Shadow changes according to size

Larger Rectangular light spreads light to a larger area, so the shadow is not as clear as you will get
from a smaller rectangular light. Compare the images below and you will see the differences
between two different light sizes. The one on the left is rendered with a smaller light.
If you want to have a stronger shadow, we do not recommend creating a small, high intensity light. It
is better to use a different light type.

Impacts on reflective objects due to Visible and Invisible Rectangular Light
There is an Invisible option in Rectangular Light. It allows you to determine whether the light will
be visible or invisible in the image. See images below. The one on the left has the Invisible option
unchecked so the light appeared in the image. When a reflective material is applied to the object,
the light will also be in the object’s reflections. The image on the right has the Invisible option
checked. Thus, you don't see the light in the image or on the object with reflective material applied
to it
The default setting for Rectangular Light has the Invisible option unchecked. If you see any unusual
dark shadow in your rendered image, please check if your camera is blocked by the Rectangular
1
You can tell the direction of the light from the short line on one side of the
Rectangular Light. Rotate the light and you can change the direction of the
light.
The Double Sided option can turn the light direction from one side to both
side of the light. Just like creating two lights with opposite directions. Move
the light away from the floor or wall to avoid any black out area.
The Double Sided option usually used when rendering a large interior scene. It helps to light the
space without using a lot of lights. There will be more discussion about lighting and environments
later on.
The default has the Double Sided option unchecked. Of course, if you check the Invisible option,
you will not see the light in those three images on the next page.

1. Light direction towards the left side 2. Light direction towards the right side 3. When Double Sided option is checked
Pay attention to the size, location and intensity of the light because it will affect the brightness and shadow
clarity of your final result.
If the light is placed too far and is not bright enough, you can either increase the intensity or size of the light. On
the other hand, you can lower the intensity or reduce the size of the light if you place the light too close. You
need to keep adjusting the size, location and the intensity of the rectangular light in order to get a good lighting
result.
Other kinds of light work the same way. Different shapes, colors and materials of the objects, and different light
types will all affect the image, therefore, the quantity, size, and location of the light need to be changed
according to different scene. To get a better result, we recommend you change only one value at a time to see
how it turns out after rendering until you get the image you want.

Materials: Reflection
This section is about how to add and edit reflective properties of materials. Please click on the red
cup in the scene. Click on Edit button under Material selections in propertieis
Adding a Reflection layer

1 .Click on the “+” next to Cup_Orange under Scene Materials to pull out all the layers. Right click
on Reflection Layer. Select “Add new layer “to add a new reflection layer for this material. There
will show Reflection under the material control section, as it shows on the right.
2. To remove a layer, right click on the layer

you wish to remove then select remove
3. Click on Update Preview button to see the changes. The red ball becomes composed with black-
and-white squares, which is because the default is set to be completely reflective. An object with
this material works like a mirror that reflects the other object next to it. This kind of reflection is
usually applied to mirror or metal, such as smooth stainless steel.
4. Click on the “m” next to the reflection color to

add a reflection map.

5. Scroll down the box next to Type, and then select Fresnel. Fresnel IOR is to control the angle at
which surfaces begin reflecting. Keep the value at the default level of 1.55, then click Apply.
6. Click on the Update Preview again
The Material now has reflection quality with the same color on it. Notice the “m” on the right side
of the Reflection is now changed to “M”. That means there is a Map applied to that parameter
7.Below image rendered with Fresnel IOR

set to 2.5, it has more reflection and
looks more like a metal texture now. The
cup has some black reflection due to the
default setting of the background color is
black. Under V-Ray Option, change the
6. Please use the same method and apply color under Environment>Background to
Fresnel to other colors and render it. white and see what you will get

Fresnel Reflections Explained
Fresnel Reflection is a naturally occurring phenomenon that states that an object becomes more reflective the
greater the angle at which it is seen(think of looking at a window from straight ahead as opposed to an angle).
Through manipulating the Index of Refraction(IOR) the reflective characteristics of an object can be changed.
A lower IOR means that a larger angle is needed between the observer and the object before the object begins
reflecting. A higher IOR means that a smaller angle is need, which in turn causes the object to reflect sooner.
To maintain physical correctness of your renderings it is advised to have the IOR of an object correspond to its
real IOR.
Below are six rendered samples with different Fresnel IOR. The last one is rendered with full reflection to
create chrome material.
Reflection and Highlights?
Wondering why V-Ray rendering engine doesn't have the highlight option built into it as previous
rendering engine Flamingo? The truth is that the highlight is created by reflecting a very bright
object or light in the scene. It also called lightsource.
Some rendering engines use Highlight to create lightsource if there isn't any lightsource in the
scene. But current V-Ray for Rhino version does not support this option. So you must create
Rectangular Light or other self lit object as a lightsource for the scene.

Other characteristics of reflectivity
Every object has certain degree of reflection. Some are very strong, and some are weak. But this
doesn't mean we have to apply reflection to every single object in the scene because that will
increase your rendering time significantlly.
You don't always get clear reflection from reflective
material. Objects like matte finish metal, wood and some
plastic materials do not reflect their environment clearly
due to their uneven surfaces. This is because the uneven
surfaces create many reflecting angles for light to bounce around. So the reflections are not as
sharp if compared to reflections from smoother surfaces. The best way to create this kind of
rendering quality is playing around the Reflection Glossiness parameter under Reflection.
By Default the Reflection Glossiness is set to 1, which is characteristic of a perfectly smooth
surface. The lower the Highlight Glossiness is the more matte the material will be, but along with
that goes longer render times. Same goes to the highlight Glossiness.
Below are results from combinations of various intensities of Reflection Glossiness and Fresnel IOR.
Hope these images will help you create your ideal plastic and metal materials.
Fresnel IOR
1.2 1.5 1.8 2.1 2.4 2.7

1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6

Fresnel IOR Reflection Glossiness Chrome
5.0 10 1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6
1.0
0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

0.9
0.8
Samples of less Reflection Glossiness
0.7
0.6
Reflection Filter
There is a white color (default) Filter located to the right of the Reflection. This is used to
differentiate plastic and metal materials. When creating a metal reflection, set the Filter color to
a brighter color of the diffuse color. When creating a plastic reflection, keep the default setting of
white color. Of course you can set it to any color to mimic the filtered lenses.

Material: Refraction
Open file? Cups - Refraction.3dm? We are going to introduce how to add and edit transparent
materials. Select the red cup from above. Under Properties>Material, select Edit to edit the cup's
material.
Add transparent layer

1 . Click on the “+” to the right of the Cup_Red, and then right click on Refraction Layers. Select Add
new layer. You will see a new layer (Refraction) added to the right of the window.
Transparency percentage of material

2. If you don't see the transparency from the material preview window, that's because the Diffuse
layer transparency is set to black. Use this color to adjust the degree of Transparency. Click on the
color and change it to white, which will give you 100% of transparency to the material

3. Click on the Update Preview again and you will see the transparent but without its original red
color. When you set the transparency to 100% white, no matter what you have for diffuse color, it
will not show up. It will render like right hand side image below
The color of transparent material

When you want to apply color to the material without changing its transparency setting of 100% you
will have to do it with Fog Color, which is located to the lower right of the refraction dialog box
4 . Click on Fog Color and change it to the same color as the original Diffuse Color. Click the Update
Preview button and you will see the red color show up on the material this time
Image on the left is what you will get. Do the same changes to the other two colors and you will get
an image similar to the one on the right.

Fog Settings Explained
The appearence of Fog depends on three parameters; Fog Color, Fog Multiplier, and object
size. The Fog Color is a very important factor, and the wrong color can make it hard to
achieve your desired effect. It is best to set your color to a very light or desaturated version
of the desired effect. The Fog multiplier is completely based on the Fog color and object
size. The object’s size is important because Fog is created
by calculating how much light penetrates an object,
therefore a larger object will absorb more light than a
smaller object. This means that a single setting will not
necessarily create the same affect from object to object.
The image on the left is two spheres with the same material
applied to them, but the sphere on the left is 4 times larger.
The images below are tests of different multipliers with a
desaturated and saturated color.
Fresnel IOR：1.55
Refract IOR：1.55
IOR：1.55
Fog Color：R244, G250, B230
Fog Multiplier
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 2.0
Fresnel IOR：1.55
Refract IOR：1.55
IOR：1.55
Fog Color：R175, G250, B0
Fog Multiplier
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 2.0

The Index of Refraction
IOR (Index of Refraction) is used to calculate the amount of light refracted from transparent
object. The default IOR value is set to 1.55. Please see the chart for usual objects' IOR value.
Material IOR Material IOR

Vacuum 真空 1.0 Glass 玻璃 1.52∼1.8
Air 空氣 1.00029 Glycerin 甘油 1.472
Alcohol 酒精 1.329 Ice 冰 1.309
Crystal 水晶 2.0 Ruby 紅寶石 1.77
Diamond 鑽石 2.417 Sapphire 藍寶石 1.77
Emerald 綠寶石 1.57 Water 水 1.33
Refer to images below for examples of different IOR settings.

Refraction IOR
1.00 1.05 1.10 1.15 1.20 1.25
1.30 1.35 1.40 1.45 1.50 1.55
1.60 1.65 1.70 1.75 1.80 1.85
1.90 1.95 2.00 2.05 2.10 2.15
2.20 2.25 2.30 2.35 2.40 2.45
Please note that the changing the IOR in the refraction layer does not have an affect on the
reflections of the object. The reflections are controlled by the fresnel IOR which is mapped in the
Reflection layer. The values between the reflection layer and the refraction layer are not linked,
although it is recommended that the values be the same

The Glossiness of transparent materials
Similar to reflective objects, transparent objects also have an setting for Glossiness. Refraction
Glossiness will allow you to control the sharpness of an objects refractions. The Glossiness of a
transparent object usually used to represent different type of glass, for example, frosted glass.
Take note that a low refraction glossiness will eventually blur the object to the point that you can
no longer see through the material. It also must be noted that render times will increase with lower
glossiness settings.
Refraction Glossiness by default is set to 1.00, please refer to the images below for examples of
different refraction glossiness settings. Images below have the Refraction IOR set to 1.55. When the
setting for Refraction Glossiness remains the same, different Refraction IOR will change the
Glossiness of the object.
Refraction Glossiness
1.00 0.95 0.90 0.85 0.80
0.75 0.70 0.65 0.60 0.55
0.50 0.45 0.40 0.35 0.30
0.25 0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05

Similar to howthe intensity of the Fog Multiplier affects its transparency, the Refraction Glossiness
becomes more pronounced in thicker objects
Refraction Glossiness 1.0 Refraction Glossiness 0.6 Refraction Glossiness 0.6

Gradient Map
Image below shows the influence of Refraction Glossiness material to objects behind it. Objects
The shadow of transparent materials

There is an Affect Shadow option to the right hand bottom
corner of the Refraction dialog box, by default is
unchecked. When checked, the color of the transparent
object will affect the color of its shadow.
We recommend you have this option checked because it will

allow for more realistic shadows.
Images below show the difference with and without the Affect Shadows checked.

Double-sided material
Under Options of each material, you will find the Double-sided selection. The default setting is
checked. This option is particularly important for transparent material. When this option is
unchecked, light that enters the inside of solids will not be rendered and show up black. The
reason to have this option is that sometimes you may want to disable this option when render
object with translucent material (See next page) in order to get the right texture
Unless you want to create some special effects, please have this option checked for the most of the
time.。
Translucent material
We've talked about changing the Diffuse color to get the degree of transparency we want to create
before. White means 100% transparent, black means 100% opaque. You can create translucent
materials with colors anywhere between white and black. But now we want to introduce a
different translucent material. It is related to special light absorption materials.
Open file Translucency.3dm? and render it, you will get image like below on the left. You will see
that colors where partitions meet the outside box and at the base of the box are darker. This is
because the thickness of the object changes and the light travel distance changes also. So the
degree of light absorption varies. To create this kind of material, you have to check the
Translucency option under the Refraction. Image on the right is the rendered result for Layer 02.

Check the Translucent box under Translucency first. Thickness is for
control of light pass through the object, the unit for this is unclear.
Keep these three settings as default. Other items required to
change include
1.Double-Sided must be unchecked so the light can get through the
inside of the object. So it won't become too dark.
2. Set IOR to 1 is just fine
3.Give a smaller value to the Refraction Glossiness will help
increase the glossiness area.
4. Do not use white color for the Transparency because that will
turn the object to completely transparent and become dark
after rendered due to absorb too much light. Do not use black
color, either. That will not allow light get through the object at
all. Pick a color anywhere between Val 80~150 will give you the
best result.
Many rendering engines use Sub-Surface Scattering (SSS) to create this kind of material. Although most of materials have
certain degree of translucency, but this doesn't mean that you have to apply this kind of material to all of them. That will
increase the rendering time dramatically. This material is good for creating things like: wax, skin, milk, cheese, plastic and
jade which all have a little translucency in it.
Translucency is created by absorbing light to the object's surface so the color of the object will show up a little darker than
its original color. If you still think that it's too dark even though the original color is set to the highest Val 255, the best way
to fix it is increasing the intensity of your light in the scene.

Material: Emissive
Open File Cups - Emissive .3dm? and we are going to show you how to create a self-illuminated
material. Select the green cup on the right. Under Properties>Material, click Edit to open the
Material editor dialog box.
Add Emissive Layer

1 . Click on the + next to the Cup_Green to pull down the layers. Right click on Emissive Layers and
select Add new layer. You will see the new Emissive layer added to the right side.
Open the Emissive menu. By default the color is set to white, intensity to 1 and Transparency color
to black. Click on Material Preview and you will see a completely white material ball. Render it and
you will get the image like the one on the right
Self-illuminated material can make the object become a lightsource itself. It is not limited to a
certain shape like a regular light type. Every part of the object can be illuminated and used as a
lightsource.
Self-illuminated material are perfect to create objects like: light ball, light tube, light shade,
stylish lighting, cold light and lit screen. In order for illuminated objects to emit light GI must be
enabled.

Adjust the Intensity
By Default the Intensity is set to 1. Below images are rendered with Intensity of 3 (L) and 5 ®.
Adjust the color

Click on the color box to change to a different color. Notice that if the setting of the Intensity is too
high, the color of the object itself will become close to white. Only the light emitted from the self-
illuminated object will carry the correct color. It is not recommended to use self emitting materials
as a normal lightsource. Just make it as a decorative object in the scene.
Please refer to below image chart for results of various Emissive Intensities. By controlling the
degree of Transparency under the Emissive Color, you can still keep the diffuse color of the object.
For example, when the Intensity is higher than 2, the diffuse color is washed out and become white.
To avoid the self-illuminated object become white, please also refer to the Color Mapping on page
74.
Emissive Color：R200, G161, B82 Diffuse Color：R155, G155, B155

Emissive Transparency：R100, G100, B100 Diffuse Transparency：R0, G0, B0
Intensity
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
1.0 2.0 3.0 5.0 10

Texture Editor Setting
Aside from using colors for self-illuminated materials, you can also use texture maps as light
source.
1 . Click on the “m” to the right of the Color under Emissive control panel
2 . The Texture Editor will then open up. Select Bitmap from Type's pull down menu and you will see
the control panel show up to the right.
3.Under Bitmap click on the “m” to the 4. After the bitmap is selected, the “m” now
right of the File and pick a bitmap to use as becomes “M”. Click the Update button to
the light source preview the bitmap. Click Apply and you can
use this bitmap as the light source
5. Click on Update Preview and you will see the Bitmap is now on the material ball. Render it and
you will get the result as the image on the right.

Please note that if any type of map is being used in Texture Editor, the Color and Intensity under
Emissive will no longer function. You can't use these two options to control the brightness of the
material any more. You need to click on the “M” and go back to the Texture Editor and adjust the
multiplier there. All other control options in the Texture Editor work the same.
Click on the “M” and go back to the Texture Editor. Pay special attention to below options as these
options are often used for controlling the Bitmap texture map
Multiplier: Controls the intensity of the Bitmap.
Default set to 1. Increasing this number will intensify
the color tone, brightness and color contrast.
Blur under Bitmap: Controls the blurriness of the
Bitmap. By default this is set to 0.15. Setting this to 0
will not have any blur effect to the Bitmap.
Override: Use this parameter to set the gamma value.
Repeat: Used to control the U and V tiling of the
Bitmap. Increasing the number will cause the bitmap
to be repeated withing the mapping coordinates
Rotation: Adjust the degree of rotation of the Bitmap.
The intensity of self-illuminated materials (ipod image) is independent of the environment

settings. The bitmap will still render with its own intensity setting. Use the same way to create cold
light effect. Also showed below are two other examples.

Material: Texture Mapping
Texture Mapping
Most of the time we can't just use reflection and refraction to create a material for an object. For
example: stone, wood, paintings, packages, and textiles. We must use some texture maps to create
these materials. Below are some examples of using texture map for rendering.
Open file Teapot Matte.3dm? Render the scene and you will an image similar to the one on the left
with a reflection material applied to it. The Image to the right is the result of applying brushed
metal texture map. You can see clear difference between these two images.
01. Click on the teapot. Under

Properties>Material, click on Edit to open the
Material Editor. Pull down the Diffuse menu from 02. Select Bitmap from Type's pull down
menu
the right and click on the “m” next to the Color to
open the Texture Editor

03. Click on the “m” to the right of File 04. Click Update to preview the texture map.
under Bitmap to select a Bitmap file
05. Render it. Since we didn't assign custom 06.Use mapping channels to adjust texture
UVs for the texture map, it will use the object's UVS. Select the teapot first, switch to
surface UVs to render Mapping dialog under Properties
07. Make sure Show advanced UI is checked 08. Click on Add to create a new mapping
channel

09. Pull down the projection menu and 10. Click on Show Mapping to display mapping
change it from surface to planar widget in the window
Surface projection will not show a widget.

Render and you will get an image like the one
below. Since the Planar projection projects the
Bitmap from top down, the texture map is not 11. Under Rotation, make the x value -90, then
yet showing the correct direction. Rotate the left click on empty place. This will rotate the
mapping widget to change the direction of mapping widget 90 degree off the x direction
projection. and projects the Bitmap from front to back
You could also modify

the mapping widget
with standard
commands in the
viewport
Image on the left shows the mapping widget rotated 90 degree; on the right is the rendered result.

Mapping types and adjustment
Rhino has several different types of UV projections: Surface, Planar, Box, Spherical, Cylindrical and
Capped cylindrical. Rhino sets the default to Surface if there is no other projection assigned to the
object and render the object according to its UV directions.
When changed to a different projection. the default size of mapping widget is set to the perimeter
of the object.
Show Mapping is used to display the mapping widget in the scene. Within the working window, the
mapping widget can be moved, rotated and scaled.
An object can be set up to have multiple mappings. This is done through using multiple mapping
channels. Click Add in the mapping properties box to create a new channel. Any maps that are
intended to correspond with certain mapping channels must be
specifed through the Texture Editor in the Material Editor.
Under UV make sure that mapping is changed to Explicit Map
Channel and then change the map channel underneath to
correspond with the desired channel.
Type ofmapping, size and position of Mapping Widget, and project direction will all affect the
projection on the object. Of course, those will also affect the final render result. Below are
examples using teapot to show different UV settings.
Box Spherical
Click on F10 to show the control point

for the Mapping widget. Move those to
Cylindrical adjust the size of the widget

Material: Bump map
Bump map
Although we can use Bitmap for most materials there are some textures like wall surfaces, tile,
wood, oil painting, leather and water, which all have the uneven surfaces. We must use bump maps
in order to create them.
1. Click on the teapot and open the Material 2. Select Bitmap under the Type pull down
Editor to edit the Bump map of the teapot. In menu
the Maps section of the Material Editor,
Only images can for bump mapping in V-Ray
check Bump and click on the “m” to open the
for Rhino
Texture Editor.
3. Click on the ”m” to the right of Bitmap, 4. After importing the map, if the Bump map
select the same brushed metal material as is the same as the Diffuse map, make sure
used in Diffuse for the teapot the U, V Repeat under UVW Transform have
the same value. For example, if Bump map is
using U: 2 and V: 2, the Diffuse map should
be the same. Otherwise, these two maps
will not align correctly. Also, set the
Multiplier on the left side with smaller value
like 0.1. If set the Value too high will result
an unnatural look of material

Image on the left is the result of using only brushed metal Bitmap. The surface of the teapot looks
very smooth. Image on the right is rendered with Bump map added to the teapot and its handle. You
can see the Bump texture within the brushed metal and handle.
Earlier we talked about using reflection glossiness to adjust reflecting material's glossiness and
create a frosted look. If we add a Bump map to it now will make the object look even better. The
image on the left is using only reflection glossiness. The image on the right has Bump map added.
Below are some examples of textures created with Bump map.
Bump maps are created using the grayscale of the Bitmap to set the high and low texture. The bright part of the
Bitmap is considered as high part and the dark is low. The Bump map is seen more clearly at the part where the
object reflects the most of the light. Using Bump map texture to create bumped texture is only a visual effect, not
the true surface of the object. Look at the edge of the object and you will still see the smooth surface.
Displacement is the way to actually change the geometry of an object with a bitmap, but currently V-Ray for
Rhino 1.0 is not supporting this function.

Material: Transparency
What's Transparency Mapping?
Transparency mapping is a method of adjusting the transparency of either maps or certain material
properties. This is used mostly for creating product logo, sticker, decals, and numbers. Depending
on your needs it may be beneficial to model the actual object in the scene (i.e. if a raised logo show
close up), but using transparency maps is a quick, easy, and simple way to acheive the desired
effect.
Open File Cup - Decals.3dm?and render it. You will get the image on the left. The one on the right is
the decal that we will use.
You will get the left image if you apply the texture map directly without transparency map. The
black background of the texture map is blocking part of the cup. The image on the right is rendered
with transparency map.

1. Open the Material Editor and select Cup_Red; right click on Diffuse Layers to add a new layer and
you will have the dialog window as image on the right. A Diffuse1 control panel is added under the
Diffuse
2.Click on the “m” at the right of Transparency to enter the Texture Editor. Load the Bitmap for the
transparency texture map. Make sure you uncheck the Tile first to avoid repeating this Bitmap on
the object
Use Photoshop, PhotoImpact or a similar image
editing software to create a black and white image
and save as .bmp, .jpg or .png.
3. Use Diffuse1 color to edit the color for A rendering of the object should be
this Transparency map. Click on the “m” at s i m i l a r t o t h e i m a g e b e l o w. T h e
the right of Color to add more texture to Transparency map is covering the entire
this map if needed cup. That's because there is no mapping
applied to this cup yet.

4. Under Properties>Mapping, add a new channel. Change the projection to Planar and adjust the
mapping widget's size and position as image showed below. If the Tile remains checked, it will
render as the image on the right
The logic of Transparency maps

The idea behind Transparency maps is using a grayscale image to determine which parts of an object will be
visable. Black areas will conceal and white areas will allow it to be visable. A tone of gray will change to some
degree of transparency.
The white area has the color assigned in Diffuse1 and end up showing on the surface of the object after
rendered.
For the cup example above, after assigning a mask to the Transparency, the red color of the cup is affected by
the white area of the mask and no longer showing red. The second layer’s color in the diagram below is used to
cover the white area of the first layer.

Other uses of transparency
There are many ways to use transparency. Its not just used as a mask for text. Here are some other
examples of different uses. First, we will use a gradient Bitmap as the Diffuse Transparency mask,
let the yellow color of Diffuse1 show through the white area at the cup and create two gradient
colors on the cup as image on the right. This is the better way then using a gradient Bitmap directly
as the Diffuse texture because of its flexibility of changing colors. If you use a bitmap you will have
to make another Bitmap for any changes
or modifications
The next example is using another grayscale Bitmap as the transparency mask. Although it is not a
gradient image it works exactly the same.
The third example is adding another Diffuse2 layer, and assigning a 0 and a 180 degree gradient
Bitmap to Diffuse and Diffuse1 in Transparency. Give the Diffuse2 a third color to create this three-
color gradient rendering effect for the cup.

Another example is to use gradient color in a transparent material. As in our previous examples, use
a gradient grayscale Bitmap as the Diffuse Transparency mask. Add a Refraction layer to create the
half transparent and half opaque effect.
Our next example is similar to the Third one. The only difference is we are adding a Refraction
layer, and changing the Transparency color of Diffuse2 to white. This will make the white area at
the middle become transparent. Rendered image as on the right
The example above can not have the transparent quality at the top and bottom of the cup because
of the black color in the grayscale gradient Bitmap. The last example here is to use a pre-made
gradient Bitmap as the Refraction Transparency map. Set the Diffuse Transparency to white, and
then assign the Bitmap to the Refraction map

Illumination: Environmental Lighting
Lighting plays a key role in the rendering process. You simply can't get a good rendering result
without a good lighting environment.
Light sources are divided into direct and indirect lighting. Direct lighting is using the light
command to create Rectangular Light, Omni Light, Spot Light and Linear Light and use directly on
the object. Indirect lighting means object receives light from a broader source, like an
Environment Light and Radiant light.
Let's do a test first

Open the file Cup Illumination.3dm there aren’t any
lights in the scene. The light source will be from
Environment light.
1. So far the cup and ground are using the same
Val230 off white color. Render it with the GI
default setting to 1 and get the result as image
shown on the right
2. Increase the GI value to 2 without changing the

color, the result is shown on the right
3. Do not change the GI value and change the

Brightness to Val127 under the Texture Editor.
Render it again and the result is very close to the
first image on the top
The reason for doing this test is to let users understand the importance between lighting and
material. Should adjustments be made to the material first or the lighting first?

The answer is easy. Of course the lighting is more important!
Lighting must be adjusted first! From the second rendering you
can see that there is too much light in the image because of the
setting of intensity of GI changed to 2.
Here is one more example to understand this. If there is a white

ceramic sink or tub in the bathroom, it will look black without
any light source in the bathroom. You wouldn’t try to adjust the
brightness of the white ceramic under this condition. And also,
from the material setting point of view, how can you get even
brighter when the color is set to val255? It would be ridiculous
even trying to create an Emissive or self-illuminated material on
the object at this time.
The only way to improve the lighting for dark place is adjusting
the brightness! From intensify the Brightness of Environment
light and regular light, or even add more lights to the scene are
the right ways to improve the illumination. It's not appropriate to
adjust the Brightness of the material assigned to the object to
improve the illumination.
You will be in trouble if you try to improve an image by changing

the materials instead of creating proper illumination. In other
words, whenever the intensity of the illumination in a scene
changes, it will affect the appearance of the material's texture.
You would have to adjust the material again if you worked like
this. Take another look at the white cup in the previous example
\. If you want to change the cup's color to red, under the GI
setting of 2, you must pick a real dark red in order to render the
color correctly. What if the user wants a lighter red color? Or
what will happen if there are more lights added to the scene? Are
you going to use some extra walls to block the light? Many
questions remain…
It is very hard to predict the render result under incorrect

illumination. That's because the output does not accurately
reflect the inputted settings.
Interior or Exterior?
When facing the task of illumination, separate it into interior
illumination and exterior illumination. For example, place an
object on the ground without any wall surrounds it to block the
light. This would be exterior illumination. Interior means that
the object is blocked or enclosed by space in a way that the
environment light does not have a direct effect on the object.
The image on the top shows open space illumination and image
below that shows the semi-open space illumination.
The next image down shows the same semi-open space but adds
two openings in the wall. The brightness increased due these
openings. The last image shows that different locations for
openings will also affect the brightness of the scene

Techniques to adjust the Brightness
Before render the scene, try to finish all of the modeling that is needed. This will simplify adjusting the
illumination. The number of objects, object location, material type, color and even size will all affect the
illumination in some way, but if the environment light is correctly determined it will make the rest of the
process easier.
As with digital photography, in order to get the correct colors, you must to get the correct the white balance
first. V-Ray's Environment light and lighting brightness are not controlled by a specific lighting unit, so it is
impossible to find the regular brightness for white balance setting. You can only try to get the correct setting
by rendering the result to evaluate if the illumination is enough in the scene.
Open the file Cup - Illumination.3dm again. This is an easy open space example, there is no light added to the
scene and the Environment light is currently set to 1. Using the floor color to get the correct white balance
reading is better because it takes the most part of the render result.
Using the white floor color to evaluate the white balance is the first step. Make sure the color under Material
Editor is set between Val180~230, not Val255. If we set it to Val255, it will render extremely bright white
without any depth after adding lights to the scene. So it is always a good idea to set the floor color brightness a
little bit lower to save some room for more light sources later.
1. Assign the Val 230 color to floor, R191 G19 B19 red 2. Re-assign the R255 G100 B100 red color to the cup
color to cup first. and render; you will get the result as below.
From the two images above we can see that the colors of the floor and cup are rendered very close to actual
colors, which means the Environment lighting is set to correct intensity and brightness for creating good
illumination. If the intensity was too strong, it would make the floor and cup appear far to bright and would
not mimic the actual material color.
You should not adjust the brightness or intensity of the environment light if no other lights will be added to the
scene. While adding lights you should preform this test again to maintain the appropriate illumination levels.
As long as the illumination is under control, you can safely pick the colors or textures for the object.
Default setting is 1 for Environment light. In reality you shouldn't increase this number despite its location of
interior or exterior. Please refer to page 56 for “Environment light for semi-open space”.

HDR Environments
Instead of using a color for an environment it is possible to use an image for your environment. VRay
supports HDR image based lighting. Open file Cups - GI HDR.3dm
1 . Open V-Ray for Rhino's Render Options. Open

the Environment menu and click on the “m” at
the right of GI to enter the Texture Editor
2. Choose Bitmap from Type, click on “m”

beside File and import an .hdr file.
HDR courtesy of Wouter Wynen

http://www.aversis.be
3. Make sure you check the Environment radio button under UVW after the file is selected. Render it
and you will get the image on the right. You can see the difference between this image and the
image using only color for Environment light
source.
4. If you want the objects to reflect the HDR

image Environment as well, you can assign the
same HDR image to the Environment
Background. Make sure the UVW is set to
Environment. After the Background HDR is
added, the result is the image on the right

Below are three images rendered with different
HDR images as the Environment light sources. You
can see the dramatic differences between each
image.
Understand that because most HDRs are prepared by a third party, it may take sometime to adjust the
intensity to fit your scene and lighting needs. Sometimes you may also need to adjust the HDR's Horizontal
angle to better cooperate your own lighting direction.
Although an HDR image has better control of its brightness than a normal 24 bit Bitmap, it still can not
recreate the light source and brightness in the nature. So normally it's used only for Environment light
source. Also, unless the light source is very bright in HDR image, the rendered shadow is lighter and not very
clear. You will need to add more light in the scene to get the better shadows in this case.

Bitmap Environments
If you do not have an HDR image, a regular Bitmap can also be used as an Environment light source.
However, it is highly recommended that you use HDR images in stead of standard bitmaps. Standard
bitmaps will have less brightness control, a less obvious light source, and softer shadows. Standard
Images are easier to obtain, and with a bit of time and tweeking they can create a decent
environment.
The three images on the right are rendered with different Bitmaps. Compared to HDR
environments, it is not easy to find where the light comes from and the shadow is not very clear.

Environment for semi-open space
We used an open space Environment in our previous example. Now we will try a semi-open interior
space to see the differences between the two.
Open file GI Environment.3dm In the scene we have an enclosed cube with an opening on the right
side. There are some objects placed on the wall next to the opening and there is no light in the box.
All objects used a gray color (RGB 190,190,190), the current GI Intensity is 2, and the GI color is
light blue. Render it and you will get the almost black image on the right. This result is due to a lack
of direct light in the scene and only a small opening allows the Environment light to come in.
Increase the GI Intensity to 4 and render it Increase the GI to 8 and render again. The
again. The result below is little bit brighter. result is closer to reasonable illumination.
When we begin to set up the illumination for an interior space, first we need to check how many
openings allow light in (this also includes transparent object like a window or door). You must also
determine whether you want the lighting in the final result to be from the environment or from
direct lighting because this will determine how you set up the environment.

Even if the Environment is set to the desired setting, you may still encounter problems later when
you adjust materials for objects in the scene. When adding additional lights to the scene and
adjusting the materials, its unlikely you will get you desired result on your first render. It is
important, especially for interior scenes, that you determine the views that are going to be
rendered. This is because a different view may require different lights or intensities to obtain the
desired result. This is illustrated in the two images below. The images are two renderings of the
same model and the same lighting set up. The one on the left is an exterior veiw and the one on the
right is an interior view.
Irradiant light
Please keep the scene that has the GI intensity of 8. It's easy to spot some blotches in those images
from previous page. This happens when indirect lighting affects the object. It is more obvious when
the indirect lighting gets stronger, and this only happens when Irradiance Map GI engine is used.
This is the result of a lack of hemispheric subdivs and samples during the process of transferring
lighting data to the image.
Open V-Ray for Rhino's Render Options and then pulls down the Irradiance Map menu. Change the
Subdivs value from default 50 to 100, and Sample from default 20 to 40.
Render again and you will find it takes longer to render but yeilds a better result such as the image
on the right.
In fact, for most cases, you don't have to increase
these values as this high to get a better result if
there is proper light and brightness in the scene.

GI Engines
V-Ray has the ability to use different methods for calculating the light within a scene. To do this V-
Ray breaks the calculation into two types of light. The first is the primary bounce, which is the first
light bounce coming directly from a light source. The second type is the secondary bounce, which is
all of the other light bounces in the scene. With V-Ray you can specify exactly which method of
calculation for each of these bounces.
Open the Indirect Illumination control panel under Options. There are Primary Engine and
Secondary Engine in the panel below.
Primary Engine
There are four options for Primary Engine: Irradiance Map, Photon Map, Quasi Monte-Carlo and Light
Cache. Default is set to Irradiance Map。
Secondary Engine
There are three options for Secondary Engine: Photon Map, Quasi Monte-Carlo and Light Cache.
Default is set to Quasi Monte-Carlo or you can select None to not use this Engine.
When switching between the different engines, the settings available will also change according to
the assigned engine.
Primary Engine: Irradiance Map

Open file Cups - Irrdiance Map.3dm?and open the Irradiance Map's control panel under Options. There is a
very important setting option here related to image
quality: Min Rate and Max Rate.
Default for Min Rate and Max Rate are -3 and 0

respectively. They are currently -8 and -7 in the file.
Render it and you will get image to the right. Notice that
the calculation speed is very fast, but the quality of the
shadow and cups is poor.

Min Rate: controls the minimum sampling for each pixel. 0 value means 1 pixel as 1 sample. Value of -1
means 2 pixels as 1 sample. Value of -2 means 4 pixels as 1 sample and so on. Smaller values means fewer
samples being taken from the object, so the render qualities of shadow, reflection and refraction are not
very good.
Max Rate: controls the maximum sampling for each pixel.

0= 1 pixel uses 1 sample. 1= 1 pixel uses 4 samples. 2= 1 pixel
uses 8 samples and so on. Smaller values means fewer total
samples used to calculate the light. A larger value will result
in better quality but longer render time.
Default settings of -3 and 0 represents four passes of render job. From -3, -2, -1
to 0. So you can see the Prepass 1 of 4 to Prepass 4 of 4 from the render progress
dialog box. According to definitions above, having the same number of prepasses
does not mean the same render quality.
If you render with Irradiance Map as Primary Engine, you can give a smaller set of numbers for Min and Max
Rate to produce faster previews of the lighting and material settings in a scene. For example: -6 and -5 or
-4 to -3. Although the quality may not be good enough for a final image, it is ok for a preview. After the
scene is finalized, then you can render with higher value to get the best final quality image.
The image on the left is showing Irradiance Map's fouth Prepass calculation of Min Rate: -3 and Max Rate:
0.The Image on the right is the final result.
The image on the left is showing the second Prepass of -4 and -3. Image on the right is the final
result.

The image on the left is showing the second Prepass of -3 and -2. Image on the right is the final
result.
The image on the left is showing -3 to 0. Image on the right is showing -3 to 1. Although the one on
the right has the better final result, the difference is very little.
If an image has a sufficient min/max rate (-3,0) yet still produces blochiness then the subdivisions
and the samples can be increased.

When Min Rate and Max Rate are too low, “leaking light” tends to happens even if the objects are
joined together. See image on the left for example. This is due to lack of Samples when calculating
the Prepass. Of course, this only happens when using Irradiance Map for the primary engine.
The image on the left is rendered with Min Rate and Max Rate of -4 and -3. You can see light comes
through the corner clearly. Increase the value to -3 and 0 and you will see an improvement as seen
in the image on the right.
Primary Engine: Quasi Monte-Carlo

When using QMC as the Primary Engine, the render result will not have any blotchiness or leaking
light as seen when using Irradiance Map. There is no need for a Prepass either. While the QMC
engine will also create image which is very realistic, it does take a long time to render.
The image on the left is rendered with Irradiance Mapping and the image on the right is rendered
with QMC. Although the one on the right looks dusty, but compare to the perfect pure color image on
the left, the QMC is more realistic.
Depending on your settings you may get very sandy looking image with QMC as Primary Engine. To
solve this problem, you can either increase the
Subdivisions from default 8 to a higher value under
QMC's control panel
Secondary Engine: Light Cache
Light Cache is used to calculate the light distribution in the scene. Its calculation method is very similar to
Photon Mapping, but the total opposite. Photon Map starts with a straight path from the light source and
collects light energy along way. Light Cache starts from the camera instead. Some good points about using
Light Cache include: it doesn't have many setting options to deal with, it renders quickly and calculates
light correctly. On the downside, the user has to decide the amount of subdivs. This value is related to the
resolution of the image.
The image on the left is rendered with combination of Irradiance Map and QMC. The image on the right is
rendered with combination of Irradiance Map and Light Cache.
Subdivions are the most important factor for Light Cache. Subdivisions are used to decide how many light
paths are traced from the camera to calculate the light distribution. The actual number of samples is the
square of the number of Subdivisions. With the default setting of 1000 for example, the actual number of
paths will be 1,000,000.
When the image resolution is higher, this number must set it higher as well. A lower number could result in
an incorrect solution for the image. The best way to determine what the idea amount of subdivions is, is
to set a higher number first and render. Look at the progress window and monitor the progress of
subdivisions and calculate the number according to the percentage. Say the subdivisions number is 1000
for example, when the subdivisions is half way through its calculation, the rendering window's black dots
are almost gone, that means you only need to set the number between 500~600 and you will get the
correct render result. If the process is done but you still have a lot of black dots in the window, that
means the number of
subdivisions is not enough
and result will be off. The
image below is showing Light
Cache calculation that still
has a lot of black dots in the
image.

Another setting you should pay attention to is the sample size. This is used to define the distance
between each path. Smaller numbers will give you more detail and a clearer image, but use more
memory to render. Larger number will give you smoother image, but could lose details.
Please view the images below from top to bottom. Both Primary and Secondary bounces are using
Light Cache. The images on the left are using 0.02 as the Sample Size. The images on the right are
using 0.03 as the Sample Size. The images below only show difference between Sample Sizes.

Depth of Field
What is Depth of Field?
We must use photography to explain Depth of Field. When taking a photo with a camera, the two
most important things are focus and exposure. If it's not properly focused, the image will become
blurry. Incorrect exposure will also affect the result. Depth of Field is related to focus.
Open V-Ray for Rhino's Render Options. Pull down Camera control menu and you will see Depth of
Field below. By Default it is off, check it if you want to have the depth of Field in the final
rendering. The most important control item is
Override Focal Dist.
Adding Depth of Field to the image is to make it more

realistic.
How to find out the current setting of focus distance of the camera?
1 Open file Cups - Depth of Field.3dm? as menu on the right, in perspective
view, right click on Viewport Title and select Show Camera. See image below,
the narrow point in the scene is the lens of the camera, the point on the
opposite side is the Target.
2. Use Polyline tool to draw a straight line, open snap point mode, left click on the camera point
and move the mouse over to Target point. Look at the distance window below and that's the number
to use for the Override Focal Dist. In this case, 62.3724 is the number to use. Render it and you will
get the rendering with Depth of Field effect. By default the focal distance is determined by the
camera, but if you want to change the focal distance without changing the camera the you can use
this function.

Hit the Tab key when the cursor is locked to the Target point, and then move the mouse. You will
find the direction from camera to Target point is locked. Move the cursor and the number for the
distance will change accordingly. Move the cursor to desire focus location and memorize the
number below. Use this number for the Override Focal Dist. and it becomes the new focus distance.
Hit the Tap key again to unlock the direction
The image on the left is rendered without Depth of Field and image on the right is rendered with it's
Aperture set to 1.0 The Depth of Field has already show up in the image and the focus point is at the
green cup.
Size of Aperture
V-Ray does not use f-stops to control the amount of light as normal cameras do. A smaller number
has less of an effect on Depth of Field. A larger number will make the object very blurry and takes
longer time to render, especially when calculating the edge of object for Depth of Field. So we
recommend you start with smaller number and move your way up if you need stronger effect.
Change Focal Distance

Go back to Camera's control panel, set the Aperture to 1.0, then input 47 for the Override Focal
Dist. and make it closer to the red cup's opening edge. Render it and will get the image on the left,
Green and orange cup becomes blurry. The image on the right is rendered with Override Focal Dist,
changed to 72, approximately at the front edge of the orange cup. So now the yellow and green cups
become blurry.

Below are some images showing more example of Depth of Field.
The glass cups are products of Nachtmann

from Germany。

Caustics
What are Caustics?
Caustics are a lighting phenomena created by some materials, for example, metal, jewelry, glass or
liquid which rebound light around the object. It is more obvious when the light is stronger
Open file Cups - Caustics.3dm and open V-Ray for Rhino's Render Options. Pull down the Caustic
control panel at the bottom. Check the on button to enable Caustics.
After you start rendering, the process window will show the lighting
information. As the caustic effect in the scene first. It won't take much
time to render if the Caustic Subdivs and light setting are using default
setting
Photons
The image on the left is rendered without caustics. The image on the right is rendered with caustics
enabled. All of the settings are using the default setting.
Due to the rebound of light, the cups look brighter at the right.

Go to the Caustics control panel. Change the Max Photons setting from 50 to 300. Render and the
result should look like the image on the right. Compare this with the image on the last page you will
find the Caustic effect is greater this time and smoother
Usually it's easier to spot the Caustic effect in a

darker scene. If the scene is brighter, you can try
increase the Multiplier to offset the difference.
If you want better control of the quality of the caustics, you can change the light settings. With the
light selected, go the light properties window and increase the caustic subdivions from 1000 to
2000. Be aware that this will increase the prepare time for render Caustic effect.
The image on the right is rendered with Caustic Subdivs set to 3000, you can see the better quality
of Caustic effect in this case.

Liquid inside a transparent glass
Strange image
This requires some skills, and mainly comes from a problem with the model. Open file Cup - Liquid.3dm The
liquid and the glass are coplanar, which causes a problem with reading the materials of the model. Render it
and you will get image as below
Use Scale or Scale2D to increase the size of liquid and that will solve the problem
If you scaled the liquid down, which would be more physically correct, the image would not look
realistic.

Adjusting Camera
Rotate the camera
Hold both Alt and Shift, then right click the mouse to rotate the camera. This will make the image
more dynamic.。
Adjusting the lens

Right click on the Perspective window title, select the Viewport Properties from below. See image
below, you can input desire lens length here. A smaller number for wide angle lens or a larger
number for telescope lens.
If you don't want to have any significant deformation of the objects, try to avoid using wide angle
lens. A normal product can get the best perspective by using Rhino's default 50mm lens. Use
22~35mm lens for an interior shot.

Light and Shadow
The quality of Shadow
Unless shadows are disabled in global settings, all objects will cast shadows.
The quality of shadow is controlled by subdivions under light properties dialog box. Select the
rectangular light and under Sampling>Subdivs change the default number of 8 to 32. The higher
number will cost more time to render, but will produce smooth shadows.
The image on the left is
rendered with Subdivs set to
8; the image on the right is set
to 32.
Radius for Shadow edge

When using Point light, Spotlight and Direction light for light source, the shadow edge will be very
sharp. To soften it, adjust the Radius in the Shadow dialog box. Using Directional Light here for
example, Image on the left is rendered with Radius set to 0. Image on the right is rendered with
Radius increased to 0.05

Lighting Parameters
All of the light types' detailed here are supported by V-Ray. Each of the types has some unique parameters, but
there are a several parameters that are consistent between all of the light types.
Point Light and Spotlight require that the user set the Decay type: Linear, Inverse and Inverse Square. The last
two will decay dramatically, so when using Inverse or Inverse Square, you must increase the multiplier. That
means that point lights and spotlights are greatly affected by the distantance from the object, so it will require
more adjustments with these lights.
The Intensity of Directional Light will not Decay at all in any distance, it usually used outside to mimic the
sunlight.
Rectangular Light Directional Light Point Light Spotlight
For interior, use Directional Light to create strong sunlight come in from outside.

Color Mapping
The function of Color Mapping
Color Mapping is a function to replace color from the rendered image. Sometimes the screen can't
show extremely bright color correctly. Use Color Mapping to fix this problem when it happens.
Types of Color Mapping

Open the Color Mapping panel under Options, V-Ray
default is set to the Linear Multiply option. Linear
Multiply is using an object's brightness to create color.
So Brightness over Val255 will be discarded. Objects
under strong light usually get washed out to white color, like the image on the left. Exponential
uses color intensity to control brightness and prevents this wash out situation, but the objects'
color will become light, like image on the right.
HSV Exponential and Exponential are very similar, but HVS will keep the tone and intensity of the
color, like the image on the bottom left.
Intensity Exponential can maintain the RGB ratio, and will only affect the color intensity, like the
image on the bottom right
Note that under very strong light conditions, these three index color control will cause the scene to be
rendered darker. If under an average brightness scene, the render image will lose some depth due to the
colors evening out, especially in off white scene, you can get a totally different effect.

Antialiasing
V-Ray’s default image sampler is Adaptive Subdivision. See image below on the left. These thin lines
were rendered with the default settings and had some broken lines in towards the back of the plane.
Adaptive Subdivisions Sampler
Open the image Sampler under Options, the V-Ray default is Adaptive Subdivisions with a min rate of
-1 and a max rate of 2. For this example, set the Min rate directly to 0 will fix those broken lines, as
image on the right.
Under most circumstances, use default Sampler for Adaptive Subdivision can get a pretty goof result
already.
Fixed Rate Sampler

This sampler uses a standard rate of subdivisions for computing antialiasing. This is generally will take
longer to compute because in areas that do not need a detailed sampling(i.e. a smooth, flat plane) will
get the same amount of sampling as a very detailed portion(i.e. a mesh screen). This sampler can
produce very predictable and consistent renders.
Adaptive QMC Sampler
Adaptive QMC is a better sampler for detailed scenes with blurry effects. For example, scenes with tiny
seams, thin lines, reflection or refraction glossiness, Depth of field, and texture on material map. Using
Adaptive QMC for above situations can get a better quality image.
By default, min Subdivisions is set to 1. This is the minimum number of samples assign to each pixel. In
most cases, you don't have to increase its value. Max Subdivs is the maximum number of samples assign
to each pixel, and default it is set to 4. For better image quality you should increase this value. Of
course higher number will result in longer rendering time. Those who want to have high quality image
should switch to Adaptive QMC Sampler when calculating
images.

Output
Image Resolution
V-Ray can override the sizes set up by Rhino. Open V-Ray for Rhino's Render Options. Open the
Output control menu and check the box to Override Rhino to have V-Ray define the image size.
There are several size presets in V-Ray to choose from. Users can also provide a custom the size.
The unit used is pixels. The Image Aspect below is the height-width ratio for current size. Click on
the “L” to lock in this ratio. When one of the height or width has changed, V-Ray will calculate the
other value automatically according to this ratio.
Saving Output
Check the Save File button under the Render
Output and then click on the “…” to set up the
file path, and type the file name. When V-Ray
finishes rendering, the file will be saved
accordingly. Please note that next rendering
will override the previous one with the exact
same path, type and name.
The Pixel Aspect option is used to control the aspect ratio of the pixel. Please see the two images
below

V-Ray frame buffer
Tools
The V-Ray frame buffer has some useful tools. Please see discussions below for each tool
Switch back and forth between different color

channels to display the image, which is also Click on this icon and V-Ray will render where the
including Alpha Channel and grayscale to display mouse is pointed to first during the last portion of the
the image in black and white. rendering process. This is very helpful if you want to
see the final result of particular part of the image. If
Save the image. the result is not what you want, hit ESC to end
rendering process right the way
Clear the image.

This icon opens the color
and brightness control
click this icon to open the information dialog box. dialog box. Click on both X
Right click on the rendering window to display pixel and X to update the color
information. Right-clicking within the rendering adjustment and brightness
window can also open this dialog box; release the
mouse to close this box
Click on this icon to open the frame stamp bar. Click

on the far left icon to show the frame stamp at the
bottom of the rendering window. By default the
contains the V-Ray version and render time. This
information will be saved with the file.
Mouse operation Keyboard Operation

Ctrl+left key: Zoom in
+ / -: Zoom in and out
Ctrl+right key: Zoom out
* : go back to original size
Double click on left key: back to
Arrow keys: move zoomed in
original size
image
Middle wheel: move zoomed in image
Right key: show pixel information

Final Thoughts
The last few tips
Here we offer some tips and experiments from other users and hope to save some time and increase
the image quality
01 Under Render Options>System, try to adjust the render division. In some cases a smaller value
will render faster, in others large values will. As you do some test renders change the value and see
if it renders faster or slower.
02 . Use RenderWindow command to render a small

part of the entire image for testing render settings.
Make sure you don't click on something else with
mouse while rendering. It will terminate the process.
03 .Before you determine the best lighting for the scene, hide all objects except the floor and
render a big area of that floor. This will give you the brightness of the scene easier and faster.
04 . All Subdivs will affect the quality of the image. Try using smaller values before you render the
final image.
05 . Use the minimum amount of lights in the scene to save rendering time
06 . Raise those objects that sit on the floor a little bit to have better shadow quality and to avoid
overlapping geometry.
07 . Use Depth of Field to increase the realism of the image.
08 . Add more memory to your machine.
09 . Use image editing software to improve the final image
10 . Use your spare time to render

If you think V-Ray for Rhino is awesome, please recommend it to your friends. Finally, hope
everyone enjoys playing with it!

Notes
www.asgvis.com
Notes
www.asgvis.com
Notes
www.asgvis.com
Notes
www.asgvis.com

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V-Ray for Rhino 1.

02. Activating V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 ......................................................................... 005

03. V-Ray for Rhino Toolbar ................................................................................ 006

04. ? ? ? ? ? V-Ray for Rhino? ? ? ? ................................................................... 007

06. V-Ray for Rhino Material Editor ...................................................................... 012

08. Add Lights ..................................................................................................018

09. The Characteristics of Rectangular Light .............................................................021

10. Material: Reflection Material ...........................................................................024

11. Reflection and Highlight ................................................................................ 026

12. Other characteristics of reflectivity ..................................................................027

13. Material: Transparent Material ........................................................................ 029

14. Material: Transparent Material ....................................................................... 037

15. Material: Texture Mapping ..... ........................................................................ 041

16. Material: Bump Map ...................................................................................... 045

17. Material: Transparency Mapping ...................................................................... 047

18. Illumination: Environmental Lighting ................................................................ 052

19. Render Engine ............................................................................................ 060

20. Depth of Field ............................................................................................. 067

21. Caustic Effect ............................................................................................. 070

22. Liquid inside of transparent Glass .................................................................... 072

23. Adjusting the Camera ....................................................................................073

24. Lighting Dialog Box ....................................................................................... 075

26. Adaptive Subdivisions Control ..........................................................................077

27. Resolution of an Image ....................................................................................078

28. V-Ray frame Buffer ....................................................................................... 079

5. Installing 6.Installation complete

004 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

4. Enter your serial number then click next.

6.The activation for V-Ray for Rhino is now

V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 005

1. From Toolbar Layout window, select Open

4. This is what you will see after you

006 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

以上HDR以及著色圖片由Dosch Design公司授權提供給本手冊使用 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 007

Save and load Option settings

008 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

Check the boxes before GI and Background.

These settings controls the appearance and brightness of the

V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 009

Two ways to assign materials in V-Ray

010 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 011

V-Ray Material Editor

012 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

How to add new material:

V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 013

How to change the name of a material:

How to remove material:

014 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

By Right-Clicking on a Material you can also:

Any materials under the Scene

Purge unused materials: Right click on Scene

Rhino’s Undo does not affect V-Ray for Rhino Options or

V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 015

02 . Rename this new material as Ground

04 . Right click on Ground material. Select Duplicate and rename as Cup-Yellow.

016 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

13. Create a new material and name it

V-Ray for Rhino 1.0 017

018 V-Ray for Rhino 1.0

08. Select the

11. Hit Render again and you will get a