Discover the secrets behind properly lighting and rendering interior scenes with 3ds Max and

Vray in this easy to follow, step by step walkthrough. Scene setup, modeling, texturing,
lighting, and rendering for realistic output will all be discussed, so there is literally something
in here for everyone!

Step 1
In this tutorial, well be using real units, so the first thing would be to open the menu
Customize > Units Setup > US and choose Standard > Feet w/Decimal Inches as the unit.

Step 2
When you are trying to get a photorealistic quality it is very important to make sure that your
object scale is accurate. This will play an important role in achieving a good render. Also, as
you can see the scene is quite simple just a small lobby (mostly modeled with boxes).
Note: It is important that it is a closed room, and there are no openings for the light from
environment to enter.

Step 3
Press f10, and from the assign renderer tab choose Vray. This will enable Vray as your
renderer, and also enable Vray materials in your material editor.

Step 4
Assign a simple Vray material to all the objects in the scene, and set up basic scene lighting
and render settings. This is to finalize the lighting and render settings and save time, since a
plain material renders much faster than reflective and glossy materials which will be added
later.

Step 5
Now to work on the lighting and render settings to achieve the final result.

Step 6
Add a Vray physical camera to the scene by going to Create Tab > Camera > Vray >
Physical Camera.

Step 7
The settings for a physical camera are:
Type Determines the type of the camera. Set it to Still.
Film Gate Specifies the horizontal size of the film gate in millimeters. Set it according
to your scene.
Focal Length Specifies the equivalent focal length of the camera lens.
f-number The width of the camera aperture and (indirectly) exposure. If the Exposure
option is checked, changing the f-number will affect the image brightness.
Vignetting When this option is on, the optical vignetting effect of a real-world cameras
is simulated.
White Balance Allows additional modification of the image output according to the
color or preset chosen.
Shutter Speed The shutter speed (in inverse seconds) for the still photographic camera.
For example, a shutter speed of 1/50 s corresponds to a value of 50 for this parameter.
Film Speed (ISO) Determines the film power (sensitivity). Smaller values make the
image darker, while larger values make it brighter.

Step 8
Now to place the various
Vray lights. Lights 1-4
affect the scene directly,
whereas light 5 has been
placed in a downward
direction, and will affect the
scene in an indirect (in the
form of bounced light).

Step 9

The basic parameters of the Vray lights are:

Color The color of the light.
Multiplier The multiplier for the light color. This is also the light intensity determined
by the Intensity units parameter.
Invisible This setting controls whether the shape of the VRay light source is visible in
the render result. When this option is turned off the source is rendered in the current light
color. Otherwise it is not visible in the scene.
Subdivs - Defines the samples, or the quality of the light. 8-10 should be used for test
renders, and 15-20 for final renders. Increasing the samples will significantly increase your
render time.

Step 10

IES stands for Illuminating Engineering Society. The photometric data is stored in these
files. A photometric web is a 3D representation of the light intensity distribution of a light
source. Web definitions are stored in files. Many lighting manufacturers provide web files
that model their products, and these are often available on the Internet. We as artists can use
them to replicate the real life phenomena of light in 3d.
Go to the Lights tab, choose Vray from the drop down list, and create a Vray ies in the
right view. Then instance it below all four steel holders.

Step 11

The main settings for the ies lights are:

Browse Button - Click it and browse for the ies file that you want to use.
Color Mode If you choose this option, you can change and affect the light intensity
through the color picker.
Temperature Mode Allows you to accurately change the light intensity through the
color temperature.
Power - Determines how bright the light will be.

Step 12

Through the following steps, you will configure the rendering settings in Vray. Press F10,
then under Global Switches, uncheck Default Lights. This will cause the default lights in
the scene to be switched off. For the Image Sampler type select Adaptive DMC, and
Catmull Rom as the filter. Also, change the min and max subdivs as shown.
Lastly, change the Color Mapping type to Exponential. This mode will saturate the colors
based on their brightness, and therefore, will not clip bright colors, but saturate them instead.
This can be useful to prevent Burn-outs in the very bright areas (for example around light
sources etc).

Step 13

Under the Indirect Illumination select Irradiance Map and use Light Cache as the
primary and secondary engine. Also, change the Preset to High, hsph subdivs to 50, and
interp samples to 20.
Irradiance Map Computes the indirect illumination only at some points in the scene,
and interpolates for the rest of the points. The Irradiance Map is very fast compared to direct
computation, especially for scenes with large flat areas.
Current Preset Allows you to choose from several presets for some of the irradiance
map parameters.
Hemispheric Subdivs (HSph. subdivs) Controls the quality of individual GI samples.
Smaller values makes things faster, but may produce blotchy results. Higher values produce
smoother images.

Step 14

With a Light Cache, the light map is built by tracing many eye paths from the camera. Each
of the bounces in the path stores the illumination from the rest of the path into a 3d structure
(very similar to the photon map). In the Light Cache put 1500 for subdivs and 8 for no of
passes.
The Subdivs determines how many paths are traced from the camera. The actual number of
paths is the square of the subdivs (the default 1000 subdivs mean that 1 000 000 paths will be
traced from the camera).

Step 15

Your settings for the test render are done. If you hit render now, you should see the same
image that was shown before. Now all you need to do is apply the materials, and increase the
Irradiance Map and Light Cache samples for the final render.

Step 16
Now to texture the scene (actually its quite simple). The basic parameters that will be used in
materials are:
Diffuse The diffuse color of the material.
Roughness - Can be used to simulate rough surfaces or surfaces covered with dust.
Reflect The reflection color.
Reflection Glossiness Controls the sharpness of the reflections. A value of 1.0 means
perfect mirror-like reflections; lower values produce blurry or glossy reflections. Use the
Subdivs parameter below to control the quality of the glossy reflections.
The shader for the tiles on the base is a simple vray material with a de-saturated texture in the
diffuse and a noise map in bump.

Step 17
The wood rack is also made
of a Vray material with
slight reflections and
glossiness.

Step 18
The material for the wall is again just simple cream and black colors with no reflections.

Step 19
The shader on the wall on which the paintings are hanging is made of steel and white wall.
The wall part also has a grainy texture assigned to it.

Step 20

Your scene is now textured! You can add any other props or objects you like to fill up the
scene. The above rendering settings are good for test renders, but for production quality you
will need to increase the samples for the image sampler, Light Cache, and Irradiance map.

Step 21

Here is the final result! Hope you learned something

new!!.