VRay for Maya demo

Hi everyone!

My name is Dennis and I just got my hands on the "VRay For Maya" demo! A friend asked if I could explain the basics, so here is a very simple tutorial.

First of all, if you haven't already then get "VRay For Maya" from ChaosGroup (http://www.chaosgroup.com - you have to create an account). Then just install it; simple as that!

To load the plug-in, go to Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager. Then scroll down until you find "vrayformaya" and check both Loaded and Auto Load and press "close" (Fig.01).

Fig. 01

Fig. 01

When that is done, hit the render Settings button and choose VRay (Fig.02)!

Fig. 02 _Fig.

Fig. 02 _Fig.

Ok, so now VRay is loaded, and we are ready to set some preferences. First, as this is a demo, the resolution is locked to 600*450 and it only supports 200 objects in the scene.

In this tutorial the settings in the "VRay Common" tab are not that relevant, so let's jump right to the "VRay" tab! To override Maya's environment check "Override Environment", then I usually tint the blue color to a more white shade, but that's optional (Fig.03).

Fig. 03 _Fig.

Fig. 03 _Fig.

Hit render. My scene looks like this (Fig.04)!

Fig. 04 _rendering

Fig. 04 _rendering

Under the "Indirect Illumination" tab, check "On" to activate Global Illumination. Under the "Irradiance map" settings, you can choose from different quality settings; "high" is for production. Keep in mind that for test renders it might be better to lower the settings to medium or low, to save time (Fig.05)!

Fig. 05 _Fig.

Fig. 05 _Fig.

New render (Fig.06)!

Fig. 06 _Fig.

Fig. 06 _Fig.

A feature under the "Settings" tab that can be useful is the "Adaptive Threshold" for production quality. Set it to 0.003. It reduces the noise pretty well. For test renders I sometimes go up to 0.5; it saves a lot of time! The default is 0.010 (Fig.07).

Fig. 07 _Fig.

Fig. 07 _Fig.

Leave the "Translator" and "Render Elements" tabs to another tutorial!

Ok, so we did just set up a basic GI environment. Now let's add a light and also take a quick look at the VRay materials!

To add a VRay light go to Create > Lights > VRay Rect Light.

It adds a VRay light in the middle of the scene. Rotate and change the size of it as you wish, also you often have to lower the intensity (default 30) I used a value of "3" in my scene!

U and V size depends on your scene. I changed the lights subdivs to "32" (Fig.08).

Fig. 08 _Fig.

Fig. 08 _Fig.

To create a simple chrome material, open up the "hypershade window" and select "VRay Mtl". In the attribute editor change the color to black and make the material reflective (Fig.09 & Fig.10).

Fig. 09 Fig.

Fig. 09 Fig.

Fig. 10 Fig.

Fig. 10 Fig.

And there we have it! You can see the light's reflection in the chrome sphere; it can easily be turned off under the lights attribute by unchecking "Affect reflections" (Fig.11).

Fig. 11 Fig.

Fig. 11 Fig.

If the light should block your view, check "invisible" in the attributes for the light. Here is a quick test I did (Fig.12)!

Fig: 12

I hope that this simple tutorial can help you to get started with VRay For Maya!
Cheers! Dennis

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