Rendering

During the testing period I used universal settings, but I decided that I wanted to create an image over 3500 pixels high so universal settings were no longer an option. For the final images I used an irradiance map and light cache. I won't explain much about the settings except that I rendered the first images at a smaller resolution (four times lower that the final output; in my case it would be 875 x 619 pixels) and saved the irradiance map pre-passes (*.vrmap) plus the light cache map (*.vrlmap) to use afterwards for the final image. By using these maps you can skip the irradiance and light cache process and go straight to the render itself.

Take a look at the GI settings in Fig.24, which are the ones I used for the 875 x 619 render. In the irradiance map settings I set the Min and Max rate to -3 and 0 respectively. That meant a high quality irradiance map. If I had tried to render the final image with these settings it would have been impossible, but since I was rendering at a lower resolution I just saved the irradiance and light cache maps as it wouldn't take much longer to render than 1 hour on an 8 core computer. After the irradiance and light cache maps were calculated and saved I went back to the render settings and set the resolution to 3500 x 2625 pixels. Also, in the Mode section of the irradiance map settings, I changed Single Frame to a *.vrmap file and saved it. I also did that for the light cache file. For a good explanation of this process, check out the V-Ray Complete Guide written by Franscesco Legrenzi.



Fig.25 shows the V-Ray render and color mapping settings.

Post-production

Everything was done in Photoshop except the last part where I used After Effects Magic Bullet Misfire Vignette. You can see this in the free video you can download with this tutorial.

Click here to download the movie associated with this tutorial