Ivy Generator Scene with V-Ray 2.0

Hi, I am Luis Fábregas and in this tutorial you will learn how to use the Ivy Generator on a simple V-Ray scene in 3ds Max. The Ivy Generator is a free piece of software created by Thomas Luft and you can download it on his website

The first thing we can do is create a simple scene with a plane and a torus knot in the middle of the scene (Fig.01).

Fig. 01 id_Fig.

Fig. 01 id_Fig.

Add a V-Ray light on both sides of scene and another one in front of torus (Fig.02).

Fig. 02 id_Fig.

Fig. 02 id_Fig.

You can see the parameters of all the lights in the new V-Ray 2.0 feature: V-Ray Light Lister. Open the Tools panel and then open V-Ray Light Lister to change all the light parameters at once without having to click on them one by one (Fig.03).

Fig. 03 id_Fig.

Fig. 03 id_Fig.

You must know that the more subdivisions you have on lights the greater quality you will achieve, but the heavier the render will be. Place a camera in front of the scene and activate the lights, as shown in Fig.04.

Fig. 04 id_Fig.

Fig. 04 id_Fig.

I have used these concrete and rock textures for the scene wall and the rock. You only need to use diffuse and bump maps to achieve a clean render (Fig.05).

Fig. 05 id_Fig.

Fig. 05 id_Fig.

Apply an UVW map to geometry and create VRayMtls with your favorite textures (Fig.06).

Fig. 06 id_Fig.

Fig. 06 id_Fig.

Now it's time to export the entire scene into the Ivy Generator. Create a copy of the entire scene and attach it to create a single mesh (do not remove or attach the original scene). Export it as an OBJ using the ZBrush preset and don't forget to change the faces to Triangles. If you export a mesh to Ivy Generator in quads it will not work (Fig.07).

Fig. 07 id_Fig.

Fig. 07 id_Fig.

Open the Ivy Generator and click on import obj+mtl (Fig.08).

Fig. 08 id_Fig.

Fig. 08 id_Fig.

Click on the grid to open the geometry. After that, click twice to create the starting point where the ivy grows. You will see a green point. You can change the parameters as you like. Then click Grow (Fig.09).

Fig. 09 d_Fig.

Fig. 09 d_Fig.

You can stop the ivy growing by clicking on the grow button again. If you want to try another setup then click twice on the grid to create another seed (Fig.10).

Fig. 10 d_Fig.

Fig. 10 d_Fig.

If you like it, click Birth to see the final result. It will activate all the geometry (Fig.11).

Fig. 11 d_Fig.

Fig. 11 d_Fig.

Export the final result to 3ds Max and don't worry because it will only export the ivy mesh. Import as an OBJ in Max and it will look like this (Fig.12).

Fig. 12 d_Fig.

Fig. 12 d_Fig.

Let's create a material for this new mesh. Every element of the ivy has a different ID so you can use a Multi/Sub-Object material. Now you can apply a VRayMtl with a different ID for each element (Fig.13).

Fig. 13 d_Fig.

Fig. 13 d_Fig.

Click on None, select VRayMtl and put the leaf texture in the diffuse slot (you can find the textures in the downloaded files).

Copy the diffuse texture to the opacity slot and open the bitmap parameters. In the mono channel output change the RGB intensity to Alpha (this texture contains its own alpha).

Do the same with the other leaf texture (Fig.14).

Fig. 14 d_Fig.

Fig. 14 d_Fig.

It's time to render so open the V-Ray render setup. For a better quality I have activated the Ambient Occlusion (Indirect Illumination: GI).  

Activate the environment with an HDR image.

On the V-Ray camera, activate Depth of Field and activate Get From Camera and it will then use the target camera to blur the image. Use the aperture to change the intensity of the DoF.

To reduce the noise open the Adaptive subdivision image sampler. The Clr thresh setting controls the noise filter (low = better quality, but a slower render)(Fig.15).

Fig. 15 d_Fig.

Fig. 15 d_Fig.

After a few hours (720p) your render will look like this (Fig.16).

Fig. 16 d_Fig.

Fig. 16 d_Fig.

To get a realistic final image I have used Photoshop to change the contrast, lighting color and add some film grain (Fig.17).

Fig. 17 d_Fig.

Fig. 17 d_Fig.

Thanks for reading this tutorial, I hope you enjoyed it.

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