VRAY MANUAL

Plugins
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While V-Ray works with most of the standard 3ds Max lights, materials and maps, it also includes
several additional plugins which offer functionality not found in 3ds Max itself. They are specially
optimized for work with V-Ray and using them instead of the standard ones can increase rendering
speed significantly.

The V-Ray rendering system includes the following plugins for 3ds Max:

Plugin name Description
V-Ray renderer The V-Ray renderer plugin
VRay2SidedMtl A utility material that allows to create thin translucent surfaces like paper, cloth etc.
VRayOverrideMtl
A utility material that allows to specify different materials to be used for reflections, GI,
refractions and shadows.
VRayLightMtl A material for creating light-emitting objects.
VRayMtl
A specialized V-Ray material supporting (glossy) reflections/refractions, absorption, sub-
surface scattering etc.
VRayMtlWrapper
A specialized V-Ray material that allows you to specify additional rendering parameters
for any material.
VRayLight An area light plugin
VRaySun
A V-Ray sun light with accurate intensity and color based on its position over the
horizon.
VRaySky
A procedural HDR environmap map that works with the VRaySun light to create realistic
daylight environments.
VRayShadow A raytraced shadow plugin (sharp and area shadows)
VRayDirt
A procedural texture that can be used for dirt-like effects or for simulating ambient
occlusion.
VRayColor A utility texture that always returns a specified color.
VRayMap A map for adding (glossy) V-Ray reflections/refractions to non-V-Ray materials
VRayHDRI A map for loading HDR images (.hdr file extension) and mapping them as environments
VRayEdgesTex
A map that shows mesh edges (useful for wireframe-style rendering). Can also be used as
a bump map to smooth the sharp edges of mesh objects.
VRayDisplacementMod A modifier that enables the V-Ray displacement for an object
VRayFur A plugin that generates simple render-time fur
VRayProxy
A plugin that allows you to specify render-time geometry that will be loaded from an
external file
VRayPlane A geometry plugin that implements an infinite plane primitive.
VRayToon An atmospheric plugin that produces simple cartoon-style effect.
VRayBmpFilter A plugin for loading texture maps without filtering.
VRayPhysicalCamera A new camera type that allows to simulate the workings of a real-world camera.
VRayFastSSS A material for quick simulation of sub-surface scattering
VRayFastSSS2 An advanced material for quick simulation of sub-surface scattering
VRayEnvironmentFog
An enviromental effect that allows the simulation of participating media like fog or dust
in the atmosphere
VRayBlendMtl A utlity material for efficient layering of several different materials.

RENDER
V-Ray renderer parameters
Home

V-Ray is a renderer plugin for 3ds Max. In order to use V-Ray, you must first select it as your current
renderer. You can do that by clicking on the Assign... button in the Current renderers rollout of the
Render Scene dialog:

In 3ds Max 9 and later, the V-Ray parameters are
divided into several tabs in the render scene
dialog; additionally each tab is divided into several
rollouts:




















FRAME BUFFER


General
Parameters
Hidden parameters
VFB toolbar
VFB shortcuts
Notes

Search Keywords: VFB, G-buffer, frame buffer, render pass
General
In addition to rendering to the 3ds Max Rendered Frame Window (RFW or VFB), V-Ray allows you to
render to a V-Ray specific frame buffer, which has some additional capabilities:
Allows you to view all render elements in a single window and switch between them easily;
Keeps the image in full 32-bit floating-point format;
Allows you to perform simple color corrections on the rendered image;
Allows you to choose the order in which the buckets are rendered.
The V-Ray VFB also has some limitations, which are listed in the Notes section below.
Parameters

Show last VFB - If you have rendered to the V-Ray VFB, but have closed it, this button allows you to
open it again. The same can also be achieved with the showLastVFB() MaxScript method of the V-
Ray renderer.

Enable built-in frame buffer - Enables the use of built-in V-Ray frame buffer. Due to technical
reasons, the original 3ds Max frame buffer still exists and is being created. However, when this
feature is turned on - V-Ray will not render any data to the 3ds Max frame buffer. In order to preserve
memory consumption we recommend that you set the original 3ds Max resolution to a very low value
(like 100x100) and turn off the 3ds Max Virtual Frame Buffer from the common 3ds Max render
settings.

Render to memory frame buffer - this will create a V-Ray frame buffer and will use it to store color
data that you can observe while rendering and afterwards. If you wish to render really high resolutions
that would not fit into memory or that may eat up a lot of your RAM not allowing for the scene to
render properly - you can turn this feature off and use only Render to V-Ray raw image file feature.

Get resolution from 3ds Max - this will cause the V-Ray VFB to take its resolution from the 3ds Max
common render settings.

Output resolution - this is the resolution that you wish to use with the V-Ray frame buffer.

Pixel aspect - specifies the pixel aspect for the rendered image in the V-Ray frame buffer.

Render to V-Ray raw image file - when this is on, V-Ray directly writes to disk the raw image data as
it is being rendered. It does not store any data in the RAM, so this feature is very handy when
rendering huge resolutions for preserving memory. If you wish to see what is being rendered, you can
turn on the Generate preview setting. You can specify either a .vrimg or an .exr file for output:
If you specify a .vrimg extension, the resulting file can be viewed through the File > View
image... menu of 3ds Max, or converted to an OpenEXR file with the help of the vrimg2exr
tool.
If you specify an .exr extension, V-Ray will write out a tiled OpenEXR file that can be used
directly by 3ds Max or other compositing applications. The file contains all render elements for
the image.

Generate preview - this will create a small preview of what is being rendered. If you are not using the
V-Ray memory frame buffer for conserving memory (i.e. Render to memory frame buffer is off), you
can use this feature to see a small image of what is being actually rendered and stop the renderer if
there is anything that looks wrong.

Save separate render channels - this option allows you to save the channels from the VFB into
separate files. Use the Browse... button to specify the file. This option is available only when
rendering to a memory frame buffer. If rendering is done only to a raw image file, the render channels
can be extracted from that file after rendering is complete.

Save RGB and Save Alpha - these options allow you to disable saving of the RGB and Alpha
channels respectively. This can be useful if you only want to generate other render channels. Note
that V-Ray will still generate the RGB and Alpha channels, however they will not be saved.
Hidden parameters
There are some additional parameters of the VFB, which are not available in the interface, but are
accessible through MaxScript. These may be useful in certain situations. Below are listed the
MaxScript names of these parameters.

output_renderType - This allows you to override the render type, specified in the 3ds Max settings.
Possible values are:
0 - use 3ds Max render type (default);
1 - render the full image;
2 - region rendering;
3 - crop rendering;
4 - blow-up rendering.

output_regxmin - The left coordinate (in pixels) of the region to render (for region/crop/blow-up
rendering);

output_regxmax - The right coordinate (in pixels) of the region to render (for region/drop/blow-up
rendering);

output_regymin - The top coordinate (in pixels) of the region to render (for region/drop/blow-up
rendering);

output_regymax - The bottom coordinate (in pixels) of the region to render (for region/drop/blow-up
rendering);
VFB toolbar

This part of the toolbar sets the currently selected channel, as well as the
preview mode. Choose which channels to see with the help of the buttons.
You can also view the rendered image in monochromatic mode.


This will save the current frame data to a file.You can turn this on and of on-the-fly while rendering.

This will create a 3ds Max virtual frame buffer copy of the current V-Ray frame buffer.You can turn
this on and of on-the-fly while rendering.

This will force V-Ray to render the closest bucket found to the mouse pointer. Drag the mouse over
the V-Ray frame buffer while rendering to see which buckers are rendered first. You can turn this on
and of on-the-fly while rendering.

This option allows you to render regions in the V-Ray VFB

This open permanently the info dialog which will give you information about the pixel you right-click
the mouse pointer on. If you right-click the mouse pointer over a pixel without turning this setting on -
then you will see the info dialog only while yuor mouse button is down

This will open a so called "levels control" dialog which will let you define color corrections of various
color channels. It will also show the histogram of the currently contained image data in the buffer.
Click and drag your mid-button in the histogram to interactively scale the preview.

Clears the contents of the frame buffer. Somethimes helpful when starting a new render to prevent
confusion with the previous image.


VFB shortcuts
Here is the list of shortcuts you can use to navigate through the VFB image. Please note that VFB
window must have the curent focus for the shortcuts to have effect:

Mouse Description
CTRL+LeftClick,
CTRL+RightClick
Zoom in/Zoom out
Roll the mouse-rollon
button up/down
Zoom in/Zoom out
Double-click LeftButton Zoom to 100%
RightClick Show the info dialog with the properties of the last pixel clicked. In order to see
the info non-stop - turn on the info dialog button
MidButton dragging view pan (hand tool)

Keyboard Description
+/ - Zoom in/Zoom out
* Zoom to 100%
Arrow keys Pan left, up, right, down

Notes
The V-Ray VFB does not display the G-Buffer layers (like Coverage etc.);
The V-Ray VFB does not work with stripe rendering;
Even though you select the V-Ray VFB as your output, the 3ds Max VFB is still created and
thus takes additional memory. If you want to reduce that memory, you need to uncheck
the Get resolution from MAXoption, set the 3ds ax resolution to a low value like 100 x 100,
and then select your real output resolution in the V-Ray VFB options.
If you have selected an output image file from the Common tab of the Render Scene dialog,
V-Ray will fill out the 3ds Max RFW, and this will be saved as your image. If you want to save
the V-Ray VFB instead, you should use the Split render channels or Render to V-Ray raw
image file option of the V-Ray VFB.
The OpenEXR file format is an open file format for high dynamic range images originally
developed by Industrial Light and Magic. The official site of the OpenEXR file format
is http://www.openexr.com/


Global switches
Home Render params Examples

General
Parameters
Geometry section
Lighting section
Materials section
Indirect illumination section
Raytracing section
Compatibility section

Search Keywords: switches, global switches
General
The global switches allow you to control various aspects of the renderer globally.
Parameters
Geometry section

Displacement - enables (default) or disables V-Ray's own displacement mapping. Note that this has
no effect on standard Max displacement mapping, which can be controlled via the corresponding
parameter in the Render Scene dialog.

Force back face culling - enables or disables (default) back face culling for camera and shadow
rays. When this option is on, the surfaces of objects which are turned away from the camera (or the
light source, when tracing shadows) will appear fully transparent. This allows to look inside closed
objects when the camera is outside.

Lighting section

Lights - enables or disables lights globally. Note that if you uncheck this, V-Ray will use the default
lights. If you do not want any direct lighting in your scene, you must uncheck both this and the Default
lights parameters.

Default lights - allows you to control the default lights in the scene.
- Off - the default lights in the scene will be always switched off

-On - the default lights are always switched on when there are no lights in the scene or when you
have disabled lighting globally (see Light parameter).

-Off with GI - the default lights will be switched off only when the Global Illumination is enabled or if
there are lights in the scene

Hidden lights - enables or disables the usage of hidden lights. When this is checked, lights are
rendered regardless of whether they are hidden or not. When this option is off, any lights that are
hidden for any reason (either explicitly or by type) will not be included in the rendering.

Shadows - enables or disables shadows globally.

Show GI only - when this option is on, direct lighting will not be included in the final rendering. Note
that lights will still be considered for GI calculations, however in the end only the indirect lighting will
be shown.

Materials section

Reflection/refraction - enables or disables the calculation of reflections and refractions in V-Ray
maps and materials.

Max depth - enables the user to limit globally the reflection/refraction depth. When this is unchecked,
the depth is controlled locally by the materials/maps. When this option is checked, all materials and
maps use the depth specified here.

Maps - enables or disables texture maps.

Filter maps - enables or disables texture map filtering. When enabled, the depth is controlled locally
by the settings of the texture maps. When disabled, no filtering is performed.

Filter maps for GI - enable or disable texture filtering during GI calculations and glossy
reflections/refractions. When off (the default), texture maps are not filtered for GI and glossy
reflections/refractions in order to speed up the calculations. If this option is on, textures will be filtered
in these cases.

Max. transp levels - this controls to what depth transparent objects will be traced.

Transp. cutoff - this controls when tracing of transparent objects will be stopped. If the accumulated
transparency of a ray is below this threshold, no further tracing will be performed.

Override mtl - this option allows the user to override the scene materials when rendering. All objects
will be rendered with the chosen material, if one is selected, or with their default wireframe materials if
no material is specified.

Override exclude - clicking this button brings up the 3ds Max Include/Exclude dialog which allows
you to select exactly for which objects the material is overridden.

Glossy effects - this option allows the user to replace all glossy reflections in the scene with non-
glossy ones; useful for test renderings.

I ndirect illumination section

Don't render final image - when this option is on, V-Ray will only calculate the relevant global
illumination maps (photon maps, light maps, irradiance maps). This is a useful option if you are
calculating maps for a fly-through animation.

Raytracing section

Secondary rays bias - a small positive offset that will be applied to all secondary rays; this can be
used if you have overlapping faces in the scene to avoid the black splotches that may appear. See
the Examples section for a demonstration of the effect of this parameter. This parameter is also useful
when using the 3ds Max Render-to-texture feature.

Compatibility section

Legacy sun/sky/camera models - previous versions of V-Ray used slightly different calculation
models for theVRaySun, VRaySky and VRayPhysicalCamera which were not entirely physically
accurate. When this option isoff (the default), V-Ray uses improved and more accurate models.
When this is on, V-Ray will switch to the old models for compatibility with old scenes. When an old
scene is opened, V-Ray will automatically display a dialog asking if you want to change this setting.

Use 3ds Max photometric scale - when on (the default), this option aligns
the VRayLight, VRaySun, VRaySkyand VRayPhysicalCamera to the photometric units used by 3ds
Max and its photometric lights. When this is off, these plugins operate in the internal V-Ray
photometric space, like in older versions of V-Ray. Keeping this option on ensures that a VRayLight
with a given power will match a 3ds Max photometric light with the same power.

Image Sampler Antialiasing)

General
Parameters
Fixed rate sampler
Adaptive DMC sampler
Adaptive subdivision sampler
Notes
General
In V-Ray, an image sampler refers to an algorithm for sampling and filtering the image function, and
producing the final array of pixels that constitute the rendered image.

V-Ray implements several algorithms for sampling an image. All image samplers support MAX's
standard antialiasing filters, although at the cost of increased rendering time. You can choose
between Fixed ratesampler, Adaptive DMC sampler and Adaptive subdivision sampler.
Parameters



I mage sampler

Type - specifies the image sampler type:

Fixed - this sampler always takes the same number of samples per pixel;

Adaptive DMC - this sampler takes a variable number of samples per pixel depending on the
difference in the intensity of the pixels;

Adaptive subdivision - this sampler divides the image into an adaptive grid-like structure and refines
depending on the difference in pixel intensity.

Antialiasing filter

This section allows you to choose an antialiasing filter. All standard 3ds Max filters are supported with
the exception of the Plate Match filter. See the Examples section for more information on antialiasing
filters.
Fixed rate sampler
This is the simplest image
sampler, and it takes a fixed number of samples for each pixel.

Subdivs - determines number of samples per pixel. When this is set to 1, one sample at the center of
each pixel is taken. If this is greater than 1, the samples are distributed within the pixel. The actual
number of pixels is the square of this parameter (e.g. 4subdivs produce 16 samples per pixel).
Adaptive DMC sampler
This sampler makes a
variable number of samples per pixel based on the difference in intensity between the pixel and its
neighbors.

This is the preferred sampler for images with lots of small details (like VRayFur, for example) and/or
blurry effects (DOF, motion blur, glossy reflections etc). It also takes up less RAM than the Adaptive
subdivision sampler.

Min subdivs - determines the initial (minimum) number of samples taken for each pixel. You will
rarely need to set this to more than 1, except if you have very thin lines that are not captured
correctly, or fast moving objects if you use motion blur. The actual number of pixels is the square of
this number (e.g. 4 subdivs produce 16samples per pixel).

Max subdivs - determines the maximum number of samples for a pixel. The actual maximum number
of sampler is the square of this number (e.g. 4 subdivs produces a maximum of 16 samples). Note
that V-Ray may take less than the maximum number of samples, if the difference in intensity of the
neighbouring pixels is small enough.

Use DMC sampler threshold - when this is on (the default), V-Ray will use the threshold specified in
the DMC sampler to determine if more samples are needed for a pixel. When this is off, the Color
threshold parameter will be used instead.

Color threshold - the threshold that will be used to determine if a pixel needs more samples. This is
ignored if the Use DMC sampler threshold option is on.

Show samples - if this is on, V-Ray will show an image where the pixel brightness is directly
proportional to the number of samples taken at this pixel. This is useful for fine-tuning the antialiasing
of the image.
Adaptive subdivision sampler
This is an advanced image
sampler capable of undersampling (taking less than one sample per pixel). In the absence of blurry
effects (direct GI, DOF, glossy reflection/reftaction etc) this is the best preferred image sampler in V-
Ray. On average it takes fewer samples (and thus less time) to achieve the same image quality as
the other image samplers. However, with detailed textures and/or blurry effects, it can be slower and
produce worse results than the other two methods.

Also note that this sampler takes up more RAM than the other two samplers - see the Notes below.

Min. rate - controls minimum number of samples per pixel. A value of zero means one sample per
pixel; -1means one sample every two pixels; -2 means one sample every 4 pixels etc.

Max. rate - controls maximum number of samples per pixel; zero means one sample per pixel, 1
means four samples, 2 means eight samples etc.

Color threshold - determines the sensitivity of the sampler to changes in pixel intensity. Lower values
will produce better results, while higher values will be faster, but may leave some areas of similar
intensity undersampled.

Randomize samples - displaces the samples slightly to produce better antialiasing of nearly
horizontal or vertical lines.

Object outline - this will cause the image sampler to always supersample object edges (regardless of
whether they actually need to be supersampled). This option has no effect if DOF or motion blur is
enabled.

Normals - this will supersample areas with sharply varying normals. This option has no effect if DOF
or motion blur is enabled.

Show samples - if this is on, V-Ray will show an image where the pixel brightness is directly
proportional to the number of samples taken at this pixel. This is useful for fine-tuning the antialiasing
of the image.
Notes
Which sampler to use for a given scene? The answer is best found with experiments, but here
are some tips:
o For smooth scenes with only a few blurry effects and smooth textures, the Adaptive
subdivisionsampler with its ability to undersample the image is unbeatable.
o For images with detailed textures or lots of geometry detail and only a few blurry
effects, theAdaptive DMC sampler performs best. Also in the case of animations
involving detailed textures, theAdaptive subdivision sampler might produce jittering
which the Adaptive DMC sampler avoids.
o For complex scenes with lots of blurry effects and/or detailed textures, the Fixed
rate sampler performs best and is very predictable with regards to the quality and
render time.
A note on RAM usage: image samplers require substantial amount of RAM to store
information about each bucket. Using large bucket sizes may take a lot of RAM. This is
especially true for the Adaptive subdivision sampler, which stores all individual sub-samples
taken within a bucket. The Adaptive DMCsampler and the Fixed rate sampler on the other
hand only store the summed result of all sub-samples for a pixel and so usually require less
RAM.

Indirect illumination (GI)

General
Approaches to indirect illumination
Primary and secondary bounces
Parameters
Notes

General
Approaches to indirect illumination
V-Ray implements several approaches for computing indirect illumination with different trade-offs
between quality and speed:

Brute force - this is the simplest approach; indirect illumination is computed independently for
each shaded surface point by tracing a number of rays in different directions on the
hemisphere above that point.

Advantages:
o this approach preserves all the detail (e.g. small and sharp shadows) in the indirect
lighting;
o it is free from defects like flickering in animations;
o no additional memory is required;
o indirect illumination in the case of motion-blurred moving objects is computed
correctly.
Disadvantages:
o the approach is very slow for complex images (e.g. interior lighting);
o it tends to produce noise in the images, which can be avoided only by shooting a
larger number of rays, thus slowing it even more.
Irradiance map - this approach is based on irradiance caching; the basic idea is to compute
the indirect illumination only at some points in the scene, and interpolate for the rest of the
points.

Advantages:
o the irradiance map is very fast compared to direct computation, especially for scenes
with large flat areas;
o the noise inherent to direct computation is greatly reduced;
o the irradiance map can be saved an re-used to speed up calculations of different
views for the same scene and of fly-through animations;
o the irradiance map can also be used to accelerate direct diffuse lighting from area
light sources.
Disadvantages:
o some details in indirect lighting can be lost or blurred due to the interpolation;
o if low settings are used, flickering may occur when rendering animations;
o the irradiance map requires additional memory;
o indirect illumination with motion-blurred moving objects is not entirely correct and may
lead to noise (although in most cases this is not noticeable).
Photon map - this approach is based on tracing particles starting from the light sources and
bouncing around the scene. This is useful for interior or semi-interior scenes whith lots of
lights or small windows. The photon map usually does not produce good enough results to be
used directly; however it can be used as a rough approximation to the lighting in the scene to
speed the calculation of GI through direct computation or irradiance map.

Advantages:
o the photon map can produce a rough approximation of the lighting in the scene very
quickly;
o the photon map can be saved an re-used to speed up calculation of different views
for the same scene and of fly-through animations;
o the photon map is view-independent.
Disadvantages:
o the photon map usually is not suitable for direct visualization;
o requires additional memory;
o in V-Ray's implementation, illumination involving motion-blurred moving objects is not
entirely correct (although this is not a problem in most cases).
o the photon map needs actual lights in order to work; it cannot be used to produce
indirect illumination caused by environment lights (skylight).

Light cache - light caching is a technique for approximating the global illumination in a scene.
It is very similar to photon mapping, but without many of its limitations. The light map is built
by tracing many 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. The
light map is a universal GI solution that can be used for both interior or exterior scenes, either
directly or as a secondary bounce approximation when used with the irradiance map or the
brute force GI method.

Advantages:
o the light cache is easy to set up. We only have the camera to trace rays from, as
opposed to the photon map, which must process each light in the scene and usually
requires separate setup for each light.
o the light-caching approach works efficiently with any lights - including skylight, self-
illuminated objects, non-physical lights, photometric lights etc. In contrast, the photon
map is limited in the lighting effects it can reproduce - for example, the photon map
cannot reproduce the illumination from skylight or from standard omni lights without
inverse-square falloff.
o the light cache produces correct results in corners and around small objects. The
photon map, on the other hand, relies on tricky density estimation schemes, which
often produce wrong results in these cases, either darkening or brightening those
areas.
o in many cases the light cache can be visualized directly for very fast and smooth
previews of the lighting in the scene.

Disadvantages:
o like the irradiance map, the light cache is view-dependent and is generated for a
particular position of the camera. However, it generates an approximation for
indirectly visible parts of the scene as well - for example, one light cache can
approximate completely the GI in a closed room;
o currently the light cache works only with V-Ray materials;
o like the photon map, the light cache is not adaptive. The irradiance is computed at a
fixed resolution, which is determined by the user;
o the light cache does not work very well with bump maps; use the irradiance map or
brute force GI if you want to achieve better results with bump maps.
o lighting involving motion-blurred moving objects is not entirely correct, but is very
smooth since the light cache blurs GI in time as well (as opposed to the irradiance
map, where each sample is computed at a particular instant of time).

Which method to use? That depends on the task at hand. The Examples section can help you in
choosing a suitable method for your scene.
Primary and secondary bounces
The indirect illumination controls in V-Ray are divided into two large sections: controls
concerning primary diffuse bounces and controls concerning secondary diffuse bounces. A primary
diffuse bounce occurs when a shaded point is directly visible by the camera, or through specular
reflective or refractive surfaces. A secondary bounce occurs when a shaded point is used in GI
calculations.
Parameters
On - turn indirect
illumination on and off.
GI caustics
GI caustics represent light
that has gone through one
diffuse, and one or several
specular reflections (or
refractions). GI caustics
can can be generated by
skylight, or self-illuminated
objects, for example.
However, caustics caused
by direct lights cannot be
simulated in this way. You must use the separate Caustics section to control direct light caustics. Note
that GI caustics are usually hard to sample and may introduce noise in the GI solution.

Refractive GI caustics - this allows indirect lighting to pass through transparent objects (glass etc).
Note that this is not the same as Caustics, which represent direct light going through transparent
objects. You need refractive GI caustics to get skylight through windows, for example.

Reflective GI caustics - this allows indirect light to be reflected from specular objects (mirrors etc).
Note that this is not the same as Caustics, which represent direct light going through specular
surfaces. This is off by default, becase reflective GI caustics usually contribute little to the final
illumination, while often they produce undesired sublte noise.
Post-processing
These controls allow additional modification of the indirect illumination, before it is added to the final
rendering. The default values ensure a physically accurate result; however the user may want to
modify the way GI looks for artistic purposes.

Saturation - controls the saturation of the GI; a value of 0.0 means that all color will be removed from
the GI solution and will be in shades of grey only. The default value of 1.0 means the GI solution
remains unmodified. Values above 1.0 boost the colors in the GI solution.

Contrast - this parameter works together with Contrast base to boost the contrast of the GI solution.
When Contrast is 0.0, the GI solution becomes completely uniform with the value defined by Contrast
base. A value of1.0 means the solution remains unmodified. Values higher that 1.0 boost the contrast.

Contrast base - this parameter determines the base for the contrast boost. It defines the GI values
that remain unchanged during the contrast calculations.
Ambient occlusion
These controls allow you to add an ambient occlusion term to the global illumination solution.

On - enable or disable ambient occlusion.

Amount - the amount of ambient occlusion. A value of 0.0 will produce no ambient occlusion.

Radius - ambient occlusion radius.

Subdivs - determines the number of samples used for calculating ambient occlusion. Lower values
will render faster, but might introduce noise.
Primary diffuse bounces
Multiplier - this value determines how much primary diffuse bounces contribute to the final image
illumination. Note that the default value of 1.0 produces a physically accurate image. Other values are
possible, but not physically plausible.

Primary GI engine - the list box specifies the method to be used for primary diffuse bounces.

Irradiance map - selecting this will cause V-Ray to use an irradiance map for primary diffuse
bounces. See the Irradiance map section for more information.

Global photon map - selecting this option will cause V-Ray to use a photon map for primary diffuse
bounces. This mode is useful when setting up the parameters of the global photon map. Usually it
does not produce good enough results for final renderings when used as a primary GI engine. See
the Global photon map section for more information.

Brute force - selecting this method will cause V-Ray to use direct computation for primary diffuse
bounces. See the brute force GI section for more information.

Light cache - this chooses the light cache as the primary GI engine. See the Light cache section for
more information.
Secondary diffuse bounces
Multiplier - this determines the effect of secondary diffuse bounces on the scene illumination. Values
close to 1.0 may tend to wash out the scene, while values around 0.0 may produce a dark image.
Note that the default value of 1.0 produces physically accurate results. While other values are
possible, they are not physically plausible.

Secondary diffuse bounces method - this parameter determines how V-Ray will calculate
secondary diffuse bounces.

None - no secondary bounces will be computed. Use this option to produce skylit images without
indirect color bleeding.

Global photon map - selecting this option will cause V-Ray to use a photon map for primary diffuse
bounces. This mode is useful when setting up the parameters of the global photon map. Usually it
does not produce good enough results for final renderings when used as a primary GI engine. See
the Global photon map section for more information.

Brute force - selecting this method will cause V-Ray to use direct computation for primary diffuse
bounces. See the Brute force GI section for more information.

Light cache - this chooses the light cache as the primary GI engine. See the Light cache section for
more information.
Notes
V-Ray does not have a separate skylight system. The skylight effect can be achieved by
setting the background color or environment map in the 3ds Max environment dialog, or in V-
Ray's own Environment rollout.
You will get physically accurate lighting if you set both the primary and secondary GI
multipliers to their default value of 1.0. While other values are possible, they will not produce a
physically accurate result.

Brute force GI

Search Keywords: brute force, direct calculation, GI
General
This section is available only if you have chosen Brute force as either the primary or the secondary
GI engine.

The brute force method for computing global illumination recomputes the GI values for every single
shaded point separately and independently from other points. While very slow, this method is very
accurate, especially if you have many small details in the scene.

To speed up brute force GI, you can use a faster method (the photon map or the light map) for
approximating secondary GI bounces, while using the brute force method for the primary bounces.
Parameters
Subdivs - this determines
the number of samples used to approximate GI. Note that this is not the exact number of rays that V-
Ray will trace. The number of rays is proportional to the square of this number, but also depends on
the settings in the DMC sampler rollout.

Secondary bounces - this parameter is available only if brute force GI is selected as a secondary GI
engine. It controls the number of light bounces that will be computed.

Irradiance map

General
Parameters
Built-in presets
Basic parameters
Options
Detail enhancement
Advanced options
Mode
On render end
Notes

General
This section allows the user to control and fine-tune various aspects of the irradiance map. This
section is enabled only when the irradiance map is chosen as the GI method for primary diffuse
bounces.

Some background for understanding how the irradiance map works is necessary in order to grasp the
meaning of these parameters.

Irradiance is a function defined for any point in the 3D space and represents the light arriving at this
point from all possible directions. In general, irradiance is different in every point and in every
direction. However, there are two useful restrictions that can be made. The first is the surface
irradiance - which is the irradiance arriving at points which lie on the surface of objects in the scene.
This is a natural restriction since we are usually interested in the illumination of objects in the scene,
and objects are usually defined through their surface. The second restriction is that of diffuse surface
irradiance - which is the total amount of light arriving at a given surface point, disregarding the
direction from which it comes.

In more simple terms, one can think of the diffuse surface irradiance as being the visible color of a
surface, if we assume that its material is purely white and diffuse.

In V-Ray, the term irradiance map refers to a method of efficiently computing the diffuse surface
irradiance for objects in the scene. Since not all parts of the scene have the same detail in indirect
illumination, it makes sense to compute GI more accurately in the important parts (e.g. where objects
are close to each other, or in places with sharp GI shadows), and less accurately in uninteresting
parts (e.g. large uniformly lit areas). The irradiance map is therefore built adaptively. This is done by
rendering the image several times (each rendering is called a pass) with the rendering resolution
being doubled with each pass. The idea is to start with a low resolution (say a quarter of the resolution
of the final image) and work up to the final image resolution.

The irradiance map is in fact a collection of points in 3d space (a point cloud) along with the computed
indirect illumination at those points. When an object is hit during a GI pass, V-Ray looks into the
irradiance map to see if there are any points similar in position and orientation to the current one.
From those already computed points, V-Ray can extract various information (i.e. if there are any
objects close by, how fast the indirect illumination is varying etc). Based on that information, V-Ray
decides if the indirect illumination for the current point can be adequately interpolated from the points
already in the irradiance map, or not. If not, the indirect illumination for the current point is computed,
and that point is stored in the irradiance map. During the actual rendering, V-Ray uses a sophisticated
interpolation method to derive an approximation of the irradiance for all surfaces in the scene.







PARAMETER
Built-in presets
Current preset - this
dropdown list allows you
to choose from several
presets for some of the
irradiance map
parameters. You can use
these to quickly set the
color, normal and distance
thresholds, as well as the
min/max rates. The
following presets are
available:

Very low - this
preset is only
useful for preview
purposes to show
the general
lighting in the
scene.
Low - a low-
quality preset for
preview purposes
Medium - a
medium quality
preset; works fine
in many situations
in scenes which
have don't small
details.
Medium
animation - a
medium quality
preset targeted at
reducing flickering
in animations -
the Distance threshold is higher.
High - a high-quality preset that works in most situations, even for scenes with small details
as well as for most animations.
High animation - a high-quality preset that can be used if the High preset produces flickering
in animations - the Distance threshold is higher.
Very high - a very high quality preset; can be used for scenes with extremely small and
intricate details.

Note that the presets are targeted for a typical 640x480 image. Larger images usually can do with
lower Min/Max rates than those specified in the presets.
Basic parameters
Min rate - this value determines the resolution for the first GI pass. A value of 0 means the resolution
will be the same as the resolution of the final rendered image, which will make the irradiance map
similar to the direct computation method. A value of -1 means the resolution will be half that of the
final image and so on. You would usually want to keep this negative, so that GI is quickly computed
for large and flat regions in the image. This parameter is similar to (although not the same as) the Min
rate parameter of the Adaptive subdivision image sampler.

Max rate - this value determines the resolution of the last GI pass. This is similar to (although not the
same as) the Max rate parameter of the Adaptive subdivision image sampler.

Color threshold (Clr thresh) - this parameter controls how sensitive the irradiance map algorithm is
to changes in indirect lighting. Larger values mean less sensitivity; smaller values make the irradiance
map more sensitive to light changes (thus producing higher quality images).

Normal threshold (Nrm thresh) - this parameter controls how sensitive the irradiance map is to
changes in surface normals and small surface details. Larger values mean less sensitivity; smaller
values make the irradiance map more sensitive to surface curvature and small details.

Distance threshold (Dist thresh) - this parameter controls how sensitive the irradiance map is to
distance between surfaces. A value of 0.0 means the irradiance map will not depend on object
proximity at all; higher values place more samples in places where objects are close to each other.

Hemispheric subdivs (HSph. subdivs) - this controls the quality of individual GI samples. Smaller
values make things faster, but may produce blotchy result. Higher values produce smoother images.
This is similar to theSubdivs parameter for direct computation. Note that this is not the actual number
of rays that will be traced. The actual number of rays is proportional to the square of this value and
also depends on the settings in the DMC sampler rollout.

Interpolation samples - this is the number of GI samples that will be used to interpolate the indirect
illumination at a given point. Larger values tend to blur the detail in GI although the result will be
smoother. Smaller values produce results with more detail, but may produce blotchiness if
low Hemispheric subdivs are used. Note that if you use interpolated irradiance maps (i.e.
the Mode is set to Animation (rendering)), V-Ray will actually multiply this value by the number of
irradiance maps used. For example, if you have the Interpolation samplesset to 20, and
the Interpolation frames to 2, V-Ray will actually use 100 samples to interpolate. This is done in
order to preserve the blurring of the GI solution compared to a single frame irradiance map, however
it also slows down the rendering. To speed up the rendering in that case, you can decrease this value
to 10 or 5.

Interpolation frames - this determines the number of frames that will be used to interpolate GI when
the Modeis set to Animation (rendering). In this mode, V-Ray interpolates the irradiance from the
maps of several adjacent frames to help smooth out any flickering. Note that the actual number of
frames used is 2*(interp. frames)+1 - e.g. the default value of 2 means that in total 5 irradiance maps
will be interpolated. Higher values slow down the rendering and may produce "lagging" effect. Lower
values render faster but may increase flickering. Note that increasing this value also increases the
number of samples used for interpolation from the irradiance map - see the note for the Interpolation
samples parameter.
Options
Show calc phase - when this option is on, V-Ray will show the irradiance map passes as the
irradiance map is calculated. This will give you a rough idea of the indirect illumination even before
the final rendering is complete. Note that turning this on slows the calculations a little bit, especially for
large images. This option is ignored when rendering to fields - in that case, the calculation phase is
never displayed.

Show direct light - this option is only available when Show calc phase is on. It will cause V-Ray to
show direct lighting for primary diffuse bounces in addition to indirect lighting while the irradiance map
is being calculated. Note that V-Ray does not really need to compute this. The option is only for
convenience. This does not mean that direct lighting is not calculated at all - it is, but only for
secondary diffuse bounces (only for GI purposes).

Show samples - when this option is on, V-Ray will show visually the samples in the irradiance map
as small dots in the scene.

Use camera path - when this option is on, V-Ray will calculate the irradiance map samples for the
entire camera path, instead of just the current view. This is useful in the following cases:

Calculating irradiance maps for short fly-through animations in one go. Instead of using
the Incremental add to current map mode and rendering the animation every Nth frame,
you can turn the Use camera path option on, and render just one single frame - this will
produce information for the entire camera path.

Using irradiance maps for anmations with moving objects where the camera also moves -
either in Single frame, or Animation (prepass) mode. In this case, setting the Use camera
path option on will help to further reduce any flickering, as the GI sample positions on static
geometry will not change.

If you use this option, you should not use interpolated glossy reflections/refractions in VRayMtl, as
they will look odd.
Detail enhancement
Detail enhancement is a method for bringing additional detail to the irradiance map in the case where
there are small details in the image. Due to its limited resolution, the irradiance map typically blurs the
GI in these areas or produces splotchy and flickering results. The detail enhancement option is a way
to calculate those smaller details with a high-precision brute-force sampling method. This is similar to
how an ambient occlusion pass works, but is more precise as it takes into account bounced light.

On - turns on detail enhancement for the irradiance map. Note that an irradiance map calculated in
this mode should not be used without the detail option. When detail enhancement is On, you can use
lower irradiance map settings and higher Interpolation samples. This is because the irradiance map
is only used to capture the general far-off lighting, while direct sampling is used for the closer detail
areas.

Scale - this determines the units for the Radius parameter:
Screen - the radius is in image pixels.
World - the radius is in world units.

Radius - this determines the radius for the detail enhancement effect. Smaller radius means that
smaller parts around the details in the image are sampled with higher precision - this would be faster
but may be less precise. Larger radius means that more of the scene will use the higher precision
sampling and may be slower, but more precise. This is similar to a radius parameter for an ambient
occlusion pass.

Subdivs mult. - this determines the number of samples taken for the high-precision sampling as a
percentage of the irradiance map Hemispheric subdivs. A value of 1.0 means that the same number
of subdivs will be used as for the regular irradiance map samples. Lower values will make the detail-
enhanced areas more noisy, but faster to render.
Advanced options
Interpolation type - this option is used during rendering. It selects the method for interpolating the GI
value from the samples in the irradiance map.

Weighted average - this method will do a simple blend between the GI samples in the irradiance map
based on the distance to the point of interpolation and the difference in the normals. While simple and
fast, this method tends to produce a blochiness in the result.

Least squares fit - the default method; it will try to compute a GI value that best fits in among the
samples from the irradiance map. Produces smoother results than the weighted average method, but
is slower. Also, ringing artifacts may appear in places where both the contrast and density of the
irradiance map samples change over a small area.

Delone triangulation - all other methods of interpolation are blurry methods - that is, they will tend to
blur the details in indirect illumination. Also, the blurry methods are prone to density bias (see below
for a description). In difference, the Delone triangulation method is a non-blurry method and will
preserve the detail while avoiding density bias. Since it is non-blurry, the result might look more noisy
(blurring tends to hide noise). More samples will be needed to get a sufficiently smooth result. This
can be done either by increasing the hemispheric subdivs of the irradiance map samples, or by
decreasing the Noise threshold value in the brute force sampler rollout.

Least squares with Voronoi weights - this is a modification of the least squares fit method aimed at
avoiding the ringing at sharp boundaries by taking in consideration the density of the samples in the
irradiance map. The method is quite slow and its effectiveness is currently somewhat questionable.

Although all interpolation types have their uses, it probably makes most sense to use either Least
squares fit orDelone triangulation. Being a blurry method, Least squares fit will hide noise and will
produce a smooth result. It is perfect for scenes with large smooth surfaces. Delone triangulation is
a more exact method, which usually requires more hemispheric subdivs and high Max irradiance map
rate (and therefore more rendering time), but produces accurate results without blurring. This is
especially obvious in scenes where there are a lot of small details.

Sample lookup - this option is used during rendering. It selects the method of choosing suitable
points from the irradiance map to be used as basis for the interpolation.

Nearest - this method will simply choose those samples from the irradiance map which are closest to
the point of interpolation. (How many points will be chosen is determined by the value of
the Interpolation samplesparameter.) This is the fastest lookup method and was the only one
available in early versions of V-Ray. A drawback of this method is that in places where the density of
the samples in the irradiance map changes, it will pick more samples from the area with higher
density. When a blurry interpolation method is used, this leads to the so-called density bias which
may lead to incorrect interpolation and aritfacts in such places (mostly GI shadow boundaries).

Nearest quad-balanced - this is an extension of the nearest lookup method aimed at avoiding
density bias. It divides the space about the interpolated point in four areas and tries to find an equal
number of samples in all of them (hence the name quad-balanced). The method is a little slower than
the simple Nearest lookup, but in general performs very well. A drawback is that sometimes, in its
attempt to find samples, it may pick samples that are far away and not relevant to the interpolated
point.

Precalculated overlapping - this method was introduced in an attempt to avoid the drawbacks of the
two previous ones. It requires a preprocessing step of the samples in the irradiance map during which
a radius of influence is computed for each sample. This radius is larger for samples in places of low
density, and smaller for places of higher density. When interpolating the irradiance at a point, the
method will choose every sample that contains that point within its radius of influence. An advantage
of this method is that when used with a blurry interpolation method it producses a continuous
(smooth) function. Even though the method requires a preprocessing step, it is often faster than the
other two. These two properties make it ideal for high-quality results. A drawback of this method is
that sometimes lonely samples that are far-away can influence the wrong part of the scene. Also, it
tends to blur the GI solution more than the other methods.

Density-based - the default method; it combines the Nearest and the Precalculated
overlapping methods and is very effective in reducing ringing artifacts and artifacts due to low
sampling rates. This method also requires a preprocessing step in order to compute sample density,
but it performs a nearest neighbour look-up to choose the most suitable samples while taking sample
density in account.

Being the fastest of the three methods, Nearest lookup may be used for preview purposes. Nearest
quad-balanced performs fairly well in the majority of cases. Precalculated overlapping is fast and in
many cases performs very well, but may tend to blur the GI solution. The Density-based method
produces very good results in the majority of cases and is the default method.

Note that the lookup method is mostly important when using a blurry interpolation method. When
using Delone triangulation, the sample lookup method does not influence the result very much.

Calc. pass interpolation samples - this is used during irradiance map calculation. It represents the
number of already computed samples that will be used to guide the sampling algorithm. Good values
are between 10 and 25. Low values may speed the calculation pass, but may not provide sufficient
information. Higher values will be slower and will cause additional sampling. In general, this
parameter should be left to the default value of 15.

Use current pass samples - this is used during irradiance map calculation. When checked, this will
cause V-Ray to use all irradiance map samples computed so far. Unchecking it will allow V-Ray to
use only samples collected during previous passes, but not those computing earlier during the current
pass. Keeping this checked will usually cause V-Ray to take less samples (and therefore compute the
irradiance map faster). That means that on multiprocessor machines, several threads will be
modifying the irradiance map at the same time. Because of the asynchronous nature of this process,
there is no guarantee that the rendering the same image twice will produce the same irradiance map.
Normally this is not a problem at all and it is recommended to keep this option checked.

Randomize samples - this is used during irradiance map calculation. When it is checked, the image
samples will be randomly jittered. Unchecking it will produce samples that are aligned in a grid on the
screen. In general, this option should be kept checked in order to avoid artifacts caused by regular
sampling.

Check sample visibility - this is used during rendering. It will cause V-Ray to use only those samples
from the irradiance map, which are directly visible from the interpolated point. This may be useful for
preventing "light leaks" through thin walls with very different illumination on both sides. However it will
also slow the rendering, since V-Ray will trace additional rays to determine sample visibility.
Mode
Mode - this groups of controls allow the user to select the way the irradiance map is (re)used.
Bucket mode - in this mode, a separate irradiance map is used for each rendered region ("bucket").
Note that since each bucket is computed independently of the others, there may be differences at the
bucket edges. They can be reduced by using higher settings for the irradiance map (the High preset,
more hemispheric subdivs and/or smaller Noise threshold for the DMC sampler).

Single frame - the default mode; a single irradiance map is computed for the whole image, and a new
irradiance map is computed for each frame. This is the mode to use when rendering animations of
moving objects. In doing so one must make sure that the irradiance map is of sufficiently high quality
to avoid flickering.

Multiframe incremental - this mode is useful when rendering a sequence of frames (not necessarily
consequtive) where only the camera moves around (so-called fly-through animations). V-Ray will
compute a new full-image irradiance map for the first rendered frame; for all other frames V-Ray will
try to reuse and refine the irradiance map that has been computed so far.

From file - in this mode V-Ray will simply load the irradiance map from the supplied file at the start of
the rendering sequence and will use this map for all the frames in the animation. No new irradiance
map will be computed. This mode can be used for fly-through animations and will work well in network
rendering mode.

Add to current map - in this mode V-Ray will compute a completely new irradiance map and will add
it to the map that is already in memory. This mode is useful when compiling an irradiance map to
render multiple views of a static scene. Note that this mode is not supported for distributed rendering.

Incremental add to current map - in this mode V-Ray will use the irradiance map that is already in
memory and will only refine it in places that don't have enough detail. This mode is useful when
compiling an irradiance map to render multiple views of a static scene or a fly-through animation.

Animation (prepass) - in this mode V-Ray calculates irradiance maps to be used later on for final
rendering with the Animation (rendering) mode. One irradiance map is created for each frame and
written into a separate file. Note that in this mode you have to render one map for each frame (i.e. you
cannot render every Nth frame). V-Ray automatically disables rendering of the final image in this
mode - only irradiance map prepasses are calculated.

Animation (rendering) - in this mode V-Ray renders a final animation using irradiance maps created
with theAnimation (prepass) mode. Irradiance maps from several adjacent frames are loaded
together and blended so as to reduce flickering. The number of irradiance maps that are interpolated
is determined by the Interp. frames parameter.

The irradiance map mode that should be used depends on the particular rendering task - a static
scene, a static scene rendered from multiple views, a fly-through animation or an animation with
moving objects. Refer to thetutorials section for more information.

I rradiance map control buttons

There are some more buttons in this group that allow one to perform certain operations on the
irradiance map:

Browse - this button allows the user to select the irradiance map file which will be loaded if the From
file mode is selected. Alternatively, the user can enter the path and name of the file directly in the edit
box.

Save to file - this will save to file the irradiance map which is currently in memory. Note that the Don't
deleteoption in the On render end group must be turned on. Otherwise V-Ray will automatically
delete the irradiance map at the end of the rendering process.

Reset irradiance map - this will clear the irradiance map from memory.
On render end
This group of controls instructs V-Ray what to do with the irradiance map at the end of the rendering
process.

Don't delete - the default for this option is on, which means that V-Ray will keep the irradiance map in
memory until the next rendering. If this option is cleared, V-Ray will delete the irradiance map when
rendering is complete. This means that you will not be able to save the map manually afterwards.

Auto save - if this option is set, V-Ray will automatically save the irradiance map to the specified file
at the end of the rendering. This mode is particularly useful if you want to send the irradiance map for
rendering on a different machine through network rendering.

Switch to saved map - this option is only available if the Auto save option is turned on. If Switch to
saved map is on, then V-Ray will also automatically set the irradiance map mode to From file and
will set the file name to be that of the map that was just saved.
Notes
You can view, merge and save irradiance maps with the irradiance map viewer tool.
For animated irradiance maps, GI samples on different objects are not shared; this may lead
to small objects to appear black in the final renders. To solve this issue, group those objects
together - this will work as GI samples are shared for objects which are part of the same
group.






Global photon map
General
Parameters
Notes
General
The global photon map is somewhat similar to the irradiance map. It is also used to represent the
lighting in the scene, and it is a collection of points in 3D space (a point cloud). However, the photon
map is built in a different way. It is built by tracing particles (photons) emitted by the scene lights.
Those photons bounce around the scene and hit various surfaces. The hit points are stored in the
photon map.

Reconstructing the illumination from the photon map is also different from the irradiance map. With
the irradiance map, a simple interpolation is used to blend the nearby GI samples. With the photon
map, we need to estimate the photon density at a given point. The idea of density estimation is
central to the photon map. V-Ray can use several methods for density estimation, each with its own
advantages and disadvantages. Usually these methods are based on looking for the photons that are
nearest to the shaded point.

Note that in general, the photon map provides a less accurate approximation of the scene illumination
than the irradiance map, espcially when it comes to small details. The irradiance map is built
adaptively, whereas the photon map is not. Also a major disadvantage of the photon map is
the boundary bias. This unwanted effect is mostly visible around corners and object edges, which
appear darker than they should be. The irradiance map can also exhibit boundary bias, however its
adpative nature allows one to decrease the effect greatly. Another disadvantage of the photon map is
that it cannot simulate illumination from skylight. This is because the photons need an actual surface
to be emitted from. The skylight, at least in V-Ray, is not a surface actually present in the scene.

On the other hand, the photon map is view-independent and can be computed relatively quickly. This
makes it ideal for approximating the scene illumination when used together with more accurate
methods like direct computation or the irradiance map.
Parameters
Note that the building of the
photon map is also controlled by the photon settings of individual lights in the scene. See the Light
settings dialog for more information.

Bounces - this parameter controls the number of light bounces approximated by the photon map.
More bounces produce a more reallistic result, but take more time and memory.

Auto search dist - when this ison, V-Ray will try to compute a suitable distance within which to
search for photons. Sometimes the computed distance is ok, in other cases it might be too big (which
will slow down the rendering) or too small (which will produce a more noisy result).
Search dist - this option is only available when Auto search dist is off. It allows you to specify the
photon search distance manually. Keep in mind that this value depends on the size of your scene.
Lower values will speed up the rendering but may produce more noisy results. Larger values will slow
down the rendering but may produce smoother results.

Max photons - this option specifies how many photons will be taken into consideration when
approximating the irradiance at the shaded point. More photons mean a smoother (and more blurry)
result and may also slow down the rendering. Smaller values mean a more noisy result but will render
faster. When this value is 0, V-Ray will use all the photons in the given search range.

Multipler - this allows you to control the brightness of the photon map.

Max density - this parameter allows you to limit the resolution (and thus the memory) of the photon
map. Whenever V-Ray needs to store a new photon in the photon map, it will first look if there are any
other photons within a distance specified by Max density. If there is already a suitable photon in the
map, V-Ray will just add the energy of the new photon to the one in the map. Otherwise, V-Ray will
store the new photon in the photon map. Using this options allows you to shoot many photons (and
thus get smoother results) while keeping the size of the photon map manageable.

Convert to irradiance map - this will cause V-Ray to precompute the irradiance at the photon hit
points stored in the photon map. This allows fewer photons to be used when interpolated the
irradiance during rendering, while keeping the result relatively smooth. It is important to note that the
resulting map stores irradiance, but is not the same as the irradiance cache used by V-Ray for
primary diffuse bounces.

Interp. samples - this controls how many irradiance samples will be taken from the photon map once
it is converted to an irradiance map. Larger values produce smoother results, but may be slower;
smaller values produces more noisy results but rendering is faster.

Convex hull area estimate - when this is off, V-Ray will use a simplified algorithm for computing the
area, covered by a number of photons (by only taking the distance to the farthest photon). This
algorithm may cause corners to be darker. Using the convex hull area estimate avoids the dark
corners problem, but is slower and not as robust.

Store direct light - when this is on, V-Ray will store direct illumination in the photon map as well. This
may speed up the irradiance map or brute force GI, when used as a primary engine, and there are
lots of lights in the scene. When this is off, direct lighting will be computed always by tracing the
necessary rays. This may slow things down if there are lots of lights in the scene.

Retrace threshold - when this is greater than 0.0, V-Ray will use brute force GI near corners, instead
of the photon map, in order to obtain a more accurate result and to avoid splotches in these areas.
This may slow down the rendering. When this is 0.0, the photon map will be used always, which will
be faster, but may produce artifacts near corners or in places where objects are close to each other.

Retrace bounces - controls how many bounces will be made when retracing corners. If Retrace
threshold is 0.0, then this parameter is ignored. Typically this should be equal to
the Bounces parameter.

Notes
The photon map cannot simulate secondary illumination due to skylight. The photon map is
mostly useful for interior scenes with artificial lighting or relatively small windows.
The photon map works only with V-Ray materials. Standard materials will receive GI, but will
not generate any photons.

Light cache


General
Parameters
Calculation parameters
Reconstruction parameters
Mode
On render end
Notes
General
Light caching (sometimes also called light mapping) is a technique for approximating the global
illumination in a scene. This method was developed originally by Chaos Group specifically for the V-
Ray renderer. It is very similar to photon mapping, but without many of its limitations.

The light cache is built by tracing many 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. On the other hand, in a sense, it is the exact opposite of the photon map, which traces paths
from the lights, and stores the accumulated energy from the beginning of the path into the photon
map.

Although very simple, the light-caching approach has many advantages over the photon map:
It is easier to set up. We only have the camera to trace rays from, as opposed to the photon
map, which must process each light in the scene and usually requires separate setup for each
light.
The light-caching approach works efficiently with any lights - including skylight, self-
illuminated objects, non-physical lights, photometric lights etc. In contrast, the photon map is
limited in the lighting effects it can reproduce - for example, the photon map cannot reproduce
the illumination from skylight or from standard omni lights without inverse-square falloff.
The light cache produces correct results in corners and around small objects. The photon
map, on the other hand, relies on tricky density estimation schemes, which often produce
wrong results in these cases, either darkening or brightening those areas.
In many cases the light cache can be visualized directly for very fast and smooth previews of
the lighting in the scene.

Even with these advantages, light caching is similar in speed to the photon map and can produce
approximations to the global lighting in a scene very quickly. In addition, the light cache can be used
successfully for adding GI effects to animations.

Of course, the light cache has some limitations:
Like the irradiance map, it is view-dependent and is generated for a particular position of the
camera.
Like the photon map, the light cache is not adaptive. The illumination is computed at a fixed
resolution, which is determined by the user.
The light cache does not work very well with bump maps.
Parameters

Calculation parameters
These parameters affect the calculation phase of the light cache; they do not affect the final
rendering.

Subdivs - this 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).

Sample size - this determines the spacing of the samples in the light cache. Smaller numbers mean
that the samples will be closer to each other, the light cache will preserve sharp details in lighting, but
it will be more noisy and will take more memory. Larger numbers will smooth out the light cache but
will loose detail. This value can be either in world units or relative to the image size, depending on
light cache Scale mode.

Scale - this parameter determines the units of the Sample size and the Filter size:
Screen - the units are fractions of the final image (a value of 1.0 means the samples will be as large
as the whole image). Samples that are closer to the camera will be smaller, and samples that are far
away will be larger. Note that the units do not depend on the image resolution. This value is best
suited for stills or animations where the light cache needs to be computed at each frame.

World - the sizes are fixed in world units everywhere. This can affect the quality of the samples -
samples that are close to the camera will be sampled more often and will apear smoother, while
samples that are far away will be noisier. This value might work better for fly-through animations,
since it will force constant sample density everywhere.

Number of passes - the light cache is computed in several passes, which are then combined into the
final light cache. Each pass is rendered in a separate thread independently of the other passes. This
ensures that the light cache is consistent across computers with different number of CPUs. In general,
a light cache computed with smaller number of passes may be less noisy than a light cache computed
with more passes, for the same number of samples; however small number of passes cannot be
distributed effectively across several threads. For single-processor non-hyperthreading machines, the
number of passes can be set to 1 for best results.

Store direct light - with this option, the light cache will also store and interpolate direct light. This can
be useful for scenes with many lights and irradiance map or direct GI method for the primary diffuse
bounces, since direct lighting will be computed from the light cache, instead of sampling each and
every light. Note that only the diffuse illumination produced by the scene lights will be stored. If you
want to use the light cache directly for approximating the GI while keeping the direct lighting sharp,
uncheck this option.

Show calc. phase - turning this option on will show the paths that are traced. This does not affect the
calculation of the light cache and is provided only as a feedback to the user. This option is ignored
when rendering to fields - in that case, the calculation phase is never displayed.

Use camera path - when this option is on, V-Ray will calculate the light cache samples for the entire
camera path, instead of just the current view, in the same way as this is done for the Fly-
through mode. This is useful when rendering animations with moving objects where the camera also
moves and the light cache needs to be inSingle frame mode. In this case, setting the Use camera
path option on will help to reduce any flickering, as the GI sample positions on static geometry will
not change.

Adaptive tracing - when this option is on, V-Ray will store additional information about the incoming
light for each light cache sample, and try to put more samples into the directions from which more
light coming. This may help tp reduce the noise in the light cache, particularly in the case of caustics.

Use directions only - this option is only available when the Adaptive tracing option is on. It causes
V-Ray to only use the optimized directions, generated from the light cache samples, rather than the
accumulated irradiance from the samples themselves. This produces more accurate results, but also
a noisier light cache.
Reconstruction parameters
These parameters control how the light cache is used in the final rendering, after is has been
calculated.

Pre-filter - when this is turned on, the samples in the light cache are filtered before rendering. Note
that this is different from the normal light cache filtering (see below) which happens during rendering.
Prefiltering is performed by examining each sample in turn, and modifying it so that it represents the
average of the given number of nearby samples. More prefilter samples mean a more blurry and less
noisy light cache. Prefiltering is computed once after a new light cache is computed or loaded from
disk.

Filter - this determines the type of render-time filter for the light cache. The filter determines how
irradiance is interpolated from the samples in the light cache.
None - no filtering is performed. The nearest sample to the shaded point is taken as the irradiance
value. This is the fastest option, but it may produce artifacts near corners, if the light cache is noisy.
You can use pre-filtering (see above) to decrease that noise. This option works best if the light cache
is used for secondary bounces only or for testing purposes.

Nearest - this filter looks up the nearest samples to the shading point and averages their value. This
filter is not suitable for direct visualization of the light cache, but is useful if you use the light cache for
secondary bounces. A property of this filter is that is adapts to the sample density of the light cache
and is computed for a nearly constant time. The Interpolation samples parameter determines how
many of the nearest samples to look up from the light cache.

Fixed - this filter looks up and averages all samples from the light cache that fall within a certain
distance from the shaded point. This filter produces smooth results and is suitable for direct
visualization of the light cache (when it is used as the primary GI engine). The size of the filter is
determined by the Filter size parameter. Larger values blur the light cache and smooth out noise.
Typical values for the Filter size are 2-6 times larger than the Sample size. Note that Filter size uses
the same scale as the Sample size and its meaning depends on the Scale parameter.

Use light cache for glossy rays - if this option is on, the light cache will be used to compute lighting
for glossy rays as well, in addition to normal GI rays. This can speed up rendering of scenes with
glossy reflections quite a lot.
Mode
Mode - determines the rendering mode of the light cache:
Progressive path tracing - in this mode, the light cache algorithm is used to sample the final image
progressively. For a discussion of this mode see the tutorial.

Single frame - this will compute a new light cache for each frame of an animation.

Fly-through - this will compute a light cache for an entire fly-through animation, assuming that the
camera position/orientation is the only thing that changes. The movement of the camera in the active
time segment only is taken in consideration. Note that it may be better to use World Scale for fly-
through animations. The light cache is computed only at the first rendered frame and is reused
without changes for subsequent frames.

From file - in this mode the light cache is loaded from a file. The light cache file does not include the
prefiltering of the light cache; prefiltering is performed after the light cache is loaded, so that you can
adjust it without the need to recompute the light cache.

File - specifies the file name to load the light cache from, when the Mode is set to From file.

Save to file - this button allows to save the light cache to a file on disk, for later re-use. Note that
the Don't delete option must be on for this to work - otherwise, the light cache will be deleted as soon
as rendering is complete and it will not be possible to save it.
On render end
This group of controls determine what happens with the light cache after rendering is complete.

Don't delete - when on (the default), the light cache remains in memory after the rendering. Turn this
option offto automatically delete the light cache (and thus save memory).

Auto save - when on, the light cache will be automatically written to the specified file. Note that the
light cache will be written as soon as it is calculated, rather than at the actual end of the rendering.

Switch to saved map - when on, after the rendeing is complete, the light cache Mode will be
automatically set to From file and the name of the auto-saved light cache file will be copied to
the File parameter.
Notes
Do not set the Adaptive amount in the DMC sampler rollup to 0.0 when using the light
cache, as this will cause excessive render times.
Do not apply perfectly white or very close to white materials to a majority of the objects in the
scene, as this will cause excessive render times. This is because the amount of reflected light
in the scene will decrease very gradually and the light cache will have to trace longer paths.
Also avoid materials that have one of their RGB components set to maximum (255) or above.
If you want to use the light cache for animation, you should choose a large enough value for
the Filter sizein order to remove the flickering in the GI.
There is no difference between light caches computed for primary bounces (direct
visualization) and for secondary bounces. You can safely use light caches computed in one of
these modes for the other.
Similar to the photon map, you can get "light leaks" with the light cache around very thin
surfaces with substantially different illumination on both sides. Sometimes it may be possible
to reduce this effect by assigning different GI Surface ID's to the objects on both sides of the
thin surface (see the Object settingsdialog); the effect can also be reduced by decreasing
the Sample size and/or the filtering.

Caustics

General
Parameters
Notes
General
V-Ray supports the rendering of the caustics effects. In order to produce this effect you must have
proper caustics generators and caustics receivers in the scene (for information how to make an object
a caustics generator/receiver read the Object settings and Lights settings sections in Render
parameters > System >Object/Light settings. The settings in this parameter section control the
generation of the photon map (an explanation of the photon map can be found in
the Terminology section).

In order to calculate the caustics effects, V-Ray uses a technique known as photon mapping. It is a
two-pass technique. The first pass consists of shooting particles (photons) from the light sources in
the scene, tracing them as they bounce around the scene, and recording the places where the
photons hit the object surfaces. The second pass is the final rendering, when the caustics are
calculated by using density estimation techniques on the photon hits stored during the first pass.
Parameters
On - turns rendering of
causticson and off.

Multiplier - this multiplier controls the strength of the caustics. It is global and applies to all light
sources that generate caustics. If you want different multipliers for the different light sources then you
should use the local light settings.Note: this multiplier is cumulative with the multipliers in the local
light settings.

Search distance - when V-Ray needs to render the caustics effect at a given surface point, it
searches for a number photons on that surface in the area surrounding the shaded point (search
area). The search area in fact is a circle with center the original photon and its radius is equal to
theSearch distance value. Smaller values produce sharper, but perhaps more noisy caustics; larger
values produce smooher, but blurrier caustics.

Max photons - this is the maximum number of photons that will be considered when rendering the
caustics effect on a surface. Smaller values cause less photons to be used and the caustucs will be
sharper, but perhaps noisier. Larger values produce smoother, but blurrier caustics. The special value
of 0 means that V-Ray will use all the photons that it can find inside the search area.

Max density - this parameter allows you to limit the resolution (and thus the memory) of the caustics
photon map. Whenever V-Ray needs to store a new photon in the caustics photon map, it will first
look if there are any other photons within a distance specified by Max density. If there is already a
suitable photon in the map, V-Ray will just add the energy of the new photon to the one in the map.
Otherwise, V-Ray will store the new photon in the photon map. Using this options allows you to shoot
many photons (and thus get smoother results) while keeping the size of the caustics photon map
manageable.

Mode - controls the mode of the irradiance map:
New map - when this option is selected a new photon map will be generated. It will overwrite any
previous photon map left over from previous rendering.
Save to file - hit this button if you want to save an already generated photon map in a file.
From file - when you enable this option V-Ray will not compute the photon map but will load it from a
file. Hit the Browse button on the right to specify the file name.

File - the file name with the caustics photon map to be loaded when the Mode is set to From file.

Don't delete - when checked, V-Ray will keep the photon map in memory after the scene rendering
has finished. Otherwise the map will be deleted and the memory it takes will be freed. This option can
be especially useful if you want to compute the photon map for a particular scene only once and then
reuse it for further rendering.

Auto save - when this is turned on, V-Ray will automatically save the caustics photon map to the
provided file when rendering is complete.

Switch to saved map - this option is only available if Auto save is on. It will cause V-Ray to
automatically set the Mode to From file with the file name of the newly saved map.
Notes
Caustics also depend on the individual light settings (see Light settings dialog).






ENVIRONMENT
General
Parameters
GI Environment (skylight)
Reflection/Refraction environment
Refraction environment
Notes
General
The Environment section in V-Ray render parameters is where you can specify a color and a texture
map to be used during GI and reflection/refraction calculations. If you don't specify a color/map then
the background color and map specified in the 3ds Max Environment dialog will be used by default.
Parameters

GI Environment (skylight)
This group allows you to override the 3ds Max Environment settings for indirect illumination
calculations. The effect of changing the GI environment is similar to skylight.

On - turns on and off the GI environment override.

Color - lets you specify the environment (skylight) color. Note that this is ignored if there is an
environment texture specified.

Multiplier - a multiplier for the color value. Note that the multiplier does not affect the environment
texture (if present). Use an Output map to control the brightness of the environment map if the map
itself does not have brightness controls.

Texture - lets you choose a GI environment texture. Note that if present, the texture overrides the
specifiedColor.
Reflection/refraction environment
This group allows you to override the 3ds Max Environment settings when reflections and refractions
are calculated. Note that you can also override the reflection/refraction environment on a per material
basis (seeVRayMtl) or a per map basis (see VRayMap). If you do not enable the Refraction override,
this group of controls affects both reflections and refractions. If you enable the Refraction override,
then this group affects only reflections.

On - with this option turned on V-Ray will use the
specified Color and Texture during reflection/refraction calculations.

Color - lets you specify the environment color for reflections/refractions. This is ignored, if there is an
environment texture specified.

Multiplier - a multiplier for the color value. Note that the multiplier does not affect the environment
texture (if present). Use an Output map to control the brightness of the environment map, if the map
itself does not have brightness controls.

Texture - lets you choose an environment texture texture. Note that if specified, this texture overrides
the Color.
Refraction environment
This group allows to override the environment for refraction rays only. When this override is disabled,
V-Ray will use the environment specified in the Reflection/refraction group when calculating
refractions.

On - enables the refraction environment override.

Color - specifies the environment color for refractions. This color is ignored if there is an environment
texture specified.

Multiplier - a multiplier for the Color value. Note that the multiplier does not affect the environment
texture (if present). Use an Output map to control the brightness of the environment map, if the map
itself does not have brightness controls.

Texture - specifies the environment texture for refractions. Note that if present, this texture overrides
the specified Color.
Notes


DMC sampler

General
Parameters
References
General
Monte Carlo (MC) sampling is a method for evaluating "blurry" values (anitaliasing, depth of field,
indirect illumination, area lights, glossy reflections/refractions, translucency, motion blur etc). V-Ray
uses a variant of Monte Carlo sampling called deterministic Monte Carlo (DMC). The difference
between pure Monte Carlo sampling and deterministic Monte Carlo is that the first uses pseudo-
random numbers which are different for each and every evaluation (and so re-rendering a single
image will always produce slightly different results in the noise), while deterministic Monte Carlo uses
a pre-defined set of samples (possibly optimized to reduce the noise), which allows re-rendering an
image to always produce the exact same result. By default, the deterministic Monte Carlo method
used by V-Ray is a modficiation of Schlick sampling, introduced by Christophe Schlick in [1] (see
the References section below for more information).

Note that there exists a sub-set of DMC sampling called quasi Monte Carlo (QMC) sampling, in which
the samples are obtained from sequences of numbers, called low-discrepancy sequences, which have
special numeric properties. V-Ray, however, does not use this technique.

Instead of having separate sampling methods for each of the blurry values, V-Ray has a single unified
framework that determines how many and what exactly samples to be taken for a particular value,
depending on the context in which that value is required. This framework is called the "DMC sampler".

The actual number of samples for any blurry value is determined based on three factors:

The subdivs value supplied by the user for a particular blurry effect. This is multiplied by
the Global subdivs multiplier (see below).
The importance of the value (for example, dark glossy reflections can do with fewer samples
than bright ones, since the effect of the reflection on the final result is smaller; distant area
lights require fewer samples than closer ones etc). Basing the number of samples allocated
for a value on importance is called importance sampling.
The variance (think "noise") of the samples taken for a particular value - if the samples are not
very different from each other, then the value can do with fewer samples; if the samples are
very different, then a larger number of them will be necessary to get a good result. This
basically works by looking at the samples as they are computed one by one and deciding,
after each new sample, if more samples are required. This technique is called early
termination or adaptive sampling.

For more information on the relationship and effects of these parameters, please refer to
the tutorials section.
Parameters

Amount - controls the extent to which the number of samples depends on the importance of a blurry
value. It also controls the minimum number of samples that will be taken. A value of 1.0 means full
adaptation; a value of 0.0 means no adaptation.

Min samples - determines the minimum number of samples that must be made before the early
termination algorithm is used. Higher values will slow things down but will make the early termination
algorithm more reliable.

Noise threshold - controls V-Ray's judgement of when a blurry value is "good enough" to be used.
This directly translates to noise in the result. Smaller values mean less noise, more samples and
higher quality. A value of 0.0 means that no adaptation will be performed.

Global subdivs multiplier - this will multiply all subdivs values everywhere during rendering; you can
use this to quickly increase/decrease sampling quality everywhere. This affects everything, except for
the lightmap, photon map, caustics and aa subdivs. Everything else (dof, moblur, irradiance map,
brute-force GI, area lights, area shadows, glossy reflections/refractions) is affected by this parameter.

Time independent - when this option is On, the sampling pattern will be the same from frame to
frame in an animation. Since this may be undesirable in some cases, you can turn this option Off to
make the samping pattern change with time. Note that re-rendering the same frame will produce the
same result in both cases.

Path sampler - specifies what algorithm to use to generate sample values. V-Ray uses a modification
of Schlick sampling (see the References section below for more details).
References
More information on deterministic Monte Carlo sampling for computer graphics can be found from the
sources listed below.

[1] C. Schlick, An Adaptive Sampling Technique for Multidimensional Integraton by Ray
Tracing, in Second Eurographics Workshop on Rendering (Spain), 1991, pp. 48-56
Describes deterministic MC sampling for antialiasing, motion blur, depth of field, area light
sampling and glossy reflections.
[2] K. Chiu, P. Shirley and C. Wang, Multi-Jittered Sampling, in Graphics Gems IV, 1994
Describes a combination of jittered and N-rooks sampling for the purposes of computer
graphics.
[3] Masaki Aono and Ryutarou Ohbuchi, Quasi-Monte Carlo Rendering with Adaptive
Sampling, IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory Technical Report RT0167, November 25, 1996,
pp.1-5
An online version can be found at
http://www.kki.yamanashi.ac.jp/~ohbuchi/online_pubs/eg96_html/eg96.htm
Describes an application of low discrepancy sequences to area light sampling and the global
illumination problem.
[4] M. Fajardo, Monte Carlo Raytracing in Action, in State of the Art in Monte Carlo Ray
Tracing for Realistic Image Synthesis, SIGGRAPH 2001 Course 21, pp. 151-162;
An online version can be found at
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~gfx/Courses/2003/ImageSynthesis/papers/Monte Carlo/Monte
Carlo SIGGRAPH Course.pdf
Describes the ARNOLD renderer employing randomized quasi-Monte Carlo sampling using
low discrepancy sequences for pixel sampling, global illumination, area light sampling, motion
blur, depth of field, etc.
[5] E. Veach, December, Robust Monte Carlo Methods for Light Transport Simulation,
Ph. D. dissertation for Stanford University, 1997, pp. 58-65
An online version can be found at http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/veach_thesis/
Includes a description of low discrepancy sequences, quasi-Monte Carlo sampling and its
application to solving the global illumination problem.
[6] L. Szirmay-Kalos, Importance Driven Quasi-Monte Carlo Walk Solution of the
Rendering Equation, Winter School of Computer Graphics Conf., 1998
An online version can be found at http://www.fsz.bme.hu/~szirmay/imp1_link.html
Describes a two-pass method for solving the global illumination problem employing quasi-
Monte Carlo sampling, as well as importance sampling using low discrepancy sequences.

Color Mapping

General
Parameters
Notes

Search keywords: color mapping, tone mapping, burn-out, overexpose
General
Color mapping (also called tone mapping) can be used to apply color transformations on the final
image colors. Sometimes an image can contain a higher range of colors that can be displayed on a
computer screen. Color mapping has the task of re-mapping the image values to be suitable for
display purposes.
Parameters
Type - this is the type of
transformation used.
These are the possible
types:
Linear multiply - this
mode will simply multiply
the final image colors
based on their brightness
are. Color components
that are too bright (above 1.0 or 255) will be clipped. This can result in burnt out spots near bright light
sources.

Exponential - this mode will saturate the colors based on their brightness. This can be useful to
prevent burn-outs in very bright areas (for example around light sources etc). This mode will not clip
bright colors, but will instead saturate them.

HSV exponential - this mode is very similar to the Exponential mode, but it will preserve the color
hue and saturation, instead of washing out the color towards white.

Intensity exponential - this mode is similar to the Exponential one, but it will preserve the ratio of
the RGB color components and will only affect the intensity of the colors.

Gamma correction - this mode applies a gamma curve to the colors. In this case, the Dark
multiplier is a general multiplier for the colors before they are gamma-corrected. The Bright
multiplier is the inverse of the gamma value (f.e. for gamma 2.2, the Bright multiplier must
be 0.4545).

Intensity gamma - this mode applies a gamma curve to the intensity of the colors, instead of each
channel (r/g/b) independently.

Reinhard - this mode is a blend between exponential-style color mapping and linear mapping. If the
Burn value is 1.0, the result is linear color mapping and if the Burn value is 0.0, the result is
exponential-style mapping.

Dark multiplier - this is the multiplier for dark colors.

Bright multiplier - this is the multiplier for bright colors.

Gamma - this parameter allows the user to control the gamma correction for the output image
regardless of the color mapping mode. Note that the value here is the inverse of the one used for
the Gamma correction color mapping type. For example, to correct the image for a 2.2-gamma
display, you should set the Gammaparameter simply to 2.2.

Sub-pixel mapping - this option controls whether color mapping will be applied to the final image
pixels, or to the individual sub-pixel samples. In older versions of V-Ray, this option was always
assumed to be on, however its default value is now off as this produces more correct renderings,
especially if you use the universal settingsapproach.

Clamp output - if this is on, colors will be clamped after color mapping. In some situations, this may
be undesirable (for example, if you wish to antialias hdr parts of the image, too) - in that case, turn
clamping off.

Clamp level - this option specifies the level at which color components will be clamped if the Clamp
outputoption is on.

Affect background - if this is off, color mapping will not affect colors belonging to the background.

Don't affect colors (adaptation only) - when this parameter is on, the color mapping will not be
applied to the final image, however V-Ray will proceed with all its calculations as though color
mapping is applied (e.g. the noise levels will be corrected accordingly). This can be useful, for
example, if you know that you will apply some color correction to the image later on, but wish to keep
the rendering itself in linear space for compositing purposes. Note that the Clamp output option will
have an effect regardless of the value of the Don't affect colors option.

Linear workflow - when this option is checked V-Ray will automatically apply the inverse of the
Gamma correction that you have set in the Gamma field to all VRayMtl materials in your scene. Note
that this option is intended to be used only for quickly converting old scenes which are not set
up with proper linear workflow in mind. This option is not a replacement for proper linear
workflow.
Notes

Camera

General
Parameters
Camera type
Depth of field
Motion blur
General motion blur parameters
Notes

General
The camera rollout controls the way the scene geometry is projected onto the image. Note that if you
use theVRayPhysicalCamera in your scene, most of the parameters in this section are ignored, with
the exception of some of the motion blur parameters (those on the right-hand side of the dialog),
Parameters

Camera type
The cameras in V-Ray generally define the rays that are cast into the scene, which essentially is how
the scene is projected onto the screen. V-Ray supports several camera
types: Standard,Spherical, Cylindrical (point),Cylindrical (ortho), Box and Fish eye. Orthographic
views are supported too.

For V-Ray versions prior to SP3 the parameters in this section are ignored, if you are rendering from
aVRayPhysicalCamera. V-Ray SP3 and later version take the settings in this menu into consideration.

Override FOV - with this setting you can override the 3ds Max's FOV angle. This is because some V-
Ray camera types can take FOV ranges from 0 to 360 degrees, whereas the cameras in 3ds Max are
limited to 180 degrees.

FOV - here you specify the FOV angle (only when Override FOV is turned on and the current camera
type supports FOV angle).

Height - here you can specify the height of the Cylindrical (ortho) camera. This setting is available
only when the Type is set to Cylindrical (ortho).

Auto-fit - this setting controls the auto-fit option of the Fish-eye camera. When Auto-fit is enabled V-
Ray will calculate the Dist value automatically so that the rendered image fits horizontally with the
image's dimensions.

Dist - this setting applies only to the Fish-eye camera. The Fish-eye camera is simulated as
a Standard camera pointed to an absolutely reflective sphere (with a radius of 1.0) that reflects the
scene into the camera's shutter. The Dist value contorts how far is the camera from the sphere's
center (which is how much of the sphere will be captured by the camera). Note: this setting has no
effect when the Auto-fit option is enabled.

Curve - this setting applies only to the Fish-eye camera. This setting contorts the way the rendered
image is warped. A value of 1.0 corresponds to a real world Fish-eye camera. As the value
approaches 0.0 the warping is increased. As the value approaches 2.0 the warping is
reduced. Note: in fact this value controls the angle at which rays are reflected by the virtual sphere of
the camera.

Type - from this list you can select the type of the camera. See the Examples section for a more
detailed discussion on camera types.
Standard - this is a standard pinhole camera.
Spherical - this is a spherical camera which means that the camera lenses has spherical form.
Cylindrical (point) - with this type of camera all rays have a common origin - they are cast from the
center of the cylinder. In the vertical direction the camera acts as a pinhole camera and in the
horizontal direction it acts as a spherical camera.
Cylindrical (ortho) - in vertical direction the camera acts as an orthographic view and in the
horizontal direction it acts as a spherical camera.
Box - the box camera is simply 6 standard cameras placed on the sides of a box. This type of camera
is excellent for generation of environment maps for cube mapping. It may be very useful for GI too -
you can calculate the irradiance map with a Box camera, save it to file and you can reuse it with
a Standard camera that can be pointed at any direction.
Fish eye - this special type of camera captures the scene as if it is normal pinhole camera pointed at
an absolutely reflective sphere which reflects the scene into the camera's shutter. You can use
the Dist/FOVsettings to control what part of the sphere will be captured by the camera. The red arc in
the diagram corresponds to the FOV angle. Note that the sphere has always a radius of 1.0.

Warped spherical - another spherical camera with slightly different mapping formula.
Depth of field
These parameters control the depth of field effect when rendering with a standard 3ds Max camera or
with a perspective viewport. The parameters are ignored if you render from
a VRayPhysicalCamera view.

On - turns the depth-of-field effect on.

Aperture - this is the size of the virtual camera aperture, in world units. Small aperture sizes reduce
the DOF effect, larger sizes produce more blur.

Center bias - this determines the uniformity of the DOF effect. A value of 0.0 means that light passes
uniformly through the aperture. Positive values mean that light is concentrated towards the rim of the
aperture, while negative values concentrate light at the center.

Focal distance - determines the distance from the camera at which objects will be in perfect focus.
Objects closer or farther than that distance will be blurred.

Get from camera - when this option is on, the Focal distance is determined from the camera target,
if the rendering is done froma camera view.

Sides - this option allows you to simulate the polygonal shape of the aperture of real-world cameras.
When this option is off, the shape is assumed to be perfectly circular.

Rotation - specifies the orientation of the aperture shape.

Anisotropy - this option allows the stretching of the bokeh effect horizontally or vertically. Positive
values stretch the effect in the vertical direction. Negative values stretch it in the horizontal direction.

Subdivs - controls the quality of the DOF effect. Lower values are computed faster, but produce more
noise in the image. Higher values smooth out the noise, but take more time to render. Note that the
quality of sampling also depends on the settings of the DMC sampler as well as on the chosen Image
sampler.
Motion blur
On - turns motion blur on.

Duration - specifies the duration, in frames, during which the camera shutter is open.

Interval center - specifies the middle of the motion blur interval with respect to the 3ds Max frame. A
value of0.5 means that the middle of the motion blur interval is halfway between the frames. A value
of 0.0 means that the middle of the interval is at the exact frame position.

Bias - this controls the bias of the motion blur effect. A value of 0.0 means that the light passes
uniformly during the whole motion blur interval. Positive values mean that light is concentrated
towards the end of the interval, while negative values concentrate light towards the beginning.
General motion blur parameters
These parameters are used whether you are rendering from a standard camera or from
a VRayPhysicalCamerawith motion blur enabled.

Prepass samples - this controls how many samples in time will be computed during irradiance map
calculations.

Blur particles as mesh - this option controls the blurring of particle systems. When this is on,
particles will be blurred like normal meshes. However, many particle systems change the number of
particles between frames. You can turn off this option to compute the motion blur from the velocity of
the particles instead.

Geometry samples - this determines the number of geometry segments used to approximate motion
blur. Objects are assumed to move linearly between geometry samples. For fast rotating objects, you
need to increase this to get correct motion blur. Note that more geometry samples increase the
memory consumption, since more geometry copies are kept in memory. You can also control the
number of geometry samples on a per-object basis from the Object settings dialog.

Subdivs - determines the quality of the motion blur. Lower values are computed faster, but produce
more noise in the image. Higher values smooth out the noise, but take more time to render. Note that
the quality of sampling also depends on the settings of the DMC sampler as well as on the
chosen Image sampler.
Notes
Depth of field is supported only for the Standard camera type. Other camera types do not
produce depth of field effect at this time.
When DOF and motion blur are both enabled, they are sampled together using the higher of
the twoSubdivs parameters.


Default displacement


General
Parameters
Notes
General
This section allows you to control displacement of objects with displacement materials, which do not
have aVRayDisplacementMod modifier applied.
Parameters
Override Max's - when this
option is on, V-Ray will render objects with displacement materials using its own internal microtriangle
displacement. When this option is off, the objects will be rendered with the standard 3ds Max
displacement.

Edge length - this determines the quality of the displacement. Each triangle of the original mesh is
subdivided into a number of subtriangles. More subtriangles mean more detail in the displacement,
slower rendering times and more RAM usage. Less subtriangles mean less detail, faster rendering
and less RAM. The meaning of Edge length depends on the View-dependent parameter below.

View-dependent - when this is on, Edge length determines the maximum length of a subtriangle
edge, in pixels. A value of 1.0 means that the longest edge of each subtriangle will be about one pixel
long when projected on the screen. When View-dependent is off, Edge length is the maximum
subtriangle edge length in world units.

Max. subdivs - this controls the maximum subtriangles generated from any triangle of the original
mesh. The value is in fact the square root of the maximum number of subtriangles. For example, a
value of 256 means that at most 256 x 256 =65536 subtriangles will be generated for any given
original triangle. It is not a good idea to keep this value very high. If you need to use higher values, it
will be better to tesselate the original mesh itself into smaller triangles instead. From build 1.45.20
onward, the actual subdivisions for a triangle are rounded up to the nearest power of two (this makes
it easier to avoid gaps because of different tesselation on neighboring triangles).

Tight bounds - when this is on, V-Ray will try to compute the exact bounding volume of the displaced
triangles from the original mesh. This requires pre-sampling of the displacement texture, but the
rendering will be faster, if the texture has large black or white areas. However, if the displacement
texture is slow to evaluate and varies a lot between full black and white, if may be faster to turn this
option off. When it is off, V-Ray will assume worst-case bounding volumes, and will not presample the
texture.

Amount - this is a scaling parameter for the default displacement. Values larger than 1.0 increase the
displacement amount, while values lower than 1.0 reduce it.

Relative to bbox - if this parameter is on, the actual displacement amount is based on the bounding
box of the objects, like this is done by 3ds Max itself by default. If this option is off, the displacement
is expressed in generic world units where white areas in the displacement map correspond to
displacement of 1 generic unit. You can use the Amount parameter to increase or decrease
displacement amount.
Notes
The default displacement amount is based on the bounding box of an object. Therefore, it is
not a good choice when you have deforming objects. In that case, you can either
turn off the Relative to bbox option, or you can apply a VRayDisplacementMod modifier,
which supports constant displacement amount.

System

General
Parameters
Raycaster parameters
Render region division
Distributed rendering
Frame stamp
Object settings
Light settings
Presets
V-Ray log
Other parameters

Search keywords: System, VRay System, raycaster, frame stamp, geometry
General
In this section you can adjust a variety of V-Ray parameters related to the overall operation of the
renderer.
Parameters

Raycaster parameters
Here you can control various parameters of V-Ray's Binary Space Partitioning (BSP) tree.

One of the basic operations that V-Ray must perform israycasting - determining if a given ray
intersects any geometry in the scene, and if so - identifying that geometry. The simplest way to
implement this would be to test the ray against every single render primitive (triangle) in the scene.
Obviously, in scenes with thousands or millions of triangles this is going to be very slow. To speed
this process, V-Ray organizes the scene geometry into a special data structure, called a binary space
partitioning (BSP) tree.

The BSP tree is a hierarchical data structure, built by subdividing the scene in two parts, then looking
at each of those two parts and subdividing them in turn, if necessary and so on. Those "parts" are
callednodes of the tree. At the top of the hierarchy is the root node - which represents the bounding
box of the whole scene; at the bottom of the hierarchy are the leaf nodes - they contain references to
actual triangles from the scene.

Max tree depth - the maximum depth of the tree. Larger values will cause V-Ray to take more
memory, but the rendering will be faster - up to some critical point. Values beyond that critical point
(which is different for every scene) will start to slow things down. Smaller values for this parameter will
cause the BSP tree to take less memory, but rendering will be slower.

Min leaf size - the minimum size of a leaf node. Normally this is set to 0.0, which means that V-Ray
will subdivide the scene geometry regardless of the scene size. By setting this to a different value,
you can make V-Ray to quit subdividing, if the size of a node is below a given value.

Face/level coef - controls the maximum amount of triangles in a leaf node. If this value is lower,
rendering will be faster, but the BSP tree will take more memory - up to some critical point (which is
different for every scene). Values below that critical point will make the rendering slower.

Default geometry - internally V-Ray maintains four raycasting engines. All of them are built around
the idea of a BSP tree, but have different uses. The engines can be grouped into raycasters for non-
motion blurred and for motion blurred geometry, as well as for static and dynamic geometry. This
parameter determines the type of geometry for standard 3ds Max mesh objects. Note that some
objects (displacement-mapped objects,VRayProxy and VRayFur objects, for example) always
generate dynamic geometry, regardless of this setting.

Static - all geometry is precompiled into an acceleration structure at the beginning of the rendering
and remains there until the end of the frame. The static raycasters are not limited in any way and will
consume as much memory as necessary.

Dynamic - geometry is loaded and unloaded on the fly depending on which part of the scene is being
rendered. The total memory taken up by the dynamic raycasters can be controlled by the Dynamic
memory limitparameter.

Auto - some objects are compiled as static geometry, while others as dynamic. V-Ray makes the
decision on which type to use based on the face count for an object and the number of its instances in
the scene.

Dynamic memory limit - the total RAM limit for the dynamic raycasters. Note that the memory pool is
shared between the different rendering threads. Therefore, if geometry needs to be unloaded and
loaded too often, the threads must wait for each other and the rendering performance will suffer.
Render region division
Here you can control various parameters of V-Ray's rendering regions (buckets). The bucket is an
essential part of the distributed rendering system of V-Ray. A bucket is a rectangular part of the
currently rendered frame that is rendered independently from other buckets. Buckets can be sent to
idle LAN machines for processing and/or can be distributed between several CPUs. Because a
bucket can be processed only by a single processor the division of the frame in too small a number of
buckets can prevent the optimal utilization of computational resources (some CPUs stay idle all the
time). However the division of the frame in too many buckets can slow down the rendering because
there is a some time overhead related with each bucket (bucket setup, LAN transfer, etc).

X - determines the maximum region width in pixels (Region W/H is selected) or the number of regions
in the horizontal direction (when Region Count is selected)

Y - determines the maximum region height in pixels (Region W/H is selected) or the number of
regions in the vertical direction (when Region Count is selected)

Region sequence - determines the order in which the regions are rendered. Note that the
default Triangulationsequence is best if you use a lof of dynamic geometry (displacement-mapped
objects, VRayProxy or VRayFurobjects), since it walks through the image in a very consistent manner
so that geometry that was generated for previous buckets can be used for the next buckets. The other
sequences tend to jump from one end of the image to another which is not good with dynamic
geometry.

Reverse sequence - reverses the region sequence order.

Previous render - this parameter determines what should be done with the previous image in the
virtual frame buffer when rendering starts. Note that this parameter has no effect on the final result of
the rendering; it is implemented simply as a convenient way to distinguish between parts from the
current frame being rendered, and part left over from the previous rendering. The possible values are:
Unchanged - no changes will be made - the virtual frame buffer remains the same;
Cross - every second pixel of the image will be set to black;
Fields - every other line of the image will be set to black;
Darken - the colors in the image will be darkened.
Blue - the previous image is tinted in blue.
Distributed rendering
Distributed rendering is the process of computing a single image over several different machines.
Note that this is different from distributing the frame over several CPU's in a single machine, which is
called multithreading. V-Ray supports multithreading, as well as distributed rendering.

Before you can use the distributed rendering option, you must determine the machines that will take
part in the computations. Both 3ds Max and V-Ray need to be properly installed on those machines,
although they don't need to be authorized. You must make sure that the V-Ray spawner application is
running on those machines - either as a service, or as a stand-alone application. Refer to
the Installation section for more details on configuring and running the V-Ray spawner.

For additional information on distributed rendering, please refer to the dedicated Distributed
rendering section.

Distributed rendering - this checkbox specifies whether V-Ray will use distributed rendering.

Settings... - this button opens the V-Ray distributed rendering settings dialog. See the Distributed
renderingsection for more information.
Frame stamp
The frame stamp is a convenient way to put some short text over the rendered images. It can be
useful in many ways - for example, in network rendering, to quickly determine which frames were
rendered by which machine. The frame stamp is one line of text, which appears at the bottom of the
image.

Checkbox - turns the frame stamp on and off.

Edit box - here you enter the text you wish to appear in the images. You can also use some special
keywords, all of which begin with the percent symbol (%). The keywords are replaced by V-Ray with
the corresponding value:

Keyword Meaning
%vrayversion the current version of V-Ray
%filename the name of the current scene file
%frame the number of the current frame
%primitives *
the number of unique intersectable primitives generated for the current
frame*
%rendertime the render time for the current frame
%computername the network name of the computer
%date the current system date
%time the current system time
%w the width of the image in pixels
%h the height of the image in pixels
%camera
the name of the camera for this frame (if rendering from a camera, empty
string otherwise)
%"<maxscript parameter name>"
the value of any V-Ray parameter, given its MaxScript name (see section
on MaxScript). Note that you must enclose the parameter name in quotation
marks ("). Also note that this option only works when rendering to the 3ds
Max frame buffer.
%ram the amount of physical memory (in KBytes) installed on the system
%vmem the amount of virtual memory (in KBytes) available on the system
%mhz the clock speed of the system CPU(s)
%os the operating system

* An intersectable primitive is a primitive that provides a direct method for intersection with a ray (such
as a triangle, the infinite plane generated by a VRayPlane plugin etc). Most often, the number of these
primitives is the same as the number of triangles (faces) processed by V-Ray for the current frame.
Note that this may be different from the total number of triangles in the scene. With the dynamic
raycaster, only geometry that is actually needed is generated and accounted for. Geometry that is not
generated is not included in this count.

Font - this button allows you to choose a font and font attributes for the text in the frame stamp.

Full width - when this option is checked, the frame stamp will take the whole width of the image,
otherwise the stamp will be only as wide as the text is.

Justify - specifies the position of the stamp:
Left - the stamp is placed on the left of the image.
Center - the stamp is centered.
Right - the stamp is placed on the right side of the image.
Object Settings / Light Settings
These buttons bring up the dialogs for the local object and light settings.
Presets
This button brings up the presets dialog.
V-Ray log

These parameters control the V-Ray messages window. During rendering, V-Ray writes various
information in the file C:\VRayLog.txt. The messages window shows some of that information so that
you can view it without the need to manually open that file.

Each message can fall into one of four categories, which are colored in a different way in the
messages window. Those catergories are errors (colored in red), warnings (colored in green),
informative messages (colored in white) and debug messages (colored in black).

Show window - when this is turned on, V-Ray will show the messages window at the start of every
render.

Level - this determines what kind of messages will be showed in the window:
1 - only error messages
2 - error and warning messages
3 - errors, warnings and informative messages
4 - all messages

Log file - this parameter determines the location and the name of the log file. The default log file is
C:\VRayLog.txt
Other parameters
MAX-compatible ShadeContext - V-Ray carries all its computations in world space. However, some
3ds Max plugins (notably atmospherics) take it as granted that the renderer works in camera space,
because this is what the default scanline renderer does. To preserve compatibility with such plugins,
V-Ray emulates work in camera space by converting the various points and vectors passed to and
from other plugins. In addition to slowing down V-Ray by forcing it to convert values all the time,
working in camera space messes up with camera modifiers such as the Technical camera script. This
why you have the option of turning off the camera-space emulation.

Check for missing files - when this is on, V-Ray will try to find any missing files in the scene and will
put up a dialog listing them, if there are any. The missing files will also be printed to the
C:\VRayLog.txt file. If this option is on, and you render the scene with distributed rendering, and if a
render servers detects missing files, it will refuse to render the scene.

Optimized atmospheric evaluation - normally in 3ds Max, atmospherics are avaluated after the
surface behind them has been shaded. This may be unnecessary if the atmospheric is very dense
and opaque. Turning this option on will cause V-Ray to first evaluate the atmospheric effects, and
shade the surface behind them only if the atmospherics are sufficiently transparent.

Low thread priority - turning this on will cause V-Ray to use threads of lower priority when rendering.


VRayMtl parameters
Home Examples

General
Parameters
Basic parameters
Diffuse
Reflection
Refraction
Translucency
BRDF
Options
Maps
Reflect interpolation
Refract interpolation
Notes

General
A special material - the VRayMtl - is provided with the V-Ray renderer. This allows for better
physically correct illumination (energy distribution) in the scene, faster rendering, more convenient
reflection and refraction parameters. Within the VRayMtl you can apply different texture maps, control
the reflections and refractions, add bump and displacement maps, force direct GI calculations, and
choose the BRDF for the material.
Parameters
Basic parameters
Diffuse
Diffuse - this is the diffuse color of the
material. Note the actual diffuse color of the
surface also depends on the reflection and
refraction colors. See the Energy
preservation parameter below.

Rougness - this parameter can be used to
simulate rough surfaces or surfaces covered
with dust (for example, skin, or the surface of
the Moon).Example
Reflection
Reflect - reflection color. Note that the
reflection color dims the diffuse surface color
based on theEnergy
preservation option. Example

Fresnel reflections - checking this option
makes the reflection strength dependent on
the viewing angle of the surface. Some
materials in nature (glass etc) reflect light in
this manner. Note that the Fresnel effect
depends on the index of refraction as well.

Fresnel IOR - the IOR to use when calculating Fresnel reflections. Normally this is locked to
theRefraction IOR parameter, but you can unlock it for finer control.

Hilight glossiness - this determines the shape of the hilight on the material. Normally this parameter
is locked to the Reflection glossiness value in order to produce physically accurate results.

Reflection glossiness - controls the sharpness of reflections. A value of 1.0 means perfect mirror-
like reflection; lower values produce blurry or glossy reflections. Use the Subdivs parameter below to
control the quality of glossy reflections. Example

Subdivs - controls the quality of glossy reflections. Lower values will render faster, but the result will
be more noisy. Higher values take longer, but produce smoother results.

Use interpolation - V-Ray can use a caching scheme similar to the irradiance map to speed up
rendering of glossy reflections. Check this option to turn caching on. See the Reflection
interpolation section for more details.

Max depth - the number of times a ray can be reflected. Scenes with lots of reflective and refractive
surfaces may require higher values to look right.

Exit color - if a ray has reached its maximum reflection depth, this color will be returned without
tracing the ray further.
Refraction
Refract - refraction color. Note that the actual refraction color depends on the reflection color as well.
See theEnergy preservation parameter below. Example

IOR - index of refraction for the material, which describes the way light bends when crossing the
material surface. A value of 1.0 means the light will not change direction. Example

Glossiness - controls the sharpness of refractions. A value of 1.0 means perfect glass-like refraction;
lower values produce blurry or glossy reractions. Use the Subdivs parameter below to control the
quality of glossy refractions. Example

Subdivs - controls the quality of glossy refractions. Lower values will render faster, but the result will
be more noisy. Higher values take longer, but produce smoother results. This parameter also controls
the quality of the translucent effect, if on (see below).

Use interpolation - V-Ray can use a caching scheme similar to the irradiance map to speed up
rendering of glossy refractions and translucency. Check this option to turn caching on. See
the Refraction interpolationsection for more details.

Max depth - the number of times a ray can be refracted. Scenes with lots of refractive and reflective
surfaces may require higher values to look right. Example

Exit color - if this is on, and a ray has reached the maximum refraction depth, the ray will be
terminated and the exit color returned. When this is off, the ray will not be refracted, but will be
continued without changes. Example

Fog color - the attenuation of light as it passes through the material. This option allows to simulate
the fact that thick objects look less transparent than thin objects. Note that the effect of the fog color
depends on the absolute size of the objects and is therefore scene-dependent. The fog color also
determines the look of the object when using translucency. Example

Fog multiplier - the strength of the fog effect. Smaller values reduce the effect of the fog, making the
material more transparent. Larger values increase the fog effect, making the material more opaque. In
more precise terms, this is the inverse of the distance at which a ray inside the object is attenuated
with am amount equal to the Fog color. Example

Fog bias - this parameter allows to change the way the fog color is applied; by adjusting this
parameter you can make thin parts of the object to appear more transparent than normal, or less
transparent than normal.

Affect shadows - this will cause the material to cast transparent shadows, depending on the
refraction color and the fog color. This only works with V-Ray shadows and lights.

Affect Channels - Allows you to specifiy which channels are going to be affected by the transperency
of the material
- Color Only - the transperency will affect only the RGB channel of the final render

- Color+alpha - this will cause the material to transmit the alpha of the refracted objects, instead of
displaying an opaque alpha. Note that currently this works only with clear (non-glossy) refractions.

-All channels - all channels and render elements will be affected by the transperency of the material
Translucency
Type - selects the algorithm for calculating translucency (also called sub-surface scattering). Note
that refraction must be enabled for this effect to be visible. Currently only single-bounce scattering is
supported. The possible values are:
None - no translucency is calculated for the material;
Hard (wax) model - this model is specifically suited for hard materials like marble;
Soft (water) model - this model is mostly for compatibility with older V-Ray versions (1.09.x);
Hybrid model - this is the most realistic sss model and is suitable for simulating skin, milk, fruit juice
and other translucent materials.

Back-side color - normally the color of the sub-surface scattering effect depends on the Fog color;
this parameter allows you to additionally tint the SSS effect.

Thickness - this limits the rays that will be traced below the surface. This is useful if you do not want
or don't need to trace the whole sub-surface volume.

Light multuplier - a multiplier for the translucent effect.

Scatter coefficient - the amount of scattering inside the object. 0.0 means rays will be scattered in all
directions; 1.0 means a ray cannot change its direction inside the sub-surface volume.

Forward/backward coefficient - controls the direction of scattering for a ray. 0.0 means a ray can
only go forward (away from the surface, inside the object); 0.5 means that a ray has an equal chance
of going forward or backward; 1.0 means a ray will be scattered backward (towards the surface, to the
outside of the object).
BRDF
The BRDF parameters determine the type of the hilights and glossy reflections for the material. There
parameters have an effect only if the reflection color is different from black and reflection glossiness is
different than 1.0.

Type - this determines the type of BRDF (the shape of the hilight): Example
Phong - Phong hilight/reflections
Blinn - Blinn hilight/reflections
Ward - Ward hilight/reflections

Anisotropy - determines the shape of the hilight. A value of 0.0 means isotropic hilights. Negative
and positive values simulate "brushed" surfaces. Example

Rotation - determines the orientation of the anisotropic effect in degrees (rotation in degrees).
Different brushed surfaces can be simulated by using a texture map for the anisotropy rotation
parameter. Example

Local axis - controls how the direction for the anisotropic effect is chosen:
Local axis - the direction is based on the selected local object axis.
Map channel - the direction is based on the selected mapping channel.
Options
Trace reflections - if this is off, reflections will not be traced, even if the reflection color is greater
than black. You can turn this off to produce only hilights. Note that when this is off, the diffuse color
will not be dimmed by the reflection color, as would happen normally.

Trace refractions - if this is off, refractions will not traced, even if the refraction color is greater than
black.

Cutoff - this is a threshold below which reflections/refractions will not be traced. V-Ray tries to
estimate the contribution of reflections/refractions to the image, and if it is below this threshold, these
effects are not computed. Do not set this to 0.0 as it may cause excessively long render times in
some cases.

Environment priority - this specifies how to determine the environment to use if a reflected or
refracted ray goes through several materials each of which has an environment override.

Double-sided - if this is true, V-Ray will flip the normal for back-facing surfaces with this material.
Otherwise, the lighting on the "outer" side of the material will be computed always. You can use this to
achieve a fake translucent effect for thin objects like paper.

Reflect on back side - if this is true, reflections will be computed for back-facing surfaces too. Note
that this affects total internal reflections too (when refractions are computed).

Use irradiance map - if this is true, the irradiance map will be used to approximate diffuse indirect
illumination for the material. If this is off, brute force GI will be used. You can use this for objects in the
scene which have small details and are not approximated very well by the irradiance map.

Treat glossy rays as GI rays - this specifies on what occasions glossy rays will be treated as GI
rays:
Never - glossy rays are never treated as GI rays.
Only for GI rays - glossy rays will be treated as GI rays only when GI is being evaluated. This can
speed up rendering of scenes with glossy reflections and is the default.
Always - glossy rays are always treated as GI rays. A side effect is that the Secondary GI engine will
be used for glossy rays. For example, if the primary engine is irradiance map, and the secondary is
light cache, the glossy rays will use the light cache (which is a lot faster).

Energy preservation mode - determines how the diffuse, reflection and refraction color affect each
other. V-Ray tries to keep the total amount of light reflected off a surface to be less that or equal to the
light falling on the surface (as this happens in the real life). For this purpose, the following rule is
applied: the reflection level dims the diffuse and refraction levels (a pure white reflection will remove
any diffuse and refraction effects), and the refraction level dims the diffuse level (a pure white
refraction color will remove any diffuse effects). This parameter determines whether the dimming
happens separately for the RGB components, or is based on the intensity:Example
RGB - this mode causes dimming to be performed separately on the RGB components. For example,
a pure white diffuse color and pure red reflection color will give a surface with cyan diffuse color
(because the red component is already taken by the reflection).
Monochrome - this mode causes dimming to be performed based on the intensity of the
diffuse/reflection/refraction levels.
Maps
These determine the various texture maps used by the material.

Reflect interpolation
These determine the options for the interpolation of glossy reflections. They are very similar to the
options for the irradiance map. Note that it is not recommended to use interpolation for animations,
since this may cause severe flickering.

Refract interpolation
These determine the options for the interpolation of glossy reflections. They are very similar to the
options for the irradiance map. Note that it is not recommended to use interpolation for animations,
since this may cause severe flickering.
Notes
Use the VRayMtl whenever possible in your scenes. This material is specifically optimized for
V-Ray and often GI and lighting is computed much faster for V-Ray materials than for
standard 3ds Max materials. Many V-Ray features (e.g. light cache, photon mapping, render
elements) are guaranteed to work properly only with VRayMtl and other V-Ray compliant
materials.
VRayMtl can produce reflections/refractions for matte objects - see VRayMtlWrapper.


General
Parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: 2Sided, backlight, VRay2SidedMtl
General
The VRay2SidedMtl material is a utility material provided with the V-Ray renderer. The material
allows seeing the light on the backside of the objects. Use this material to simulate thin translucent
surfaces like paper, cloth curtains, tree leaves etc. For further info see the Example sections.
Parameters

Front material - this is the material which is going to be used for front-side faces as defined by the
object normals.

Back material - this is the material V-Ray will use for back side faces as defined by their normals.

Use back material checkbox - when this is off, V-Ray will consider both sides assigned with the front
material. When this is on, you can assign a different material from the front one. For further info see
the Example sections.

Translucency - this determines which side (front or back) relative to the camera is more visible in the
rendering process. By default this value is 0.5, which means that both the side facing the camera, and
the one facing away from it, will be visible to the same degree. When this parameter is closer
to 0.0 the more of the material facing the camera is going be seen. When it is closer to1.0, the more
of the back material is seen.

Force single-sided sub-materials - when is is on (the default), the sub-materials will render as one-
sided materials. Turning this option off is not recommended.

Notes
This material will give best results when assigned to singleside objects (non-shelled) objects
like planes, extruded splines etc. Otherwise it can lead to extremely longer rendertimes.








VRay2SidedMtl parameters

VRayOverrideMtl parameters



General
Parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: Override material, VRayOverrideMtl
General
The VRayOverrideMtl is a utility material provided with the V-Ray renderer. It allows a surface to look
in a different way depending on whether it is seen through reflections, refractions or GI. With this
material you can get a fine control over the color bleeding, reflections, refractions and shadows of the
objects. For more info see theExample section.
Parameters
Base material - this is the material V-Ray
will use while rendering the object.

GI material - this is the material V-Ray will use while calculating the GI solution.

Reflect material - this is the material V-Ray will use to render the object with, when the object is seen
in reflections.

Refract material - this is the material V-Ray will use to render the object with, when the object is seen
through refractions.

Shadow material - this is the material that will be used to render shadows cast from the object.

Notes
Special credits to Linda Ferroni for providing the image at the top of the page.

VRayLightMtl parameters
Home Examples

General
Parameters
Direct illumination
Notes

Search Keywords: light material, self-illumination
General
The VRayLightMtl is a special material provided with the V-Ray renderer. This material is generally
used for producing self-illuminated surfaces. It also allows faster rendering rather than with
a Standard 3ds Max material with self-illumination enabled. It also allows to turn an object into an
actual mesh light source.
Parameters
Color - this is the self-illumination color of
the material.

Multiplier - this is the multiplier for
the Color. Note that this does not affect
the texture map, if specified.

Texture - a texture map to use for the
self-illumination color.

Opacity - a texture to use as opacity for the material. Note that making the material less opaque does
not affect the intensity of the self-illumination color. This is so that you can create perfectly transparent
materials that nevertheless still emit light.

Emit light on back side - checking this option makes the object emit light from its back side as
well. If this is off, the material is rendered as black on the back sides.

Displace - allows the user to add a displacement map to the V-Ray Light Material.
Direct illumination
The controls in this section allow you to turn the objects which have this VRayLightMtl material
applied into actual direct mesh light sources. The effect is equivalent to creating
a VRayLight in Mesh mode for the same object. The controls in this section are intentionally simple; if
you need more control over the light source (exclude objects from illumination etc), it is better to use
a VRayLight instead.

There are currently some restrictions on using these options. For more details, please see
the Notes section below.

On - when enabled, turns any objects with the same material into mesh light sources. Note that this
currently does not work if the material is inside a Multi/Sub-object material.

Subdivs - controls the number of samples used for direct sampling of the mesh light. Lower values
may be faster to calculate, but may introduce noise in the image. Higher values reduce the noise, but
increase render times.
Notes
You can use the VRayLightMtl as a light source assigned to an object. Increasing the
multiplier will affect the GI solution and will produce more light. Note that overbright colors
may look the same as pure white but the GI results will be different. For more information see
the Examples section.
If you know the photometric power of a self-illuminated object in lumens (e.g. 1700 lm for a
100-watt bulb) you can calculate the multiplier for VRayLightMtl if you divide the lumens by
the surface area of the object in meters (the 3ds Max Measure utility can be used for this),
provided that the self-illuminated color is pure white.
The direct illumination options currently only work properly if the VRayLightMtl material is the
only material applied on the object. They will not work if the material is part of a complex
material like a Multi/sub-objectmaterial or a VRayBlendMtl material. This restriction will
probably be removed in a future release.
The direct illumination options do not work properly if the object with the VRayLightMtl has
motion blur. This will be corrected in a future release.


VRayMtlWrapper
Home

General
Parameters
Additional surface properties
Matte properties
Miscellaneous
General
The VRayMtlWrapper can be used to specify additional surface properties per material. These
properties are also available in the Object settings dialog. However, the settings from
the VRayMtlWrapper override those from the Object settings.
Parameters
Base material - this is the actual surface
material.
Additional surface properties
Generate GI - controls the GI generated by
the material.

Receive GI - controls the GI received by
the material.

Generate caustics - turn this off, if the
material should not generate caustics.

Receive caustics - turn this off if the
material should not receive caustics.

Caustics multiplier - determines the effect
of caustics on the material.
Matte properties
Matte surface - makes the material appear as a matte material, which shows the background,
instead of the base material, when viewed directly. Note that the base material is still used for things
like GI, caustics, reflections etc.

Alpha contribution - determines the appearance of the object in the alpha channel of the rendered
image. A value of 1.0 means the alpha channel will be derived from the transparency of the base
material. A value of 0.0 means the object will not appear in the alpha channel at all and will show the
alpha of the objects behind it. A value of -1.0 means that the transparency of the base material will cut
out from the alpha of the objects behind. Matte objects are typically given an alpha contribution of -
1.0. Note that this option is independent of the Matte surface option (i.e. a surface can have an alpha
contribution of -1.0 without being a matte surface).

Shadows - turn this on to make shadow visible on the matte surface.

Affect alpha - turn this on to make shadows affect the alpha contribution of the matte surface. Areas
in perfect shadow will produce white alpha, while completely unoccluded areas will produce black
alpha. Note that GI shadows (from skylight) are also computed, however GI shadows on matte
objects are not supported by the photon map and the light map GI engines, when used as primary
engines. You can safely use those with matte surfaces as secondary engines.

Color - an optional tint for the shadows on the matte surface.

Brightness - an optional brightness parameter for the shadows on the matte surface. A value of 0.0
will make the shadows completely invisible, while a value of 1.0 will show the full shadows.

Reflection amount - shows the reflections from the base material. This only works if the base
material is directly a VRayMtl.

Refraction amount - shows the refractions from the base material. This only works if the base
material is directly a VRayMtl.

GI amount - determines the amount of GI shadows.

No GI on other mattes - this will cause the object to appear as a matte object in reflections,
refractions, GI etc for other matte objects. Note that if this is on, refractions for the matte object might
not be calculated (the object will appear a matte object to itself and will not be able to "see" the
refractions on the other side).
Miscellaneous
GI surface ID - this number can be used to prevent the blending of light cache samples across
different surfaces. If two objects have different GI surface IDs, the light cache samples of the two
objects will not be blended. This can be useful to prevent light leaks between objects of vastly
different illumination.














VRayFastSSS material


General
VRayFastSSS parameters
Notes

Search keywords: sub-surface scattering, sss, skin, wax
General
VRayFastSSS is a material that calculates a sub-surface scattering effect. Since it uses a simplified
algorithm, it is typically faster than the sub-surface scattering option of VRayMtl and may be easier to
control. Note thatVRayFastSSS does not include diffuse and glossy effects. To add these, create
a VRayBlendMtl material withVRayFastSSS as a base material and a VRayMtl as a coat material.

VRayFastSSS simulates the effect of three sub-surface layers - a shallow layer over a deep layer
over a back-scattering layer. You can control these separately to achieve different looks for the
surface.
VRayFastSSS parameters
Prepass rate - VRayFastSSS approximates
the sub-surface scattering by precomputing the surface lighting at different points on the surface and
then interpolating between these points. This parameter determines the resolution at which surface
lighting is precomputed during the prepass phase. A value of 0 means that the prepass will be at the
final image resolution; a value of -1 means half the image resolution, and so on. For high quality
renders it is recommended to set this to 0.

Interpolation samples - this parameter determines how many samples will be used when smoothing
the surface lighting. For very translucent surfaces, there must be enough samples to blur the lighting
across a large portion of the surface and so you may need to increase this parameter. Less
translucent surfaces can do with fewer samples, which also makes the calculations faster.

Diffuse roughness - this parameter controls the surface roughness for the material. A value
of 0.0 produces a diffuse material, while higher values give the surface a translucent quality.

Shallow radius - this determines the radius (in scene units) of light scattering for the first (shallow)
sub-surface layer. Smaller values produce less blurring of the surface lighting and are faster to
calculate. Larger values blur the lighting. Note that increasing this parameter may also require you to
increase the Interpolation samples.

Shallow color - the color for the shallow sub-surface layer. Note that this color is also used as a filter
on top of the Deep color and the Back color (e.g. if the Shallow color is pure white, no deep- or
back-scattering is calculated). The color can also be controlled with a texture map.

Deep radius - determines the radius (in scene units) of light scattering for the second (deep) sub-
surface layer. Typically, this value would be several times larger than the Shallow radius. Note that
increasing this parameter may also require you to increase the Interpolation samples.

Deep color - the color of the deep layer. Note that this color is also used as a filter on top of the Back
color(e.g. if the Deep color is pure white, no back-scattering will be visible). In a similar manner,
the Shallow coloris used as a filter for the Deep one. The color can also be controlled with a texture
map.

Backscatter depth - a maximum depth (in scene units) at which the backscatter effect will be visible.
A value of0.0 produces no back-scattering.

Back radius - the radius (in scene units) for the back-scattering effect. Larger values blur the back-
scattered light, but may be slower to calculate. Increasing this parameter may also require you to
increase theInterpolation samples.

Back color - the color for the back-scattering effect. Note that both the Shallow color and Deep
color are used as filters on top of the Back color.

Notes
VRayFastSSS uses the V-Ray prepass system to simulate and interpolate the sub-surface
scattering. During other GI calculations (e.g. light cache or photon mapping), the material is
calculated as a diffuse one.
VRayFastSSS does not require that the object has any actual volume; it relies purely on
surface lighting.












VRayFastSSS2 material


General
Parameters
General parameters
Diffuse and sub-surface layers parameters
Specular layer parameters
Options
Notes
References and links

Search keywords: sub-surface scattering, sss, skin, wax, marble
General
VRayFastSSS2 is a material that is primarily designed for rendering of translucent materials like skin,
marble etc. The implementation is based on the concept of BSSRDF originally introduced by Jensen
et al. (see the references below) and is a more or less physically accurate approximation of the sub-
surface scattering effect, while still being fast enough to be used in practice.

In difference from the original VRayFastSSS material, VRayFastSSS2 is a complete material with
diffuse and specular components that can be used directly, without the need of
a VRayBlendMtl material. More exactly, the material is composed of three layers: a specular layer, a
diffuse layer, and a sub-surface scattering layer. The sub-surface scattering layer is comprised of
single and multiple scattering components. Single scattering occurs when light bounces once inside
the material. Multiple scattering results from light bouncing two or more times before leaving the
material.
Parameters
General parameters
Preset - allows you to choose one of several
available preset materials. Most of the presets are based on measured data provided by Jensen et
al.in [3].

Prepass rate - VRayFastSSS2 accelerates the calculation of multiple scattering by precomputing the
lighting at different points on the surface of the object and storing them in a structure called an
illumination map, which is similar to the irradiance map used to approximate global illumination, and
uses the same prepass mechanism built into V-Ray that is also used for e.g. interpolated glossy
reflections/refractions. This parameter determines the resolution at which surface lighting is computed
during the prepass phase. A value of 0 means that the prepass will be at the final image resolution; a
value of -1 means half the image resolution, and so on. For high quality renders it is recommended to
set this to 0 or higher, as lower values may cause artifacts or flickering in animations. If the chosen
prepass rate is not sufficient to approximate the multiple scattering effect
adequately, VRayFastSSS2 will replace it with a simple diffuse term. This can happen, for example,
for objects that are very far away from the camera, or if the subsurface scattering effect is very small.
This simplification is controlled by the Prepass blur parameter.

Scale - additionally scales the subsurface scattering radius. Normally, VRayFastSSS2 will take the
scene units into account when calculating the subsurface scattering effect. However, if the scene was
not modelled to scale, this parameter can be used to adjust the effect. It can also be used to modify
the effect of the presets, which reset the Scatter radius parameter when loaded, but leave
the Scale parameter unchanged.

IOR - the index of refraction for the material. Most water-based materials like skin have IOR of
about 1.3.
Diffuse and sub-surface scattering
layers parameters
Overall color - controls the overall
coloration for the material. This color
serves as a filter for both the diffuse and
the sub-surface component.

Diffuse color - the color of the diffuse
portion of the material.

Diffuse amount - the amount for the
diffuse component of the material. Note
that this value in fact blends between the diffuse and sub-surface layers. When set to 0.0, the material
does not have a diffuse component. When set to 1.0, the material has only a diffuse component,
without a sub-surface layer. The diffuse layer can be used to simulate dust etc. on the surface.

Sub surface color - the general color for the sub-surface portion of the material.

Scatter color - the internal scattering color for the material. Brighter colors cause the material to
scatter more light and to appear more translucent; darker colors cause the material to look more
diffuse-like.

Scatter radius - controls the amount of light scattering in the material. Smaller values cause the
material to scatter less light and to appear more diffuse-like; higher values make the material more
translucent. Note that this value is specified always in centimeters (cm); the material will automatically
take care to convert it into scene units based on the currently selected system units.

Phase function - a value between -1.0 and 1.0 that determines the general way light scatters inside
the material. Its effect can be somewhat likened to the difference between diffuse and glossy
reflections from a surface, however the phase function controls the reflection and transmittance of a
volume. A value of 0.0 means that light scatters uniformly in all directions (isotropic scattering);
positive values mean that light scatters predominantly forward in the same direction as it comes from;
negative values mean that light scatters mostly backward. Most water-based materials (e.g. skin, milk)
exhibit strong forward scattering, while hard materials like marble exhibit backward scattering. This
parameter affects most strongly the single scattering component of the material. Positive values
reduce the visible effect of single scattering component, while negative values make the single
scattering component generally more prominent.
Specular layer parameters
Specular color - determines the specular
color for the material.

Specular amount - determines the
specular amount for the material. Note that
there is an automatic Fresnel falloff applied
to the specular component, based on
the IOR of the material.

Specular glossiness - determines the
glossiness (hightlights shape). A value
of 1.0 produces sharp reflections, lower values produce more blurred reflections and highlights.

Specular subdivs - determines the number of samples that will be used to calculate glossy
reflections. Lower values render faster, but may produce noise in the glossy reflections. Higher values
reduce the noise, but may be slower to calculate.

Specular reflections - enables the calculations of glossy reflections. When off, only hilights will be
calculated.

Specular trace depth - the number of reflection bounces for the material.
Options
Single scatter - controls how the single
scattering component is calculated:

None - no single scattering component is
calculated.

Simple - the single scattering component is
approximated from the surface lighting.
This option is useful for relatively opaque
materials like skin, where light penetration
is normally limited.

Raytraced (solid) - the single scattering component is accurately calculated by sampling the volume
inside the object. Only the volume is raytraced; no refraction rays on the other side of the object are
traced. This is useful for highly translucent materials like marble or milk, which at the same time are
relatively opaque.

Raytraced (refractive) - similar to the Raytraced (solid) mode, but in addition refraction rays are
traced. This option is useful for transparent materials like water or glass. In this mode, the material will
also produce transparent shadows.

Single scatter subdivs - determines the number of samples to make when evaluating the single
scattering component when the Single scatter mode is set to Raytraced (solid) or Raytraced
(refractive).

Refraction depth - this determines the depth of refraction rays when the Single scatter parameter is
set toRaytraced (refractive) mode.

Front lighting - enables the multiple scattering component for light that falls on the same side of the
object as the camera.

Back lighting - enables the multiple scattering component for light that falls on the opposite side of
the object as the camera. If the material is relatively opaque, turning this off will speed up the
rendering.

Scatter GI - controls whether the material will accurately scatter global illumination. When off, the
global illumination is calculated using a simple diffuse approximation on top of the sub-surface
scattering. When on, the global illumination is included as part of the surface illumination map for
multiple scattering. This is more accurate, especially for highly translucent materials, but may slow
down the rendering quite a bit.

Prepass blur - controls if the material will use a simplified diffuse version of the multiple scattering
when the prepass rate for the direct lighting map is too low to adequately approximate it. A value
of 0.0 will cause the material to always use the illumination map. However, for objects that are far
away from the camera, this may lead to artifacts or flickering in animations. Larger values control the
minimum required samples from the illumination map in order to use it for approximating multiple
scattering.
Notes
When using either Raytraced (solid) or Raytraced (refractive) mode for the Single
scatter parameter, you need to use VRayShadows for standard lights in order to get correct
results.
VRayFastSSS2 uses the V-Ray prepass system to simulate and interpolate the sub-surface
scattering. During other GI calculations (e.g. light cache or photon mapping), the material is
calculated as a diffuse one.
For the reason explained above, VRayFastSSS2 will render as a diffuse one with the
progressive path tracing mode of the light cache.
References and links
Here is a list of links and references used when building the VRayFastSSS2 material.

[1] H. C. Hege, T. Hollerer, and D. Stalling, Volume Rendering: Mathematical Models and
Algorithmic aspects
An online version can be found at http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~holl/publications.html
Defines the basic quantities involved in volumetric rendering and derives the volumetric and
surface rendering equations.
[2] T. Farrell, M. Patterson, and B. Wilson, A Diffusion Theory Model of Spatially
Resolved, Steady-state Diffuse Reflectance for the Noninvasive Determination of
Tissue Optical Properties in vivo, Med. Phys. 19(4), J ul/Aug 1992
Describes an application of the diffusion theory to the simulation of sub-surface scattering;
derives the base formulas for the dipole approximation used by Jensen et al. (see below).
[3] H. J ensen, S. Marschner, M. Levoy, and P. Hanrahan, A Practical Model for Subsurface
Light Transport, SIGGRAPH'01: Computer Graphics Proceedings, pp. 511-518
An online version of this paper can be found at http://www-
graphics.stanford.edu/papers/bssrdf/
Introduces the concept of BSSRDF and describes a practial method for calculating sub-
surface scattering based on the dipole approximation derived by Farrell et al. (see above).
[4] H. J ensen and J . Buhler, A Rapid Hierarchical Rendering Technique for Translucent
Materials, SIGGRAPH'02: Computer Graphics Proceedings, pp. 576-581
An online version of this paper can be found
at http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/papers/fast_bssrdf/
Introduces the idea of decoupling the calculations of surface illumination and the sub-surface
scattering effect in a two-pass method; describes a fast hierarchical approach for evaluating
subsurface scattering and proposes a reparametrization of the BSSRDF parameters for
easier user adjustment.
[5] C. Donner and H. J ensen, Light Diffusion in Multi-Layered Translucent Materials,
SIGGRAPH'05: ACM SIGGRAPH 2005 Papers, pp. 1032-1039
An online version of this paper can be found at http://graphics.ucsd.edu/papers/layered/
Provides a concise description of the original BSSRDF solution method presented by Jensen
et al; extends the model to multi-layered materials and thin slabs using multipole
approximation.

VRayBlendMtl material


General
Parameters
Notes

Search keywords: layered material, car paint, shellac, blend, skin
General
VRayBlendMtl can be used to layer several V-Ray compatible
materials in an efficient manner. VRayBlendMtltakes full
advantage of the shading pipeline of the V-Ray renderer and is
typically faster than the
standard Blend,Shellac and Composite materials of 3ds Max. It
also keeps the physical correctness of the final material while offering similar functionality to the
standard 3ds Max ones. It can be used to create complex materials like car paints, human skin (when
used with VRayFastSSS as a base material) etc.

An advantage of VRayBlendMtl is that you can use the VRayMtlSelect render element to split the
different sub-materials of VRayBlendMtl into different render elements.

VRayBlendMtl takes a base material and applies other materials (coatings) on top of it. This works
like a stack, where each coat material blends between its own shading and that of the materials below
it in the stack.
Parameters

Base material - the base material over
which other materials are layered. If this is
not specified, the base material will be
assumed to be a perfectly transparent
material.

Coat materials - these specify materials
to use as coatings.

Blend amount - this color specifies how
much of the final result is contributed by
the corresponding coating material, and
the rest of the materials below it. If
the Blend amount is white, the final result
is comprised of the coat material only, and
other materials below it are blocked. If
the Blend amount is black, a coat
material has no effect on the final result.
This parameter can also be controlled by a
texture map.

Additive (shellac) mode - checking this option makes VRayBlendMtl to behave like a multi-
layered Shellac material. Note that this would often result in a physically incorrect material (e.g. a
material that reflects more light than falls on it). It is not recommended to use this option unless you
know what you are doing.
Notes
VRayBlendMtl is specifically designed for the V-Ray shading API and can only support V-
Ray compatible materials (VRayMtl, VRayFastSSS etc). Additional V-Ray compatible
materials can be developed with the V-Ray Shading SDK.
If any of the Coat materials is a VRayMtl with Fog color different than white, it will be
ignored. Fog colorwill be considered only for the Base material.

VRaySimbiontMtl material

General
VRaySimbiontMtl parameters
Tweaks

Search keywords: DarkTree Shaders
General
VRaySimbiontMtl is a material allows you to render
procedural DarkTree shaders with V-Ray. For more information
on DarkTree shaders, please visit http://www.darksim.com/

VRaySimbiontMtl parameters

DarkTree shader - specifies
the DarkTree shader file. Currently
only .dsts files are supported.

Preserve tweaks on load - when
enabled, the values of tweaks with the
same name are preserved when loading
a new DarkTree shader.

Double sided - this makes the material
doble sided.

Glossy reflections - enables the
calculation of glossy reflections.

Glossy subdivs - controls the quality of
glossy reflections. Lower values will
render faster, but the result will be more
noisy. Higher values take longer, but
produce smoother results.

Use luminosity - this option allows the
user to turn off the luminosity (self-
illumination) component of
aDarkTree shader. While this component is useful for a number of special-effect materials (like lava),
it is not a good property for regular surface materials (like stone, bricks etc), in which cases it should
be turned off.

Use texture scale - some DarkTree shaders have a specific internally defined scale (for example,
the size of bricks, stone slabs etc), similar to the real-world mapping options of 3ds Max textures. This
parameter allows you to enable or disable the scaling of the shader based on its internal scale and
the scene units. The internal scale of the shader is displayed in the shader description field in
the Tweaks rollout.

Bump scale - the strength of the bump map for the material.

Camera near - some DarkTree shaders use this parameter for texture filtering and level of detail
rendering.

Camera far - some DarkTree shaders use this parameter for texture filtering and level of detail
rendering.

Mapping type - specifies the mapping type for the shader:

Object XYZ - the texture coordinates are derived from the local object space of the object on which
the material is applied;

World XYZ - the texture coordinates are derived from the world-space position of the shaded points;

Explicit mapping channel - the texture coordinates are derived from the specified Mapping
channel of the object on which the material is applied.

Mapping channel - the mapping channel to use when Mapping type is set to Explicit mapping
channel.

Mapping smooth derivatives - this parameter affects bump mapping on curved surfaces. Normally,
bump mapping is discontinuous across mesh triangles, which may lead to artifacts in certain cases.
Setting this optionon allows to produce a smoother results by interpolating the UVW basis vectors
across the mesh.

Mapping offset - allows to move the shader in the texture space.

Mapping tiling - changes the size (and tiling) of the shader. Note that changing the Z value will also
affect the strength of the bump mapping.

Mapping angle - allows to rotate the shader in texture space.
Tweaks
The Tweaks rollout is specific to the
loadedDarkTree shader and allows the
adjustment of its parameters. Here an
example is shown for
thebioLeafy.dsts file.

This rollout contains a shader description
field, which also displays the internal
shader scale, followed by all the different
shader parameters. In addition to the
parameter values, you can also specify
texture maps for many of them.

VRaySun and VRaySky
parameters
Home Examples



General
VRaySun parameters
VRaySky parameters
Notes
References and links

Search keywords: sun, sky, VRaySun, VRaySky, environment, daylight, sunlight, exterior lighting
General
The VRaySun and VRaySky are special features which are provided by the V-Ray renderer.
Developed to work together, the VRaySun and VRaySky reproduce the real-life Sun and Sky
environment of the Earth. Both are coded so that they change their appearance depending on the
direction of the VRaySun.

The V-Ray Sun and Sky are based largely on the model presented in [1]. For a more complete list of
references, please see the References and links section.
VRaySun parameters
The VRaySun is located in the (Create - Lights - VRay) panel. You
can also specify the VRaySun as the sun type inside a 3ds
Max Daylight system.

Enabled - turns on and off the sun light.

Invisible - when on, this option makes the sun invisible, both to the
camera and to reflections. This is useful to prevent bright speckles on
glossy surfaces where a ray with low probability hits the extremely
bright sun disk.

Turbidity - this parameter determines the amount of dust in the air
and affects the color of the sun and sky. Smaller values produce a
clear and blue sky and sun as you get in the country, while larger
values make them yellow and orange as, for example, in a big city.
For further info, please see the Examplessection.

Ozone - this parameter affects the color of the sun light. Available in
the range between 0.0 and 1.0. Smaller values make the sunlight more yellow, larger values make it
blue. For further info, please see the Examples section.

Intensity multiplier - this is an intensity multiplier for the VRaySun. Since the sun is very bright by
default, you can use this parameter to reduce its effect. See the Notes and Examples sections for
more information.

Size multiplier - this parameter controls the visible size of the sun. This affects the appearance of the
sun disc as seen by the camera and reflections, as well as the blurriness of the sun shadows. For
further information, please see the Examples section.

Shadow subdivs - this controls the number of samples for the area shadow of the sun. More subdivs
produce area shadows with better quality but render slower. For further info, please see
the Examples section.

Shadow bias - moves the shadow toward or away from the shadow-casting object (or objects). If the
bias value is too low, shadows can "leak" through places they shouldn't, produce moire patterns or
making out-of-place dark areas on meshes. If bias is too high, shadows can "detach" from an object. If
the bias value is too extreme in either direction, shadows might not be rendered at all. For further info,
please see the Examples section.

Photon emit radius - determines the radius of the area, in where photons would be shot. This area is
represented by the green cyllinder around the Sun's ray vector. This parameter has effect when
photons are used in the GI solutions or caustics.

Sky Model - Allows you to specify the procedural model that will be used to generate
the VRaySky texture.

- Preetham et al. - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated
based on the Preetham et al. method.

- CIE Clear - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated based on
the CIE method for clear sky.

- CIE Overcast - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated
based on the CIE method for cloudy sky


Indirect horiz. illum. - specifies the intensity (in lx) of the illumination on horizontal surfaces coming
from the sky

Exclude - this button allows you to exclude objects from illumination/shadow casting for the sun light.
VRaySky parameters
The VRaySky texture map is typically
used as an environment map, either in the
3dsmaxEnvironment dialog, or in one of
the slots of the V-Ray Environment
rollout and behaves very much like a
HDRI environment map.
The VRaySkychanges its appearance
based on the position of the VRaySun.

Manual sun node - specifies how
the VRaySkydetemines its parameters:
Off - the VRaySky will automatically take
its parameters from the first
enabled VRaySun in the scene. In this
case, none of the other parameters of VRaySky are accessible.

On - you can choose a different light source. It is recommended that you choose only direct lights, as
the vector for the direction is taken into consideration when computing the appearance of the sky. In
that case theVRaySun is no longer controlling the VRaySky and the parameters in the texture map
rollout determine the final look of the sky.

Sun node - specifies which light source is chosen if Specify sun node is On.

Sun turbidity - refer to VRaySun parameters

Sun ozone - refer to VRaySun parameters

Sun intensity multiplier - refer to VRaySun parameters

Sun size multiplier - refer to VRaySun parameters

Sun invisible - when this option is on, the sun disk will not be visible on the sky texture.

Sky Model - Allows you to specify the procedural model that will be used to generate
the VRaySky texture.

- Preetham et al. - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated
based on the Preetham et al. method.

- CIE Clear - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated based on
the CIE method for clear sky.

- CIE Overcast - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated
based on the CIE method for cloudy sky


Indirect horiz. illum. - specifies the intensity (in lx) of the illumination on horizontal surfaces coming
from the sky
Notes
By default, the VRaySun and VRaySky are very bright. In the real world, the average solar
irradiance is about 1000 W/m^2 (see the references below). Since the image output in V-Ray
is in W/m^2/sr, you will typically find that the average RGB values produces by the sun and
the sky are about 200.0-300.0 units. This is quite correct from a physical point of view, but is
not enough for a nice image. You can either useColor mapping to bring these values to a
smaller range (which is the preferred way) or you can use the Sun intensity multiplier to
make the sun and sky less bright. Using the VRayPhysicalCamera with suitable values also
produces a correct result without changing the sun and sky parameters.
References and links
Here is a list of links and references about the V-Ray Sun and Sky implementation, as well as general
information about the illumination of the Sun.

[1] A.J . Preetham, P. Shirley, and B. Smits, A Practical Analytic Model for Daylight,
SIGGRAPH 1999, Computer Grahics Procedings;
An online version can be found at http://www.cs.utah.edu/~shirley/papers/sunsky/
This paper includes source code examples and is the base for
the VRaySun and VRaySky plugins.
[2] R. H. B. Exell, The intensity of solar radiation, 2000
This page is available at http://www.jgsee.kmutt.ac.th/exell/Solar/Intensity.html
This page contains information about the average intensity of the solar radiation, as well as
some specific measurements.
[3] R. Cahalan, Sun & Earth Radiation
This page can be found at http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/static/cahalan/Radiation/
These pages contain a list of accurate solar irradiances across a large portion of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
[4] D. Robinson-Boonstra, Venus Transit: Activity 3, Sun & Earth Day 2004
This document can be found online at
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday/2004/2004images/VT_Activity3.pdf
Among other things, this document gives the distance from the Sun to the Earth and the size
of the Sun derived from astronomic observations.


VRayDirt Map parameters
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General
Parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: dirt, AO, Ambient Occlusion,
VRayDirt
General
The VRayDirt is a texture map that can be
used to simulate a variety of effects, for
example dirt around the crevices of an
object, or to produce an ambient occlusion
pass.
Parameters
Radius - this parameters determines the
amount of area (in scene units) where
the VRayDirt effect is produced. For
further info, please see the Examplessection. You can also use a texture to control the radius. The
texture intensity is multiplied by the radius to calculate the final radius at a given surface point. If the
texture is white at a given surface point, the full radius value is used. If the texture is black, a radius
of 0.0 is used.

Occluded color - this is the color that will be returned by the texture for occluded areas. You can also
use a texture map for this parameter.

Unoccluded color - this is the color that will be returned by the texture for unoccluded areas. You
can also use a texture map for this parameter.

Distribution - this parameter will force the rays to gather closer to the surface normal. The effect is
that the dirt area is being narrowed closer to the contact edges. For ambient occlusion, set this
parameter to 1.0 to get distribution similar to the ambient lighting on a diffuse surface.

Falloff - this parameter controls the speed of the transition between occluded and unoccluded areas.

Subdivs - controls the number of samples that V-Ray takes to calculate the dirt effect. Lower values
render faster but produce a more noisy result.

Bias (X,Y,Z) - these parameters will bias the normals to the X (Y,Z) axes, so that the dirt effect is
forced to those directions. Consider that these parameter can also take negative values for inversing
the direction of the effect.

Ignore for GI - this check-box determines whether the dirt effect will be taken into consideration for GI
calculations or not.

Consider same object only - when on, the dirt will affect only the objects themselves, without
including contact surfaces and edges. If off, the entire scene geometry is participating for the final
result.

Invert normal - this option allows to revert the effect with respect to surface normals - e.g. instead of
crevices, open corners will be shaded with the occluded color. See the Examples section for an
example.

Invert normal - this parameter will change the direction of tracing the rays. When it is off the rays are
traced outside the surface, when on they are traced inside the surface.

Work with transparency - when on, VRayDirt will take into account the opacity of the occluding
objects. This can be used, for example, if you want to calculate ambient occlusion from opacity-
mapped trees etc. When off(the default), occluding objects are always assumed to be opaque. Note
that working with correct opacity is slower, since in that case VRayDirt must examine and evaluate
the material on the occluding objects.

Environment occlusion - when this option is checked V-Ray will use the environment when
calculating the occlusion of areas that are not occluded by other objects.

Mode - allows you to specify the mode in which the dirt map is going to be calculated

Ambient occlusion - normal ambient occlusion will be calculated

Reflection occlusion(Phong, Blinn, Ward) - reflection occlusion will be used. The difference
between ambient and reflection occlusion is basically in the direction in which rays are traced. With
ambient occlusion rays are traced in all directions uniformly while with reflection occlusion the
direction depends on the viewing direction (just as when calcualting reflections) and the spread of the
rays depends on the Relfection glossines and BRDF type used

Reflection glossiness - this parameter controls the spread of the rays traced for reflection occlusion.
A value of 1 means that just a single ray is traced (just like when tracing clear reflections), smaller
values make the spread of the traced rays.

affect reflection elements - when checked the ambient reflection will affect the reflection render
elements. This can be used to create reflection masks

Exclude - allows you to disable the calculation of the VRayDirt map for specific objects. Excluded
object will always be rendered with the Unoccluded color.

Result Affect - specifies a list of objects which will affect the calculation of the VRayDirt map.
Excluded objects will be considered "invisible" for the calculations of the VRayDirt map.
Notes

VRayColor Map

General
Parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: VRayColor, color, floating point
General
The VRayColor texture map can be used to set any color and also allows you to set a floating point
value for the R, G, B, A channels. It can also be used to specify overall opacity for VRayMtl materials.

Parameters
Red - the value for the Red channel. Note
that the full intensity is reached at 1.0 for
this parameter (and not 255).

Green - the value for
the Green channel. Note that the full
intensity is reached at 1.0 for this
parameter (and not 255).

Blue - the value for the Blue channel.
Note that the full intensity is reached
at 1.0 for this parameter (and not 255).

RGB multiplier - this is the multiplier for
the color.

Alpha - the value for the Alpha channel. Note that the full intensity is reached at 1.0 for this
parameter (and not 255).

Color - you can use this color swatch to visualize the resulting color. You can also double-click it to
bring up the standard 3ds Max color picker. Note, however, that the color picker is limited internally to
a precision of 8 bits per channel and if you modify the color, the RGB components will snap to the
nearest 8-bit level.
Gamma correction
The VRayColor texture allows you to apply a gamma correction on the displayed colors. Note that
this correction is applied only to the displayed color swatch for the Color parameter. The gamma
value does notaffect the actual RGB values in any way. The gamma correction controls are shared by
all instances of theVRayColor texture - if you change them in one VRayColor texture, all
other VRayColor textures will automatically pick the new values.

Gamma correction - specifies how to determine if and what gamma correction to apply:
None - no gamma correction is applied on the displayed color.
Specify - the gamma value is explicitly specified by the Gamma value parameter.
3ds Max - the proper gamma value is derived from the 3ds Max gamma settings as set in the 3ds
MaxPreferences dialog.

Gamma value - specifies the gamma correction value in the case when the Gamma
correction parameter is set to Specify.
Notes
Black color is represented as 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 for the Red, Green and Blue parameters
respectively, white is represented as 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, and middle gray as 0.5, 0.5, 0.5.
The Alpha parameter has no effect when the VRayColor map is used in the opacity slot of
a VRayMtlmaterial. In this case the opacity value is calculated with the formula: opacity =
(R+G+B) / 3.

VRayMap parameters

General
The VRayMap allows you to add V-Ray reflections and
refractions to standard and other 3rd party materials. Its usage is
similar to that of the standard Raytrace map in 3ds Max.
However, do not use the Raytrace map with V-Ray. Use the
VRayMap instead.
Parameters
Type - this
determines
whether the
map acts as
a reflection
map or a refraction map. Note that the VRayMap
does not automatically detect this type; you need
to set this manually.

Reflect - when this option is chosen VRayMap
will act like a reflection map. Then
the Reflection params section can be used for
controlling the settings of the map (Changing
settings inRefraction params section will have
no effect on the map).

Refract - when this option is chosen VRayMap
will act like a refraction map. Then
the Reraction params section can be used for
controlling the settings of the map (Changing
settings inRefraction params section will have
no effect on the map).

Reflection params

Filter color - multiplier for the reflections. Do not
use the spinner in the material to set the
strength of reflections. Use this filter color instead (photon map will not be correct otherwise).

Reflect on back side - this checkbox forces V-Ray to trace reflections always. Using this option in
conjunction with a refraction map increases rendering times.

Glossy - turns glossy (blurry) reflections on.
Glossiness - the glossiness of the material. A value of zero means extremely blurry reflections.
Higher values makes reflections sharper.
Subdivs - controls the number of rays sent out to evaluate the glossy reflection. More rays mean
smoother reflection, but more rendering time.

Max depth - maximum ray depth for the map. The map will return the Exit color for rays of greater
depth.

Cutoff thresh - reflections which contribute little to the final value of an image sample will not be
traced. The cut-off threshold sets the minimum contribution for a reflection to be traced.

Exit color - the color to be returned when the maximum ray depth has been reached but the
reflection has not been computed completely.

Refraction params

Filter color - multiplier for the refraction. (see Filter color in Reflection params section).

Glossy - turns glossy (blurry) refractions on.
Glossiness - (see Glossiness in Reflection params section).
Subdivs - (see Subdivs in Reflection params section).

Fog color - V-Ray allows you to fill refractive objects with fog. This is the color of the fog.
Fog multiplier -multiplier for the Fog color. Smaller values produce more transparent fog.

Max depth - the maximum ray depth for the refractions. (see Max depth in Reflection
params section)

Cutoff thresh - (see Cutoff thresh in Reflection params section)

Exit color - (see Exit color in Reflection params section)
Notes
The index of refraction is controlled by the materials, not by the VRayMap. For Standard
materials, the index of refraction is set in the Extended parameters rollout.

VRayHDRI map
General
The VRayHDRI map can be used to load high dynamic range images (HDRI) and map them onto the
environment. Supports most of the standard HDRI-environment mapping methods.
Parameters

HDR map - the file name of the high
dynamic range image. Currently only .hdr
and .rad files are supported.

Browse - click this button to browse for an
HDR image.

Overall multiplier - a control for the
overall brightness of the image. This
multiplier affects both rendering and the material edtior.

Render multiplier - controls the brightness of the HDRI image only when rendering; it has no effect
on the display of the image in the material editor.

Horiz. rotation - allows rotation of the environment map left and right.

Flip horizontally - flips the environment horizontally.

Vert. rotation - allows rotation of the environment map up and down.

Flip vertically - flips the environment vertically.

Gamma - a gamma-correction value for the HDRI image.

Map type - chooses the environment mapping type.


VRayEdgesTex
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Search Keywords: edge, VRayEdge, wire
General
VRayEdgesTex is a very simple texture map that allows you to achieve an effect similar to the
wireframe materials is 3ds Max. Since it's a texture, is allows you to create some interesting effects
that are not possible with the standard 3ds Max materials. The texture can also be used as a bump
map to produce a "round corners" effect for mesh objects.
Parameters

Color - the color of the edges

Hidden edges - when checked, this will render all edges of the object. Otherwise, only edges marked
as "visible" will be rendered.

Thickness - this determines the thickness of the edge lines:
World units - the thickness is in world (scene) units.
Pixels - this thickness is in pixels. When the texture is used as a bump map, this parameter is
ignored; instead, only the World units are considered.
Notes
For objects displaced with V-Ray displacement, the VRayEdgesTex map shows the edges of
the original faces, not the edges of the resulting sub-triangles:

VRayEdgesTex will not work well when used as a bump map on displaced objects;
VRayEdgesTex cannot simulate outlines on the objects; you can use VRayToon to add
outlines.
When used as a bump map in glossy materials
with Blinn or Ward BRDF, VRayEdgesTex may lead to dark edges; to avoid this, use
the Phong BRDF instead:

Blinn BRDF Phong BRDF







VRayBmpFilter
General
Parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: displacement, VRayDisplacementMod, bitmap filtering
General
The VRayBmpFilter texture map is useful for displacement maps, created in external programs (like
ZBrush) where exact placement of the map is very important. The VRayBmpFilter map produces a
smooth map by interpolating the bitmap pixels, but without applying any additional blurring or
smoothing. This is not possible with the default Bitmap texture of 3ds Max.
Parameters

Bitmap - this is the bitmap file. This can be in any format supported by 3ds Max.

U offset - allows to position the bitmap more precisely; the value is in pixels of the bitmap.

V offset - allows to position the bitmap more precisely; the value is in pixels of the bitmap.

Flip U - flips the bitmap in the horizontal direction.

Flip V - flips the bitmap in the vertical direction.

Channel - mapping channel from which the UV coordinates are derived.
Notes


VRayCompTex
General
Parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: displacement, VRayDisplacementMod, bitmap filtering
General
The VRayCompTex texture map allows us to compose two textures together using one of the
provided blending modes.Parameters
Source A - this is the first of the two
textures that are going to be blended

Source B - this is the second of the two
textures that are going to be blended

Operator - specify the operation from a list of different blend modes

Add(A+B) - This blend mode simply adds pixel values of one texture with the other. In case of values
above 256 (in the case of RGB), white is displayed.

Sutbract(A-B) - This blend mode simply subtracts pixel values of Source B from Source A. In case
of negative values, black is displayed.

Difference(|A-B|) - Difference subtracts Source B from Source A, to always get a positive value.
Blending with black produces no change, as values for all colours are 0. (The RGB value for black is
0,0,0). Blending with white inverts the picture.

Multiply(A*B) - Multiply blend mode multiplies the numbers for each pixel of Source A with the
corresponding pixel for Source B. As a simple multiplication can get values as high as 65025, which
is far higher than the maximum allowed value, 255, the result is divided by 255. The result is a darker
picture. Formula: Result =(Source A Color) * (Source B Color) /255

Divide(A/B) - This blend mode simply divides pixel values of Source A by the corresponding values
of Source B.

Minimum(Min{A,B}) - takes the darkest value for each pixel from each source

Maximum(Max{A,B}) - takes the brightest value for each pixel from each source

Notes

VRayLight parameters


General
Parameters
General
Intensity
Size
Options
Sampling
Texture
Dome light options
Mesh light options
Notes
General
The VRayLight is a V-Ray specific light source plugin that can be used to create physically accurate
area lights.


Parameters
General
On - turns the VRayLight on and off

Exclude - allows one to exclude objects from being illuminated or from
shadow-casting for the light.

Type - specifies the shape of the light:
Plane - the VRayLight has the shape of a planar rectangle.
Sphere - the VRayLight has the shape of a sphere.
Dome - the VRayLight acts like the SkyLight object in 3ds Max. The
light is coming from a (hemi)spherical dome above the z-axis of the
light.

Mesh - allows the usage of any triangle mesh as the shape of the light.
If the light is close to other surfaces in the scene, it is best to use this
mode with GI enabled. This will allow V-Ray to use combined direct and
GI sampling of the mesh light for best results. Without GI, the light may
produce noisy results for surfaces that are very close to it. Currently
there are some restrictions when using mesh lights; refer to
the Notes section below.
Intensity
Units - allows choosing the light units. Using correct units is essential
when you work with the VRayPhysicalCamera. The light will
automatically take the scene units scale into consideration to produce
the correct result for the scale you are working with. The possible
values are:
Default (image) - the color and multiplier directly determine the visible
color of the light without any conversion. The light surface will appear
with the given color in the final image when seen directly by the camera
(assuming there is no color mapping involved).

Lumious power (lm) - total emitted visible light power measured in
lumens. When this setting is used, the intensity of the light will not
depend on its size. A typical 100W electric bulb emits about 1500
lumens of light.

Luminance (lm/m^2/sr) - visible light surface power measured in
lumens per square meter per steradian. When this setting is used, the
intensity of the light depends on its size.

Radiant power (W) - total emitted visible light power measured in
watts. When using this setting, the intensity of the light does not depend
on its size. Keep in mind that this is not the same as the electric power
consumed by a light bulb for example. A typical 100W light bulb only
emits between 2 and 3 watts as visible light.

Radiance (W/m/sr) - visible light surface power measured in watts per
square meter per steradian. When this setting is used, the intensity of
the light depends on its size.

Multiplier - multiplier for the light color; this is also the light intensity in the units chosen by
the Intensity units parameter.

Mode - allows you to select the mode in which the color of the light will be determined:

Color - the light color is directly specified by the Color parameter.

Temperature - the light color temperature (in Kelvin) is specified by theTemperature parameter.

Color - specifies the color of the light when the Mode parameter is set to Color. When using
photometric units, this color is normalized so that only the color hue is used, whereas the light
intensity is determined by the lightMultiplier.

Temperature - specifies the color of the light in degrees Kelvin when the Mode parameter is set
toTemperature

Size
Half-length - the half-lenght of the light source, measured in scene units. If Sphere light source is
selected this value corresponds to the sphere's radius. This parameter is ignored for Dome lights.

Half-width - the half-width of the light source, measured in scene units. This field has no effect
when Sphere orDome light source is selected.

W size - currently this parameter does nothing. It's reserved if (one day) the VRayLight supports box-
shaped light sources.
Options
Cast shadows - when on (the default), the light casts shadows. Turn this option off to disable
shadow casting for the light.

Double-sided - when the light is a planar light source this option controls whether light is beamed
from both sides of the plane. This field has no effect for Sphere or Dome light sources.

Invisible - this setting controls whether the shape of the VRayLight 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. Note that this option only affects the visibility of the light when seen directly by
the camera or through refractions. The visibility of the light with respect to reflections is controlled by
the Affect specular option.

Ignore light normals - normally, the surface of the source emits light equally in all directions. When
this option is off, more light is emitted in the direction of the source surface normal.

No decay - normally the light intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the
light (surfaces that are farther from the light are darker than surfaces which are closer to the light).
When this option is on the intensity will not decay with distance.

Skylight portal - when this option is on, the Color and Multiplier parameters are ignored; instead the
light will take its intensity from the environment behind it.

Simple portal - this option is only enabled if the Skylight portal option is on. It tells
the VRayLight that there is nothing of interest behind the light itself, and so the environment color can
be used directly. Normally, the portal light takes its color from whatever objects are behind it. In order
to do this, the light traces additional rays, which may slow down the rendering. Turning this
option on makes the rendering of portal lights faster.

Store with irradiance map - when this option is on and GI calculation is set to Irradiance map V-
Ray will calculate the effects of the VRayLight and store them in the irradiance map. The result is that
the irradiance map is computed more slowly but the rendering takes less time. You can also save the
irradiance map and reuse it later.

Affect diffuse - this determines whether the light is affecting the diffuse properties of the materials.

Affect specular - this determines whether the light is affecting the specular of the materials.

Affect reflections - this determines whether the light will appear in reflections of materials.
Sampling
Subdivs - this value controls the number of samples V-Ray takes to compute lighting. Lower values
mean more noisy results, but will render faster. Higher values produce smoother results but take more
time. Note that the actual number of samples also depends on the DMC Sampler settings.

Shadow bias - bias moves the shadow toward or away from the shadow-casting object (or objects). If
the Bias value is too low, shadows can "leak" through places they shouldn't, produce moire patterns
or making out-of-place dark areas on meshes. If Bias is too high, shadows can "detach" from an
object. If the Bias value is too extreme in either direction, shadows might not be rendered at all.

Cutoff - this parameter specifies a threshold for the light intensity, below which the light will not be
computed. This can be useful in scenes with many lights, where you want to limit the effect of the
lights to some distance around them. Larger values cut away more from the light; lower values make
the light range larger. If you specify0.0, the light will be calculated for all surfaces.
Texture
Use texture - when the Rectangle, Dome or Mesh light type is used, this tells the light to use a
texture for the light surface. If there are surfaces which are close to a texture-mapped light, it is best
to have GI enabled. This allows V-Ray to use combined direct and indirect sampling for the light,
reducing the noise for surfaces close to the light.

Texture - specifies the texture to use. The texture intensity is also affected by the Multiplier of the
light.

Resolution - specifies the resolution at which the texture is resampled for importance sampling.

Adaptiveness - controls the amount to which light sampling is tuned to the texture brightness. If 0.0,
no adaptation based on texture intensity is performed. When set to 1.0 (the default), the maximum
amount of adaptation is used. Changing this parameter may be required if there are very bright
portions of the map, which are however obscured for the particular scene. This will prevent the light
from concentrating a lot of samples in this area and shooting too few samples in other parts of the
texture. This parameter is ignored when the light type is Mesh as in that case sampling is not dictated
by texture brightness.
Dome light options
Spherical (full dome) - when on, this option causes the dome light to cover the entire sphere around
the scene. When off (the default), the light covers a hemisphere only.
Target radius - for the Dome light, defines a sphere around the light icon where photons are being
shot when photon-mapped caustics or the global photon map are used.

Emit radius - for the Dome light, defines a sphere around the light icon from which photons are being
shot towards the target radius area.
Mesh light options
Pick mesh - click on the button to select any triangle mesh object from
the scene as the shape of the light. If no mesh is specified, the light will assume a box shape.

Flip normals - if this is on, the normals of the mesh source will be inverted thus producing light on
the opposite side.

Replace mesh with light - if this option is checked when you pick the mesh it will be removed and
the V-Ray mesh light will be created in its place.

Extract mesh as node - use this button to restore when you have created a mesh light replacing the
actual geometry with the light you can get the original geometry back by clicking on this button
Notes
When using Mesh lights or texture-mapped Plane lights, it is best to have GI enabled. This
allows V-Ray to use combined direct and indirect sampling for the light, which greatly reduces
the noise for surfaces close to the light.
Currently Mesh lights do not work properly if the mesh source object has motion blur. This will
be implemented in a future release. Motion blur works properly for the other light types
(Plane and Sphere).



VRaySun and VRaySky
parameters
Home Examples



General
VRaySun parameters
VRaySky parameters
Notes
References and links

Search keywords: sun, sky, VRaySun, VRaySky, environment, daylight, sunlight, exterior lighting
General
The VRaySun and VRaySky are special features which are provided by the V-Ray renderer.
Developed to work together, the VRaySun and VRaySky reproduce the real-life Sun and Sky
environment of the Earth. Both are coded so that they change their appearance depending on the
direction of the VRaySun.

The V-Ray Sun and Sky are based largely on the model presented in [1]. For a more complete list of
references, please see the References and links section.
VRaySun parameters
The VRaySun is located in the (Create - Lights - VRay) panel. You
can also specify the VRaySun as the sun type inside a 3ds
Max Daylight system.

Enabled - turns on and off the sun light.

Invisible - when on, this option makes the sun invisible, both to the
camera and to reflections. This is useful to prevent bright speckles on
glossy surfaces where a ray with low probability hits the extremely
bright sun disk.

Turbidity - this parameter determines the amount of dust in the air
and affects the color of the sun and sky. Smaller values produce a
clear and blue sky and sun as you get in the country, while larger
values make them yellow and orange as, for example, in a big city.
For further info, please see the Examplessection.

Ozone - this parameter affects the color of the sun light. Available in
the range between 0.0 and 1.0. Smaller values make the sunlight more yellow, larger values make it
blue. For further info, please see the Examples section.

Intensity multiplier - this is an intensity multiplier for the VRaySun. Since the sun is very bright by
default, you can use this parameter to reduce its effect. See the Notes and Examples sections for
more information.

Size multiplier - this parameter controls the visible size of the sun. This affects the appearance of the
sun disc as seen by the camera and reflections, as well as the blurriness of the sun shadows. For
further information, please see the Examples section.

Shadow subdivs - this controls the number of samples for the area shadow of the sun. More subdivs
produce area shadows with better quality but render slower. For further info, please see
the Examples section.

Shadow bias - moves the shadow toward or away from the shadow-casting object (or objects). If the
bias value is too low, shadows can "leak" through places they shouldn't, produce moire patterns or
making out-of-place dark areas on meshes. If bias is too high, shadows can "detach" from an object. If
the bias value is too extreme in either direction, shadows might not be rendered at all. For further info,
please see the Examples section.

Photon emit radius - determines the radius of the area, in where photons would be shot. This area is
represented by the green cyllinder around the Sun's ray vector. This parameter has effect when
photons are used in the GI solutions or caustics.

Sky Model - Allows you to specify the procedural model that will be used to generate
the VRaySky texture.

- Preetham et al. - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated
based on the Preetham et al. method.

- CIE Clear - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated based on
the CIE method for clear sky.

- CIE Overcast - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated
based on the CIE method for cloudy sky


Indirect horiz. illum. - specifies the intensity (in lx) of the illumination on horizontal surfaces coming
from the sky

Exclude - this button allows you to exclude objects from illumination/shadow casting for the sun light.
VRaySky parameters
The VRaySky texture map is typically
used as an environment map, either in the
3dsmax Environment dialog, or in one of
the slots of the V-Ray Environment
rollout and behaves very much like a
HDRI environment map. The VRaySky
changes its appearance based on the
position of the VRaySun.

Manual sun node - specifies how
the VRaySky detemines its parameters:
Off - the VRaySky will automatically take
its parameters from the first
enabled VRaySun in the scene. In this
case, none of the other parameters of VRaySky are accessible.

On - you can choose a different light source. It is recommended that you choose only direct lights, as
the vector for the direction is taken into consideration when computing the appearance of the sky. In
that case theVRaySun is no longer controlling the VRaySky and the parameters in the texture map
rollout determine the final look of the sky.

Sun node - specifies which light source is chosen if Specify sun node is On.

Sun turbidity - refer to VRaySun parameters

Sun ozone - refer to VRaySun parameters

Sun intensity multiplier - refer to VRaySun parameters

Sun size multiplier - refer to VRaySun parameters

Sun invisible - when this option is on, the sun disk will not be visible on the sky texture.

Sky Model - Allows you to specify the procedural model that will be used to generate
the VRaySky texture.

- Preetham et al. - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated
based on the Preetham et al. method.

- CIE Clear - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated based on
the CIE method for clear sky.

- CIE Overcast - when this mode is selected the VRaySky procedural texture will be generated
based on the CIE method for cloudy sky


Indirect horiz. illum. - specifies the intensity (in lx) of the illumination on horizontal surfaces coming
from the sky
Notes
By default, the VRaySun and VRaySky are very bright. In the real world, the average solar
irradiance is about 1000 W/m^2 (see the references below). Since the image output in V-Ray
is in W/m^2/sr, you will typically find that the average RGB values produces by the sun and
the sky are about 200.0-300.0 units. This is quite correct from a physical point of view, but is
not enough for a nice image. You can either useColor mapping to bring these values to a
smaller range (which is the preferred way) or you can use the Sun intensity multiplier to
make the sun and sky less bright. Using the VRayPhysicalCamera with suitable values also
produces a correct result without changing the sun and sky parameters.
References and links
Here is a list of links and references about the V-Ray Sun and Sky implementation, as well as general
information about the illumination of the Sun.

[1] A.J . Preetham, P. Shirley, and B. Smits, A Practical Analytic Model for Daylight,
SIGGRAPH 1999, Computer Grahics Procedings;
An online version can be found at http://www.cs.utah.edu/~shirley/papers/sunsky/
This paper includes source code examples and is the base for
the VRaySun and VRaySky plugins.
[2] R. H. B. Exell, The intensity of solar radiation, 2000
This page is available at http://www.jgsee.kmutt.ac.th/exell/Solar/Intensity.html
This page contains information about the average intensity of the solar radiation, as well as
some specific measurements.
[3] R. Cahalan, Sun & Earth Radiation
This page can be found at http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/static/cahalan/Radiation/
These pages contain a list of accurate solar irradiances across a large portion of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
[4] D. Robinson-Boonstra, Venus Transit: Activity 3, Sun & Earth Day 2004
This document can be found online at
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday/2004/2004images/VT_Activity3.pdf
Among other things, this document gives the distance from the Sun to the Earth and the size
of the Sun derived from astronomic observations.











VRayIES light parameters


General
Parameters
Notes
General
The VRayIES is a V-Ray specific light source plugin that can be used to load and render real-world
light distribution profile files (IES files). The VRayIES light is very similar to the 3ds
Max Photometric lights, but is specifically optimized for the V-Ray renderer and typically renders
faster.
Parameters
Enabled - turns the VRayIES light on and off.

Targeted - makes the VRayIES targeted.

IES file (button) - specify the .ies file that defines the light distribution.

Cutoff - this parameter specifies a threshold for the light intensity,
below which the light will not be computed. This can be useful in
scenes with many lights, where you want to limit the effect of the
lights to some distance around them. Larger values cut away more
from the light; lower values make the light range larger. If you
specify 0.0, the light will be calculated for all surfaces.

Shadow bias - bias moves the shadow toward or away from the
shadow-casting object (or objects). If the Bias value is too low,
shadows can "leak" through places they shouldn't, produce moire
patterns or making out-of-place dark areas on meshes. If Bias is too
high, shadows can "detach" from an object. If the Bias value is too
extreme in either direction, shadows might not be rendered at all.

Sast shadows - when on (the default), the light casts shadows. Turn this option off to disable
shadow casting for the light.

Use light shape - when this option is on (the default) the shape of the light specified in the .ies light
will be taken into consideration during the calculation of shadows. Turn this option off to create sharp
shadows.

Shape subdivs - this value controls the number of samples V-Ray takes to compute lighting. Lower
values mean more noisy results, but will render faster. Higher values produce smoother results but
take more time. Note that the actual number of samples also depends on the DMC Sampler settings.

Color mode - allows you to select the mode in which the color of the light will be determined:

Color - the light color is directly specified by the Color parameter.
Temperature - the light color temperature (in Kelvin) is specified by the Temperature parameter.

Color - when the Color mode is set to Color this parameter determines the color of the light.

Color temperature - when the Color mode is set to Temperature this parameter determines the
color temperature (in Kelvin) of the light.

Power - determines the intensity of the light in lumens.

Area speculars - when this option is Off the particular light will be rendered as a point light in the
specular reflections

Exclude - this button brings up the 3ds Max include/exclude button which allows the user to exclude
objects from illumination and shadow casting.
Notes


VRayFur
Home


>>>VRayFur >>>

General
Parameters
General parameters
Basic parameters
Geometric detail
Variation
Distribution
Placement
Mapping
Maps
Viewport display
Notes

Search Keywords: fur, hair, grass, rug

General
VRayFur is a very simple procedural fur plugin. The fur is generated only during render time and is
not actually present in the scene.
To create a VRayFur object, you must first select a mesh from the 3ds Max scene, then go to
the Create panel, choose the VRay category, and then click on the VRayFur button. Note that if you
have not selected an object, or you have selected an object which is not compatible with VRayFur,
the VRayFur button will appear greyed out.
Parameters
General parameters
Basic parameters
Source object - this is the source geometry for the fur. You can click
on this button only from the Modify panel (and not from
the Create one).

Length - the length of the fur strands.

Thickness - the thickness of the strands.

Gravity - this controls the force that pulls fur strands down along the Z-
direction.

Bend - this parameter controls the elasticity of the fur strands. When it
is 0.0, the strands are hard and are all straight lines. Greater values
cause the strands to bend (e.g. under the influence of gravity).

Taper - allows you to add a taper to the individual strands of fur.
Inceasing this value will make the each strand thinner in its upper end
and wider in its base.
Geometric detail
Sides - currently this parameter is disabled. The fur is always rendered
as polygons facing the traced ray; normals are interpolated to create a
smooth appearance.

Knots - fur strands are rendered as several connected straight
segments; this parameter controls the number of segments.

Flat normals - when this option is on, the normal of the fur strands
does notvary across the strand width. Although not very precise, this is
similar to how other fur/hair solutions work. It may also help with fur
antialiasing, making the job of the image sampler a little easier. When
this option is turned off, the surface normal varies across the width of
the strands, creating the illusion that the strands have cylindrical shape.
Variation
Direction variation - this parameter adds slight variation to the direction in which fur strands grow
from the source object. Any positive value is valid. This parameter should also depend on the scene
scale.

Length/Thickness/Gravity variation - these add variation to the corresponding parameters. Values
are from 0.0(no variation) to 1.0.
Distribution
Distribution - determines the density of strands over the source object:
Per face - specifies the number of fur strands per face of the source object. Every face will generate
the specified number of fur strands.
Per area - the number of strands for a given face is based on the size of that face. Smaller faces have
fewer strands, larger faces have more strands. Every face has at least one strand. The size of the
faces is taken at the frame, specified by the Reference frame parameter.

Reference frame - When the Distribution parameter is set to Per area, this specifices the frame at
which the source object is captured to calculate the face area. The captured data will be used
throughout the entire animation to ensure that the number of strands for a given face remains
constant during animation.
Placement
Placement - determines which faces of the source object will generate fur strands:
Entire object - all faces will generate fur.
Selected faces - only selected faces (for example with a MeshSelect modifier) will generate fur.
Material ID - only faces with the specified material ID will generate fur.
Mapping
Generate W-coordinate - in general, all mapping coordinates are taken from the base object.
However, the W mapping coordinate can be modified to represent the offset along the hair strands.
When this option is on, the W coordinate is the offset along the hair strands (0.0 is the strand base,
and 1.0 is the tip). The U and V coordinates are still taken from the base object.

Channel - the channel for which the W coordinate will be modified, when the Generate W-
coordinate option ison.
Maps
You can control some aspects of VRayFur with texture maps. These
can be either bitmaps, or vertex color maps painted directly on the
source object.
Base map channel - some of the texture maps represent vectors in
texture space, where the x and y directions are derived from the u and
v directions of a texture mapping channel. This parameter specifies
which mapping channel is used.

Bend direction map - this is an RGB map which specifies a bend
direction of the fur strands, in texture space (according to the
specified Base map channel). This is the direction in which the fur
strands curve to (the amount of curvature is also controlled by
the Bend parameter). The red component is offset along the u texture
direction, the red component is the offset along the v texture direction,
and the blue component is the offset along the surface normal.

Initial direction map - this is an RGB map which specifies the initial
direction of the fur strands, in texture space (according to the
specified Base map channel). The red component is offset along the u
texture direction, the red component is the offset along the v texture
direction, and the blue component is the offset along the surface
normal.

Length/Thickness/Gravity/Bend map - these maps are multipliers for the corresponding
parameters, where black is a multiplier of 0.0, and white is a multiplier of 1.0.

Density map - this map is a multiplier for the strand density. Black portions of the map correspond to
zero density (effectively no fur will be generated in these areas), and white represents the normal
strand density, as specified by the distribution parameters.
Viewport display
These parameters control the display of VRayFur in the viewports.

Preview in viewport - turns on or off the preview of VRayFur in the
viewports.

Max. hairs - the maximum number of hair strands that will be
represented in the viewport. This may help to speed up the viewports
in the case of very dense fur.

Automatic update - when on, the viewport preview of the fur will be updated automatically as the
source object changes. However, this may slow down the interactive work with the viewports; in this
case, turn the option off to disable the automatic update.

Manual update - click this button to cause the viewport preview to be updated.
Notes
Avoid applying textures with Object XYZ mapping to the fur. If you need to use a 3d
procedural texture, apply a UVW Map modifier to the source object with the option to convert
XYZ to UVW coordinates and use explicit mapping for the texture.
Avoid having very large triangles covered with fur, since the fur is generated in groups
corresponding to triangles of the original mesh.
Shadow maps will not include information about the VRayFur. However, other objects will
cast shadows on the fur, even with shadow maps.
Sharp VRayShadows may produce flickering with VRayFur in animations, because the
lighting situation of individual hairs will change very rapidly. Area shadows or VRayLights may
produce smoother results.
VRayFur will not work with VRayPlane as a base object.

VRayProxy
Home

General
Exporting a mesh to a file
The Mesh Export dialog
The .vrmesh file format
Creating a proxy object
Proxy parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: proxy, mesh, VRayMesh, .vrmesh
General
VRayProxy allows you to import geometry from an external mesh at render time only. The geometry
is not present in the 3ds Max scene and does not take any resources. This allows the rendering of
scenes with many millions of triangles - more than 3ds Max itself can handle.
Exporting a mesh to a file
Before you can import a mesh through a VRayProxy object, you need to create the mesh file first.
You can do this in two ways:
Through the quad-menu: select the meshes you want to export, right-click in the viewport and
select the V-Ray mesh export option. This will cause the Mesh Export dialog to appear.
Dialog from MaxScript: select the meshes you want to export and then type
doVRayMeshExport()

in the MaxScript Listener window. This will cause the Mesh Export dialog to appear.
Direct export from MaxScript: select the meshes you want to export and then use
thevrayMeshExport() function:
vrayMeshExport [ meshFile: "<mesh file>"]
[ autoCreateProxies: t r ue| f al se] [ exportMultiple: t r ue| f al se]
[ animation: on| of f ] [ animationRange: #scene| #expl i ci t ]
[ animationStart: <integer>] [ animationEnd: <integer>]
[ animationRedrawViews: t r ue| f al se]
[ maxPreviewFaces: <integer>]

where <mesh file> is the name of the desired .vrmesh file. If the name does not contain a
path, the default 3ds Max mesh path is used. If the name does not contain an extension,
a .vrmesh extension is automatically appended. If the name does not contain a file name, the
scene node name is used instead. If the autoCreateProxies option is not specified, by
default the meshes are just exported, no proxies are created in the scene. If
the exportMultiple option is not specified, the meshes are exported to multiple files by
default. If the animation option is set to on, an animated proxy file is created. In that case,
the range of the animation is determined by the animationRange option - if set to #explicit,
then the frame range for the export is specified by
the animationStart and animationEnd options (in frames), otherwise the current scene
animation range is used. If the animationRedrawViews option is set to true then the
viewports will be updated during the animation export process. If
themaxPreviewFaces parameter is specified, then the exported .vrmesh file will contain a
preview with the specified maximum of triangles, otherwise a default value of 10000 triangles
is used.

The function returns ok if the .vrmesh file was exported successfully,
and undefined otherwise.
The Mesh Export dialog
The Mesh Export dialog allows you to specify the mesh file as well as some export options.



Folder - this is the folder where the mesh file(s) will be created.

Export as single file - this option will take all selected objects and will merge them into one mesh file.
This option also stores the transformations of the selected objects. When you import the file with a
proxy object, it must be centered at the origin, if you want the objects to be in the same place. Also,
since the imported mesh is rendered using the material of the proxy object, all meshes from the file
will render with that material. You must use subobject materials and different material IDs if you want
them to have different materials.
File - this is the name of the file, if you have selected the Export as single file option. You don't need
to specify a path - the Folder path will be used.

Export as multiple files - this option will create one file for each selected object. The name of each
file is derived from the name of the correspondig 3ds max node. The transformation of an object is not
included in its mesh file, and the corresponding proxy must have the same transformation as the
original object, if it is to appear in the same place. Note that you can use this option even with a single
object, which will cause the object pivot to be preserved in the exported .vrmesh file.

Export animation - if the mesh is animated you can export that animation in the .vrmesh file with the
animation by enabling this option.

Frame range - specify what part of the animation to be exported into the .vrmesh file.
-Scene animation range - the whole animation will be exported into the .vrmesh file.

-Frame range - specify exactly which frames are going to be exported by setting values for the Start
Frameand the End Frame parameters.

Redraw views during export - when this option is selected you will be able to see the animation
playing in the view port while it is being exported. This is an easy way to monitor the progress of the
export.

Automatically create proxies - this option will create proxy objects for the exported meshes. The
proxies will have the correct transformations and materials derived from the original objects. The
original objects will be deleted.

Faces in preview - allows you specify how many faces are going to be used to show a preview of the
proxy in the view port.
Warn for existing files - when this option is selected V-Ray will
warn you if you are saving over an existing file

Pressing the OK button will create the mesh files and the proxy
objects. The export process may take some time, depending on the
amount of geometry that must be processed.
The .vrmesh file format
Meshes are exported to a special .vrmesh file format. It contains all
geometric information for a mesh - vertices and face topology as well
as texture channels, face material IDs, smoothing groups, normals -
in short, everything that is needed to render the mesh. In addition,
the mesh is preprocessed and subdivided into chunks for easier
access. The file also contains a simplified version of the mesh used
for preview purposes in the viewports.

It is important to realize that the mesh is in a "ready to render"
format. No further modifications to the mesh are expected. You can't
apply modifiers to the mesh, or animate it in any way except if you
animate the position/orientation of the proxy object. If you need to
make changes to the mesh, you can import it back as anEditable
mesh (see the I mport section below) and re-export it back to
a .vrmesh file.
Creating a proxy object
After you export a mesh to a .vrmesh file, you need a proxy object to
represent it in the 3dsmax scene. To create a proxy object, go to the
Create panel and choose the V-Ray category; click
the VRayProxy button and then click in a viewport to create the
actual proxy object. A dialog box will appear that allows you to
choose the.vrmesh file to import.
Proxy parameters
Mesh file - this is the source .vrmesh file.

Display - controls the display of the proxy in the viewports:
bounding box - the mesh is represented as a box in the viewports.
preview from file(edges) - displays the mesh preview info that is stored in the .vrmesh file showing
only the edges of the object.

preview from file(faces) - displays the mesh preview info that is stored in the .vrmesh file showing
only the faces of the object.

point - the mesh is represented as a point

Animation - holds the settings for animated proxies

Playback - select a playback mode from the drop down menu

- Loop - the animation is looped by skipping to the first frame once it has finished

-Play once - the animation is played just once

-Ping-pong - the animation is looped by playing it backwards once the last frame has been reached
and then playing it forward again when the first frame is reached

-Still - the animation is not played. Instead just one frame of the animation is shown. You can select
which that frame is with the help of the Offsetparameter.

Offset(frames) - use this parameter to offset the beginning of the animation by given number of
frames. You can use positive as well as negative values here.

Speed - this is a multiplier for the speed of the animation. Putting negative numbers here will make
the animation play backwards.

I mport - holds the settings for importing back a proxy as a mesh.

Import as mesh - imports the geometry from the .vrmesh as an Editable mesh object. Note that the
new mesh will be created at the coordinate system origin (0,0,0), and not at the current place of
the VRayProxy object.

Use explicit normals - in cases where the original mesh has explicit information about the vertex
normals, that information is also saved in the .vrmesh file when the mesh is exported. Checking this
option makes sure that the explicit normals information contained in the proxy is taken into account
during the import.

Weld vertices in result - during a .vrmesh file export, V-Ray may split the original mesh in smaller
chunks that can be loaded independently of one another. This may cause some vertices to be
duplicated in more than one chunk. Checking this option will cause V-Ray to perform a weld operation
after the mesh is imported, so that split vertices are merged.

Notes
The geometry generated by the proxy object is not modifiable. Any modifiers applied to
the VRayProxyobject will be ignored.
If you need to create several proxies linked to the same .vrmesh file, it's better to make them
instances - this will save memory since the .vrmesh file will be loaded only once.
Materials are not saved in the .vrmesh file. Instead, the geometry will be rendered with the
material applied to the VRayProxy object. This is because third party materials and
procedural textures would be difficult to describe in a general way. In addition, you may want
to edit the material independently of the mesh.
The resulting .vrmesh files can be rendered outside of 3ds Max - for example, by the
standalone version of V-Ray, or V-Ray for Maya.
Standard shadow maps will not include information about the proxy objects. If you want the
proxy objects to cast shadows, you should use VRayShadow or VRayShadowMap shadow
types.
You can convert .ply and .obj files to .vrmesh files with the help of the ply2vrmesh converter
tool.
The V-Ray SDK has methods for reading and writing of .vrmesh files.




VRay Plane



General
Creating a VRayPlane object
Parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: plane, VRayPlane, endless plane
General
The VRayPlane is a very simple plugin that implements a procedural infinite plane primitive for V-
Ray. The source code of VRayPlane is also available as part of the V-Ray Geometry SDK.
Creating a VRayPlane object
The VRayPlane can be created from the the V-Ray category of the Create panel:


Parameters
This plugin has no parameters at the moment.
Notes
The position of the plane depends on its transformation in the 3ds Max scene.
You can have more than one infinite plane in the scene.
The plane is rendered with the material applied to the VRayPlane object.
Shadow maps will not include information about the plane object. However, other objects will
cast correct shadows on the plane, even with shadow maps.

VRayShadow parameters

General
Parameters

Search Keywords: shadow, VRayShadow, Area shadow, transparent shadow
General
The VRayShadow plug-in can be used to achieve raytraced shadows with standard 3ds Max lights
and V-Ray. Note that in most cases the standard 3ds Max Ray Traced Shadows will not work with V-
Ray. You must use the VRayShadow shadow generator instead. In addition to supporting blurry (or
area) shadows, they will also cast correct shadows from objects with V-Ray displacement, as well as
from transparent objects.
Parameters

Transparent shadows - this option determines the behaviour of the shadows when there are
transparent objects in the scene. When this option is on, V-Ray will calculate shadows regardless of
the light's Object Shadows settings (Color, Density, Map, etc.), however the color of shadows from
transparent objects will be correct. When this option is off, the shadows will take into account the
Object Shadows parameters of the light, but shadows from transparent objects will be monochromatic
(shades of gray only).

Bias - optionally, V-Ray can compute the shadows at a point that is slightly displaced towards the
light from the actual surface being shaded. This may be useful to prevent "surface acne" (black spots
on the surface because of incorrect self-shadowing).

Area shadow - turns area shadows on and off.

Type - determines the way in which the area shadows are calculated:
Box - V-Ray computes the shadows as if they were cast by a light source with the form of a box.
Sphere - V-Ray computes the shadows as if they were cast by a light source with the form of a
sphere.

U size - the U size of the light source V-Ray takes into account when computing area shadows
(if Sphere light source is selected U size corresponds to the sphere's radius).

V size - the V size of the light source V-Ray takes into account when computing area shadows (this
parameter has no effect when Sphere light source is selected).

W size - the W size of the light source V-Ray takes into account when computing area shadows (this
parameter has no effect when Sphere light source is selected).

Subdivs - this value controls the number of samples V-Ray will take to compute area shadows at a
given point. More subdivs mean less noise, but will render slower.


VRayShadowMap parameters

General
Parameters

Search Keywords: shadow maps, VRayShadowMap
General
The VRayShadowMap plug-in can be used to achieve mapped shadows with standard 3ds Max
lights and V-Ray. It will cast correct shadows from all V-Ray geometric objects,
including VRayProxy, VRayFur and objects with V-Ray displacement. The VRayShadowMap can be
useful to avoid flickering on objects like VRayFur in cases where true area shadows are too slow to
calculate. Note that the actual shadows are still calculated with ray tracing, but the results are cached
in a rectangular shadow buffer that is used to speed up the calculations.
Parameters

Mode - this option controls the calculation mode for the shadow map when rendering animations:
Single frame - a new shadow map will be calculated at each frame of an animation;
Fly-through - the same shadow map will be reused at each frame of the animation. This option is
only suitable for static fly-through scenes, where the only moving object is the camera.

Resolution - determines the resolution of the shadow map. Lower values will lead to faster rendering
times and less RAM usage, but the shadows may be blocky and not very precise. Higher values
increase the shadow quality, but take more RAM and time to calculate.

Bias - optionally, V-Ray can compute the shadows at a point that is slightly displaced above the
actual surface being shaded. This may be useful to prevent "surface acne" (black spots on the surface
because of incorrect self-shadowing).

Filter - this is the size of the filter used to reconstruct shadows from the shadow map. Larger values
blur the shadows and may help to reduce flickering or blocky artifacts, but may be slower to calculate.

Filter method - determines the way in which the shadow reconstruction filter is calculated:
Exact - produces smooth results but may be slow to calculate, particularly for large Filter values;
Fast - calculates an approximate filter; this is faster than the Exact option for large Filter values, but
may introduce noise in the rendering depending on the Filter subdivs value.

Filter subdivs - when the Filter method is set to Fast, this determines the number of samples that
will be used to calculate the shadow filter. Lower values render faster, but may

VRayDisplacementMod

>>>
Displacem
ent
mapping
>>>

General
Parameters
Type
Common parameters
2D mapping parameters
3D mapping/subdivision parameters
Notes
General
Displacement mapping is a technique for adding detail to your scene
geometry without having to model it first. The concept is very similar to
bump mapping. However, bump mapping is a shading effect that only
changes the appearance of a surface, while displacement mapping
actually modifies the surface.
Parameters
Type
Type - the method used to apply displacement mapping:

2D mapping (landscape) - this method bases the displacement on a
texture map that is known in advance. The displaced surface is
rendered as a warped height-field based on that texture map. The
actual raytracing of the displaced surface is done in texture space, and
the result is mapped back into 3d space. The advantage of this method
is that it preserves all the details in the displacement map. However, it
requires that the object has valid texture coordinates. You cannot use
this method for 3d procedural textures or other textures that use object
or world coordinates. The displacement map can take any values (as
opposed to 3D mapping, which will ignore values outside the 0.0-1.0 or black to white range).

3D mapping - this is a general method which takes the original surface geometry and subdivides its
triangles into smaller sub-triangles which are then displaced. It can be applied for arbitrary
displacement maps with any kind of mapping. This method can also use the displacement map
specified in the object's material. Note that with 3d mapping the displacement map's range of values
must be within the 0.0-1.0 range (black to white). Values outside of this range will be clipped.

Subdivision - this method is similar to the 3D mapping method, with the difference that it will apply a
subdivision scheme to the object, similarly to a MeshSmooth modifier. For triangular portions of a
mesh, the Loop subdivision scheme is used. For quadrangular portions, the Catmull-Clark scheme is
used. Other polygons are first converted to triangles. If just want to smooth the object, without
applying a displacement map, set the Amount parameter to 0.0.

Which method to use? In previous V-Ray versions, there was a great difference between the
performance of the two methods, with the 2D mapping being faster in many cases. With the
introduction of dynamic geometry handling in V-Ray 1.45.xx, 3d displacement has become a lot faster
for similar or better quality compared to the 2d mapping. Still, for large displaced surfaces like oceans
or mountains, the 2d mapping method might work better.

Also the 2D mapping method keeps the displacement map in a precompiled state in memory. Large
displacement maps can take a lot of RAM. It may be more efficient to use 3D mapping in that case,
since it can recycle the memory used for the displaced geometry.
Common parameters
Texmap - the displacement map. This can be any texture map - a bitmap, procedural map, 2d or 3d
map etc. Note that you can only use textures with explicit UV mapping with 2D displacement, while
with 3D displacement any texture can be used. The texture map is ignored if the Use object
mtl option is turned on.

Texture chan - the UVW channel that will be used for displacement mapping. This must match the
texture channel specified in the texture map itself, if it uses explicit UVW mapping. This is ignored if
the Use object mtloption is on.

Filter texmap - if this is on, the texture map will be filtered. This is ignored if the Use object
mtl option is on.

Filter Blur -

Amount - the amount of displacement. A value of 0.0 means the object will apear unchanged (or
simply smoothed, if you use the Subdivision method). Higher values produce a greater displacement
effect. This can also be negative, in which case the displacement will push geometry inside the object.

Shift - this specifies a constant, which will be added to the displacement map values, effectively
shifting the displaced surface up and down along the normals. This can be either positive or negative.

Water level - this will clip the surface geometry in places where the displacement map value is below
the specified threshold. This can be used for clip mapping a displacement map value below which
geometry will be clipped.
2D mapping parameters
Resolution - this determines the resolution of the displacement texture used by V-Ray. If the texture
map is a bitmap, it would be best to match this resolution to the size of the bitmap. For procedural 2d
maps, the resolution is determined by the desired quality and detail in the displacement. Note that V-
Ray will also automatically generate a normals map based on the displacement map, to compensate
for details not captured by the actual displaced surface.

Precision - this parameter is related to the curvature of the displaced surface; flat surfaces can do
with a lower precision (for a perfectly flat plane you can use 1), more curved surfaces require higher
values. If the precision is not high enough you can get dark spots ("surface acne") on the
displacement. Lower values compute faster.

Tight bounds - this parameter will cause V-Ray to compute more precise bounding volumes for the
displaced triangles, leading to slightly better rendering times.
3D mapping/subdivision parameters
Edge length - this determines the quality of the displacement. Each triangle of the original mesh is
subdivided into a number of subtriangles. More subtriangles mean more detail in the displacement,
slower rendering times and more RAM usage. Less subtriangles mean less detail, faster rendering
and less RAM. The meaning of Edge length depends on the View-dependent parameter below.

View-dependent - when this is on, Edge length determines the maximum length of a subtriangle
edge, in pixels. A value of 1.0 means that the longest edge of each subtriangle will be about one pixel
long when projected on the screen. When View-dependent is off, Edge length is the maximum
subtriangle edge length in world units.

Max. subdivs - this controls the maximum subtriangles generated from any triangle of the original
mesh. The value is in fact the square root of the maximum number of subtriangles. For example, a
value of 256 means that at most 256 x 256 =65536 subtriangles will be generated for any given
original triangle. It is not a good idea to keep this value very high. If you need to use higher values, it
will be better to tesselate the original mesh itself into smaller triangles instead. From build 1.45.20
onward, the actual subdivisions for a triangle are rounded up to the nearest power of two (this makes
it easier to avoid gaps because of different tesselation on neighboring triangles).

Tight bounds - when this is on, V-Ray will try to compute the exact bounding volume of the displaced
triangles from the original mesh. This requires pre-sampling of the displacement texture, but the
rendering will be faster, if the texture has large black or white areas. However, if the displacement
texture is slow to evaluate and varies a lot between full black and white, if may be faster to turn this
option off. When it is off, V-Ray will assume worst-case bounding volumes, and will not presample
the texture. Note that this affects only the 2d mapping and 3d mapping modes; with
the Subdivision method V-Ray will always compute the exact bounding volume and this parameter is
ignored.

Use object mtl - this will cause the displacement map to be taken from the object's material instead
of the map selected in VRayDisplacementMod.

Keep continuity - using this will try to produce a connected surface, without splits, when you have
faces from different smoothing groups and/or material IDs. Note that using material IDs is not a very
good way to combine displacement maps since V-Ray cannot always guarantee the surface
continuity. Use other methods (vertex colors, masks etc) to blend different displacement maps.

Edge thresh - when Keep continuity is checked, this controls the extent to which maps on faces
with different material IDs will be blended. Note that V-Ray can only guarantee edge continuity, but
not vertex continuity (meaning that the surface will not have gaps along edges, but there may be splits
around vertices). For this reason you should keep this value small.

Vector Displacement - If you have a displacement texture that is not grayscale V-Ray will convert it
to grayscale before rendering the displaced geometry. When this option is enabaled it allows V-Ray to
use the Red Green and Blue channels of the displacement texture to displace the geometry in
the U and V directions in addition to the normal of the face

Split Method - determines the method which is going to be used to subdivide the faces of the
geometry. For better understanding check the Examples section.

Tex. map min/max - these two options allow you to specify custom bounderies for the displaced
geometry (Examples). By default is limited to values between 0 and 1.

Notes
Textures are applied to the displaced surface; therefore textures with Object XYZ and World
XYZ mapping may look different on the displaced object, compared to how they look on the
original undisplaced one. If this is not desired (e.g. you want the displacement map to match
the texture) use explicit channel mapping for the material textures; use the Object XYZ/World
XYZ mapping for displacement maps only.
Displaced objects will not work properly with standard shadows maps. The shadow maps will
include information about the undisplaced mesh. For small displacement amounts this may
work fine. Note that displacement works properly with VRayShadowMap shadows.
VRayDisplacementMod has no effect on VRayPlane objects, VRayProxy objects
or VRayFur objects.
The 2d mapping (landscape) method will ignore the Tiling parameters specified in the
textures themselves; as a side effect this means that it will not work with the Real-world map
size options in theBitmap and other textures. Instead, you must modify the UVW coordinates
of the object, or use the 3d mapping method.

VRayToon
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>>>VRayToon
>>>

General
Why an atmospheric effect?
Creating a VRayToon atmospheric effect
Parameters
Basic parameters
Maps
Include/exclude objects
Notes

Search Keywords: toon, effects, contour, outline, line
General
VRayToon is a very simple atmospheric plugin that produces cartoon-style outlines on objects in the
scene. The source of VRayToon is available as part of the V-Ray SDK. Note that VRayToon is not
intended to be a full NPR (non-photorealistic rendering) effect. However, it may be useful in many
cases.
Why an atmospheric effect?
There are several solutions for adding toon effects to 3d renderings for 3ds Max; most of them
function either as special materials (shaders) or as render (post) effects. Each of these approaches
has both advantages and limitations. VRayToon has been implemented as an atmospheric effect for
several reasons:
The implementation is very simple.
Works with any geometry supported by V-Ray, including displaced
objects, VRayFur and VRayProxyobjects, etc.
Works with any camera type supported by V-Ray (spherical, fish-eye etc).
Works with any camera effects (depth of field and/or motion blur).
Works with raytraced effects such as reflection and refraction.
Smooth and consistent outlines for intersecting objects.
Creating a VRayToon atmospheric effect
VRayToon can be created from the Environment dialog of 3ds Max. To create a VRayToon effect
chooseRendering > Effects... from the 3ds Max main menu. Then click the Add... button and
choose VRayToon:


Parameters
Basic parameters
Line color - this is the color of the outlines.

Pixels width - this is the width of the outlines in pixels.

World pixels width - this is the widthe of the outlines in world units. Lines closer to the camera will be
thicker.

Opacity - opacity of the outlines.

Normal threshold - this determines when lines will be created for parts of the same object with
varying surface normals (for example, at the inside edges of a box). A value of 0.0 means that only 90
degrees or larger angles will generate internal lines. Higher values mean that more smooth normals
can also generate an edge. Don't set this value to pure 1.0 as this will fill curved objects completely.

Overlap threshold - this determines when outlines will be created for overlapping parts of one and
the same object. Lower values will reduce the internal overlapping lines, while higher values will
produce more overlap lines. Don't set this value to pure 1.0 as this will fill curved objects completely.

Do reflections/refractons - this will cause the outlines to appear in reflections/refractions as well.
Note that this may increase render times.

Trace bias - this parameter depends on the scale of your scene, it determines the ray bias when the
outlines are traced in reflections/refractions.
Maps
This group of parameters allows the user to control the outlines using various texture maps.

Color map - a texture map for the outline color. Screen-mapped maps will work best. Maps with
World XYZ mapping are also supported, but may not work very well.

Width map - a multiplier texture for the outline width. Screen-mapped maps will work best. Maps with
World XYZ mapping are also supported, but may not work very well.

Distortion map - a texture that will be used to distort the outlines. This works similar to bump-
mapping and will take the gradient of the texture as direction for distortion. Note that high output
values may be required for larger distortion. Screen-mapped textures work best, although World XYZ
mapping is also supported.

Opacity map - a texture for the outline opacity. Screen-mapped textures work best, although World
XYZ mapping is also supported.
Include/exclude objects
Using these controls you can specify which objects will be affected by the VRayToon atmospheric.
Using these options, you can achieve different outlines for different objects in the scene. To do this,
you need to create several VRayToon atmospherics and include each object in one of them.
Notes
VRayToon only provides outlines. You will need to come up with your own cartoon-style
materials (for example, using falloff maps etc or other third-party material plugins).
VRayToon has no per-object settings; however, you can add
several VRayToon atmospherics to the scene, each applied to a different set of objects
through the Include/exclude objects list.
VRayToon will not work properly with objects that have their Cast Shadows property turned
off.
The quality of the lines depends on the current settings of the Image sampler.

VRayEnvironmentFog parameters
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General
Parameters
General parameters
Sampling parameters
Exponential sampler
Raymarching sampler
Texture maps
VRayEnvironmentFog nodes
Notes

Search keywords: volume scattering, volume caustics, participating media, volume light, volume fog
General
VRayEnvironmentFog is an atmospheric effect that allows the simulation of participating media like
fog, atmospheric dust and so. Volumetric properties can be determined by 3d texture maps. The
atmospheric effect can also be confined with atmospheric gizmo helper objects.
Parameters
General parameters
Fog color - defines the color of the fog
when it is illuminate by light sources. You
can also use a texture map to drive the fog
color.

Fog distance - controls the fog density.
Larger values make the fog more
transparent, while smaller values make it
more dense. You can also control the
density with a texture map.

Fog emission - controls the fog emission
(self-illumination). You can use this
parameter to substitute the ambient
illumination inside the fog, instead of using
GI.

Scatter GI - when on, the fog will also
scatter global illumination. Note that this
can be quite slow. In many cases, global
illumination within the fog can be
substituted with a simple emission term. When this option is on, the currently selected global
illumination algorithm in the V-Ray settings will be used to accelerate GI inside the volume (e.g.
the irradiance map, light cache, photon map orbrute-force).

Scatter bounces - when Scatter GI is enabled, this controls the number of GI bounces that will be
calculated inside the fog.

Fog height - if no atmospheric gizmos are specified, the fog is assumed to start from a certain Z-level
height and continue downward indefinitely. This parameter determines the starting point along the Z-
axis. If there are atmospheric gizmos listed in the Nodes section, this parameter is ignored.

Sampling parameters
VRayEnvironmentFog can use either of two algorithms to calculate volumetric lighting. The first
algorithm is a simple exponential sampling scheme, which is used when there are no texture maps
specified. In this mode,VRayEnvironmentFog takes a number of random points inside the volume
and calculates the volumetric lighting at those points. The second algorithm is
a raymarching scheme, which is used when any of the volume properties are mapped with a texture.
In that case, VRayEnvironmentFog traverses the fog volume in small steps, calculates the volume
properties at each step and computes the volume lighting accordingly.
Exponential sampler
This sampler is used when there are no texture maps specified, in which case the volume properties
are the same everywhere.

Subdivs - this parameter determines the number of points inside the fog at which volumetric lighting
is evaluated. Smaller values for this parameter render faster, but may produce noise in the image.
Higher values render longer, but with less noise.
Raymarching sampler
This sampler is used when any of the fog properties (color, density or emission) is mapped with a 3d
texture. The sampler steps through the volume, evaluating volumetric textures and lighting, until it
leaves the volume (if there are atmospheric gizmos specified), or until the accumulated volume
transparency falls below a certain cut-off threshold, or until a specified number of maximum steps is
reached.

Step size - determines the size of one step through the volume. Smaller steps produce more
accurate results but are slower to render. In general, dense volumes require smaller step sizes than
more transparent volumes. In practice, step sizes that are two to three times smaller than the Fog
distance parameter work well.

Texture samples - determines the number of texture samples for each step through the volume. This
allows to sample textures more accurately than the volumetric lighting. It is useful in cases where the
textures vary much faster than the lighting itself (e.g. for detailed fractal textures).

Simiplify texture for GI - When this option is checked V-Ray will use a simiplified method for
calculating the GI when rednerderin parts of the fog that are textred or are being faded out.

Cutoff threshold - this parameter controls when the raymarcher will stop traversing the volume. If the
accumulated volume transparency falls below this threshold, the volume will be considered opaque
and tracing will be aborted. Higher values make the rendering faster but may introduce artifacts.

Max steps - specifies the maximum number of steps through the volume.

Affect background - when this option is off the background will not be obscured by the fog.

Gizmo falloff radius - when the fog effect is contained within a gizmo this option allows you to
specify a falloff radius for it. This way the fog effect does not have sharp edges at the edges of the
gizmo.

Gizmo falloff mode - this option allows you to chose between two different falloff modes. For further
information see the Examples section.
Texture maps
This section allows you to map various
properties of the fog - its color, density and
emission. Note that whenever a texture is
used, VRayEnvironmentFogwill use the
raymarching sampler to calculate the fog.

You can use any 3ds Max 3d texture map to define the volume properties. Note that you should
useWorld XYZ mapping for the textures.

Color texture - this texture controls the fog color when it is illuminated by light sources.

Density texture - this texture allows you to modify the texture density. Black values in the texture
correspond to perfectly transparent fog; white areas correspond to the density specified by the Fog
distance parameter.

Emission texture - this texture controls the fog light emission (self-illumination).
VRayEnvironmentFog nodes
This section allows you to specify gizmos
that confine the fog atmospheric effect, and
also to specify which scene lights
contribute to the illumination of the volume.

Gizmos - A list of atmospheric gizmos and arbitrary meshes within which the fog will be calculated.
Note that when using a mesh acting as a Gizmo you should either hide it or make it not renderable in
order to be able to see the atmospheric effect inside the mesh.

Use all lights - when on, all scene lights contribute to the illumination of the volume, and
the Lights list is ignored.

Lights - a list of lights that affect the volume when Use all lights is off.
Notes
When using VRayEnvironmentFog with standard 3ds Max lights (Omni, Spot etc), you need
to turn onthe Atmosphere shadows option in order to get proper self-shadowing for the
volume.
When using VRayEnvironmentFog, it is recommended to turn on the Optimized
atmospherics evaluation option in the System rollout of the V-Ray settings.
In contrast to the native 3ds Max Volume Light atmospheric
effect, VRayEnvironmentFog covers the entire volume specified by the Fog
height parameter or the listed Gizmos - it's effect is not limited to the cone or area of
influence of the particular lights that affect the fog.
When using VRayEnvironmentFog with weak VRayLights, it may be necessary to turn down
the Cut-off threshold parameter of the lights. The default value for this parameter works fine
for surfaces, but for volumes, where a lot of weak light contributions are added together, it
may produce a visible sharp boundary where the light calculations stop.
You can use the various 3ds Max procedural textures to modify volume properties,
including Gradient maps and Falloff maps in Distance blend or Object mode.
V-Ray does not have separate global illumination maps for volumetric rendering. Instead, all
GI engines (the irradiance map, light cache, global/caustics photon maps) have been
modified to support volumetric data.

VRayPhysicalCamera
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General
Parameters
Basic parameters
Bokeh effects
Sampling parameters
Miscellaneous parameters
Notes

Search Keywords: daylight, sunlight, exterior lighting, camera, vignetting, exposure
General
The VRayPhysicalCamera allows you to use real-world parameters to set up the virtual CG camera
(e.g. f-stop, lens focal length etc). It also makes it easier to use light sources with real-world
illumination (e.g. VRayLight with physical units, or VRaySun and VRaySky).
Parameters
Basic parameters
Type - determines the type of the camera. This mostly has an effect on
the motion blur effect produced by the camera:
Still camera - simulates a still photo camera with a regular shutter.
Cinematic camera - simulates a motion-picture camera with a circular shutter.
Video camera - simulates a shutter-less video camera with a CCD matrix.

Targeted - specifies whether the camera has a target in the 3ds Max scene or not.

Film gate - specifies the horizontal size of the film gate in milimeters. Note that this setting takes into
account the system units configuration to produce the correct result.

Focal length - specifies the equivalen focal length of the camera lens. This setting takes into account
the system units configuration to produce the correct result.

Zoom factor - specifies a zoom factor. Values greater than 1.0 zoom into the image; values smaller
than 1.0 zoom out. This is similar to a blow-up rendering of the image.

Horizontal offset - horizontally offsets the field of view of the camera as a fraction of the current view.
For example a value of 0.5 will offset the camera one half of the current image width to the left.

Vertical offset - vertically offsets the field of view of the camera as a fraction of the current view. For
example a value of 0.5 will offset the camera one half of the current image height upwards.

Target distance - the distance to the camera target for a targeted camera.

f-number - determines the width of the camera aperture and, indirectly, exposure. If
the Exposure option is checked, changing the f-number will affect the image brightness.

Distortion - specifies the distortion coefficient for the camera lens. A value of 0.0 means no distortion;
positive values produce "barell" distortion, while negative values produce "pillow" distortion.

Distortion type - determines what distortion formula is used when the Distortion value is not zero:
Quadratic this is the default distortion type. It uses a simplified formula that is easier to calculate than
theCubic method.

Cubic this is the distortion type used in some camera tracking programs like SynthEyes, Boujou etc.
If you plan on using one of these programs, you should use the Cubic distortion type.

Vertical shift and Horisontal shift - allow the simulation of shift lenses for 2-point perspective.
Changing these parameters is similar to applying a Camera correction modifier. Use the Guess
vert and Guess horiz buttons in order to achieve the 2-point perspective.

Specify focus - this allows you to specify a focus distance different from the camera target distance.

Exposure - when this option is on, the f-number, Shutter speed and ISO settings will affect the
image brightness.

Vignetting - when this option is on, the optical vignetting effect of real-world cameras is simulated.
You can also specify the amount of the vignetting effect, where 0.0 is no vignetting and 1.0 is normal
vignetting.

White balance - allows additional modification of the image output. Objects in the scene that have the
specified color will appear white in the image. Note that only the color hue is taken into consideration;
the brightness of the color is ignored. There are several presets that can be used, most notably
the Daylight preset for exterior scenes.

Shutter speed - the shutter speed, in inverse seconds, for the still photographic camera. For
example, shutter speed of 1/30 s corresponds to a value of 30 for this parameter.

Shutter angle - shutter angle (in degrees) for the cinematic camera.

Shutter offset - shutter offset (in degress) for the cinematic camera.

Latency - CCD matrix latency, in seconds, for the video camera.

Film speed (ISO) - determines the film power (i.e. sensitivity). Smaller values make the image darker,
while larger values make it brighter.
Bokeh effects
These parameters control the bokeh effects when the Depth-of-
field option ison.

Blades - defines the shape of the camera aperture. When this option is off, perfectly circular aperture
is simulated. When on, a polygonal aperture is simulated, with the given number of blades.

Rotation - defines the rotation of the blades.

Center bias - defines a bias shape for the bokeh effects. Positive values make the outer edge of the
bokeh effects brighter; negative values make the center of the effect brighter.

Anisotropy - allows stretching of the bokeh effect horizontally or vertically to simulate anamorphic
lenses.
Sampling parameters
There parameters control the sampling for the virtual camera.

Depth-of-field - turns on depth of field sampling.

Motion blur - turns on motion blur sampling.

Subdivs - determines the number of samples (rays) for calculating depth of field and/or motion blur.
Miscellaneous parameters

These parameters control various other aspects of the camera.

Horizon line - turns on and off the display of the camera horizon line in the viewport.

Clipping - turns on and off camera clipping.

Near/far clipping range - the near/far clipping range, when Clipping is on.

Near/Far environment range - the near/far environment range (used by some atmospheric effects in
3ds Max).
Notes
The Camera correction modifier will not work with the VRayPhysicalCamera. Instead, use
the Vertical shift parameter of the camera for the same purpose.
The DOF settings in the Render Scene dialog have no effect when
the VRayPhysicalCamera is used. Instead, you must use the DOF settings of the camera
itself.
Some motion blur settings (Duration etc.) have no effect on the VRayPhysicalCamera.
Instead, motion blur is controlled by the camera itself (through the Shutter speed etc.
parameters). See also the Motion blurrender parameters.