1.Vray's Irradiance Map is one of the methods to calculate Global Illumination, but a lot of parameters need carefull finetuning to optimize the rendering speed. Using the wrong settings, even with the available presets, can result in huge rendertimes and in many cases not even a good result.
This tutorial will cover all the different parameters in detail, while rendering a very basic interior scene, with first bounce GI only so you clearly see the effect of the IR map.
Make sure you have read some of the free tutorials about GI and GI methods in general before starting this one.
2.This is not really a step by step tutorial as you are used to on this website. You can see it more as a set of sample files, each with its own lighting setup and render settings, which you can study to learn the techniques. Take a look on the left to see the different lighting setups.
The files come together with a written explanation that will point out the most important differences between them, explaining the techniques that are used to create that specific lighting situation.
The download includes a bedroom interior, rendered with the following lighting setups: - Daylight only (skylight) - Daylight + sun - Night (dark outside) - HDRI as main lightsource
Also included are textures, one being a very high resolution wood floor texture, which you can use for whatever project you want. (the tutorial is not about modeling and texturing, this has all been done for you)
The scene has some nice 3D models for you to use, like a bed, folded blanket, pillows, a low closeth, lights, a parfum bottle, a small radio, water bottle, glass, etc...
Next to the bed are two small rugs, created using simple modeling and Vray fur. Check out the file to see the vray fur settings!
If that's not enough, you also get a bunch of Vray materials, like a wooden floor, cloth, glass, aluminium, chrome and so on...
To finish it off, you also get rendered exr files straight out of max, plus photoshop files that show you how to add some bloom to the bright parts of the image.
3.Using HDRI for lighting will result many times in a lot of splotches and blurry shadows. Especially with high resolution HDRI maps containing a lot of contrast and/or small light sources, this can become a big issue.
This tutorials covers a quick and easy fix for the problem, without increasing rendertime too much, and without resizing or blurring the HDRI map.
The tutorial is in html format. After downloading, simply unzip the files and open the html page that carries the name of the tutorial.
4.This tutorial is all about Vray materials, which you can download for free at http://www.vray-materials.de. As an example, we will be using one of these free materials, to show you how to apply them to the standard material scene, how to do fast test renders, and finally how to convert them to the gamma 2.2 workflow.
