Best Settings for V-Ray (?!)

Lesson by Ciro Sannino - Auth on January 30, 2012, filed in: V-Ray Tutorials

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What are the best-of-the-best settings for V-Ray?

Here the solution:

1. Set V-Ray as the current rendering engine

2. Antialiasing: Adaptive DMC / Min=1 , Max=100

3. Indirect illumination: 1° Brute force + 2° Light cache.

4. Light cache: 5000 and Interpolation samples to 5.

5. Color mapping: „Clamp output‟ and „Sub-pixel mapping‟ must be off.

6. DMC sampler: Adaptive amount parameter to 1.0 – Noise threshold 0.005

Are not my words, these setting are on the official V-Ray online guide of Chaosgroup.

They call this configuration “Universal Settings” :

« The „universal‟ settings comprise a set of settings that we have found to work very well for still

images in many situations » – Read more…

We must believe

But look at this. I compared Universal Settings / My Final Settings / My Test Settings / Real

Time

(If you are a premium member, download here this scene)

Uhmm… I can’t see any miracle in “Universal Settings” ?! Why? O_o

Of course you can see some different reflection, a small difference in brightness, but the truth is

that there‟s no difference in terms of look and emotional impact.

That‟s the point: parameters don‟t affect „Aesthetic Quality„.

„Universal Settings‟ represents the best setting about sharpness (6h rendering)….

so remember: In „Render Setup‟ you have tools to get the same image in less time (36mins), but

there‟s no way here to affect Aesthetic quality.

Now, the real question is: what affects „Aesthetic Quality„ ?

This is my list:

balance of light

the right choice of color

dynamic balanced composition

photographer‟s eye

artistic approach

detailed 3d models

nice shaders

nice shot

In fact all these things never change during my 4 tests

For this reason Aesthetic Quality can‟t change, of course.

Usually people make efforts to improve quality, trying and testing all Render parameters: that‟s

wrong.

« Parameters and Aesthetic Quality are two different things »

HERE MY MAIN RULE:

Learn parameters to reduce your render time;

Study photograpy/color design/art to improve your Aesthetic Quality.

To your success.

*

NOTE: The goal of this post is not giving the best settings. This post is an experiment to

separate two concepts: sharpness and beauty. Usually we call both “quality”… that‟s right but

they are two different kind of qualities. I hope to help you understanding where to direct your

efforts to improve the results.