Quick lighting setup in 3D max. Review of the algorithm for creating artificial lighting in “3d max vray”
A fill light source is a must if you are creating an interior. The sun alone will not be enough to illuminate even a small room. That is why we will use an additional source that will increase the realism of our 3D visualization created in 3ds max.
To create a VRayLight, you need to do several steps, which are shown in the screenshot below.
Step-by-step instructions for creating VRayLight
Note that we have created the source a little lower, i.e. left a small indentation from the ceiling and the top of the window. What is it for? And in order to to avoid problems with the illuminated part of the ceiling. This problem often plagues beginners, so I had to solve it in the simplest way.
Then we go to the top view ( hotkey"T"- English Top-top). We position the VRay Light the way we need it. If there are curtains or blinds, then place it in front of them!
Important! Do not allow part of the curtains to intersect with the light source. This can add extra noise, spots in the scene and greatly slow down the rendering.
This is how you need to position the fill light source (top view):
Arrangement of objects in top view
Setting up VrayLight
The next stage is setup. To change the parameters of VRayLight, you need to select it. The first parameter is the type. The default is Plane. In other cases, you can use other types, but now we need the flat version placed on the window. Therefore, we do not touch this parameter. Let's move straight to brightness Multiplier. Now it is equal to 30. If we use our universal settings VRay, then this value is too large. Reduce it to 4-7. These are approximate numbers. It all depends on the size of the window, the size of the room, the color of the room (dark rooms need more brightness), as well as the number of other light sources or window openings.
The next parameter is color. It is recommended to make it a little bluish to show a heavenly glow, unlike room lights, which are preferably made with a yellowish glow (warm light). In our case, the color can be adjusted by eye. A suitable RGB color option would be: 133, 176, 255. This is not important, you can do 130, 170, 255. It’s easier to remember.
Glow color by RGB
Now you need to check and uncheck important boxes.
- Check the Invisible box. It is needed so that the white plane of the source is not displayed. We only need its glow.
- Uncheck Affect specular. Otherwise, the luminous plane will produce a bright white light in the glare of furniture.
- Uncheck Affect reflections. Otherwise, the luminous plane will be reflected on the floor and pieces of furniture.
And, of course, a very important parameter that is responsible for the quality of shadows in the interior. This Subdivs. By default it is 8. But this is very small and will produce noise. Therefore, we immediately increase it to 40-50. Sometimes a value of 30 is acceptable, but it is better to do more. You can bet 60-70 or more. Larger numbers will improve shadow quality, but will slow down rendering. Therefore, we choose the “golden mean” - 40-50.
We put VRayLight behind the frame
In some cases, you can place an additional VRayLight behind the window frame so that it illuminates the frame itself and the slopes, because sun VRaySun does not always implement this task the way we need. The brightness of the second source can be made a little lower. For example, 3 or 4. This is up to your discretion. Learn to feel the light. Compare with professional works, or even better, with photographs. After all, our goal is photorealism. This is difficult to achieve, but it is possible to get somewhat closer. So we try and experiment.
Bedroom scene with two VrayLights (one inside, one outside)
Creating a Light Source
Create a plane to simulate the surface. Install an object of type on it Teapot.We will look at the sources first Spotlight. They are Target(directional) and Free(free). The difference is that the directional source has an auxiliary object Target, which seems to “target” the light source. We will use a directional light source because... it is easier to direct it in the right direction.
Using the menu Create -> Standard Lights -> Target Spotlight Create a "directional spotlight" source and set it as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Creating a scene.
Visualize the scene. The visualization result can be seen in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Rendering a scene using a light source.
Now let’s raise the light source up so that the spotlight covers a larger area and increase the plane under the teapot (Fig. 3). After that, to change the parameters of the light source, select it and go to the tab Modify.
Figure 3. The light source now covers the entire teapot, and the plane is enlarged.
In a scroll Shadows check the box On(enabled) and set the shadow rendering method to Adv. Ray Traced. Visualize the scene - you will see that our teapot has begun to cast a shadow (Fig. 4).
Figure 4. Rendering with shadows enabled.
But, as a rule, in order to properly illuminate the scene, it is necessary to illuminate the object with a second light source with shadows turned off. So create a light source like Omni and position it as shown in Figure 5.
Omni- is a point omnidirectional light source and is very convenient for creating global scene illumination.
After that, in the light source parameters, activate the scroll Intensity/Color/Attenuation and set the parameter Multiply equal 0.77 .
Visualize the scene.
As can be seen from Figure 5, the scene has become more juicy, bright and realistic.
Figure 5. Rendered scene with a second light source as backlight.
Remove the light source Target Spotlight and set the light source Directional.
An object Directional Light in 3D Studio Max is something like a hybrid between a traditional parallel and a point light source.
Directional Light similar to a point light source in that it has a bright point ( Hotspot) and the lighting action limit ( Falloff). This helps control the extent to which shadows can be rendered in the scene and the size of the lighting boundary. When the bright point is minimized, Directional Light becomes similar to a photographic light source, casting soft local light (Fig. 6).
Figure 6. Installed Directional light source.
Visualize the scene. The visualization result is shown in Fig. 7.
Figure 7. Rendering using the Directional light source.
V-Ray is one of the most popular plugins for creating photorealistic renderings. Its distinctive feature is ease of setup and the ability to obtain high-quality results. Using V-Ray in 3ds Max, you create materials, lighting, and cameras that interact in a scene to quickly create a naturalistic image.
In this article we will explore lighting settings using V-Ray. The right light is very important to create a visualization correctly. He must reveal everything best qualities objects in the scene, create natural shadows and provide protection from noise, overexposure and other artifacts. Let's look at the V-Ray tools for adjusting lighting.
1. First of all, download and install V-Ray. We go to the developer’s website and select the version of V-Ray designed for 3ds Max. Let's download it. In order to download the program, register on the site.
2. Install the program following the prompts of the installation wizard.
3. Launch 3ds Max, press the F10 key. Here is the render settings panel. On the “Common” tab, find the “Assign Renderer” rollout and select V-Ray. Click “Save as defaults”.
There are lightings different types depending on the features of the scene. Of course, the lighting for object rendering will be different from the lighting settings for the exterior. Let's look at several basic lighting schemes.
Setting up light for exterior rendering
1. Open the scene in which the lighting will be adjusted.
2. Set up the light source. We will imitate the sun. In the Create tab of the toolbar, select Lights and click V-Ray Sun.
3. Specify the starting and ending points of the sun's rays. The angle between the beam and the earth's surface will determine the morning, afternoon or evening type of atmosphere.
4. Select the sun and go to the "Modify" tab. We are interested in the following parameters:
— Enabled — turns the sun on and off.
— Turbidity — the higher this value, the more dusty the atmosphere.
— Intensity multiplier — a parameter that regulates the brightness of sunlight.
— Size multiplier — the size of the sun. The higher the parameter, the more blurry the shadows will be.
— Shadow subdivs — the higher this number, the better the quality of the shadows.
5. This completes the sun setup. Let's adjust the sky to make it more realistic. Press the "8" key and the environment panel will open. Select the DefaultVraySky map as the environment map as shown in the screenshot.
6. Without closing the environment panel, press the "M" key to open the material editor. Drag the DefaultVraySky map from the slot in the environment panel into the material editor while holding down the left mouse button.
7. Edit the sky map in the material browser. After selecting the map, check the “Specify sun node” checkbox. Click "None" in the "Sun light" field and click on the sun in the model view. We have just connected the sun and the sky. Now the position of the sun will determine the brightness of the sky, completely simulating the state of the atmosphere at any time of the day. We will leave the remaining settings as default.
8. In general terms, the exterior lighting is set. Run renders and experiment with light to achieve the effects you want.
For example, to create the atmosphere of a cloudy day, turn off the sun in its parameters and leave only the sky or HDRI map shining.
Setting up light for object visualization
1. Open a scene with a finished composition for rendering.
2. In the Create tab of the toolbar, select Lights and click V-Ray Light.
3. Click in the projection where you want to place the light source. IN in this example Let's place the light in front of the object.
4. Let's configure the light source parameters.
— Type — this parameter specifies the shape of the source: flat, spherical, dome. Shape is important when the light source is visible in the scene. For our case, let the default remain Plane.
— Intensity — allows you to set the color strength in lumens or relative values. We leave relative ones - they are easier to regulate. The higher the number on the Multiplier line, the brighter the light.
— Color — determines the color of the light.
— Invisible — the light source can be made invisible in the scene, but it will continue to shine.
— Sampling — the “Subdivides” parameter adjusts the quality of rendering of light and shadows. The higher the number in the line, the higher the quality.
It is better to leave the remaining parameters at default.
5. For object visualization, it is recommended to install several light sources of different sizes, illumination intensity and distance from the object. Place two more lights in the scene on either side of the subject. You can rotate them relative to the scene and adjust their parameters.
This method is not a “magic pill” for perfect lighting, but it simulates a real photo studio, and by experimenting in it, you will achieve a very high-quality result.
Greetings to the readers of our site. We present to your attention an article - lighting lessons in 3ds max. Of course, this topic cannot be completely classified as a specialized topic, but since our site is dedicated to electricity and light, we decided: why not - after all, light is light, no matter where it is.
In addition, this topic will certainly be of interest to many people who want to understand this very complex program.
By starting to read this material, we already assume that you have begun to study the basic principles of working in 3D max, and you will not have any difficulties with such operations as creating objects, moving them around the scene, and other basics. Otherwise, we are afraid that you will find the material difficult to master.
But, as always, we will try to present the topic as simply as possible. Here is a small photo of instructions for work - so you can probably do everything yourself without any problems.
Creating a working scene
So, let's launch the program. If you don't have it yet, you can purchase it in three ways:
- Buy a licensed version for a lot of money— the price for a licensed product starts from 50 thousand rubles — and only during sales;
- Download and install trial version absolutely free, in which you will be able to undergo full-fledged training, because functionally such a product is no different from the one you have already purchased.
- Well, or use another, well-known method, which we, perhaps, will not say anything about.
We will work with the 2012 version of the program. Of course, it is already a little outdated, but the basic principles have remained unchanged to this day.
First, let's create a simple scene that we will work with throughout the tutorial.
Call the primitives panel - to do this, click on the corresponding button in the command panel located on the right side of the screen.
Now let's create a plane in the workspace (Plane). In the photo above, all the buttons that need to be pressed to perform the described operation are highlighted in red. We will do the same on all other images so that you can better navigate the dry text.
Next, we will need to install some figures in the center of the scene, which we will illuminate in the future. You can use absolutely any of your models, and we will install two primitives to simplify the scene.
On the panel that opens, we alternately select and install a cube (Box) and a cylinder (Cylinder), giving them completely arbitrary proportions and sizes. To make our figures contrast against each other, let's change their colors.
To do this, select the cylinder and go to the “Modify” tab. A menu will open in front of you, in which all the properties of the selected object are available.
The selected rectangular area displays the type of object you selected - here you can make sure that you have selected the desired object. Just above there is a window in which you can set its name.
To the right of it is a small colored square - click on it and a color selection panel will open in front of you. Here we select the blue one and click OK.
In a similar way, change the color of the cube to red. The result is two contrasting, vibrant colors that allow you to better see what's happening in the scene while setting up the lighting.
Create a light source
Now it's time to create our first light source. To do this, on the command panel, go to the Create tab. Then click on the Lights submenu and you will see the lighting creation panel in front of you.
The very first drop-down menu allows you to determine the type of illuminator to be installed. There are only three of them in the program:
- Standard- the simplest and least realistic light, created by the program. This is what we will study first;
- Photometric— more realistic light for creating live scenes;
- Vray is a professional tool that we will not touch on in this lesson.
Types of illuminators
We select standard lighting, and a panel of all available illuminators and their basic settings opens in front of us.
Now we are interested in the first two illuminators: Target Spot and Free Spot. Both of them are shaped like a cone, and the only difference is that the first has a target to which the lighting will be directed, and the second does not.
- Select Target Spot and place it on the stage. To do this, hold down the left mouse button and draw out a cone of the required length
- Next, using the arrows of the coordinate axes, we change its location in space.
- In this case, the angle of the light direction will always fall towards the specified target.
If necessary, the lighting target can be moved to a new location.
As you can see, after installing the light above the stage, we had some semblance of lighting, and even shadows appeared. That is, the scene became more realistic. But what you see now doesn't quite match the final result.
To see it, you need to visualize the scene, or, as modelers say, render it. To perform rendering, we will use a hotkey combination. By default, they are assigned in the program as Shift+Q.
As you can see in the photo above. After pressing the indicated keys, a separate window opens, in which our scene is displayed, but in a visualized format. That is, we see how our light falls. It appears as a clear circle, with slightly blurred edges.
Delete Target Spot and create Free Spot.
This light source does not have a cube, and is directed downward by default. To illuminate the scene, simply position it above a plane. Free Spot will give exactly the same lighting as the previous source.
We remove the light again, install a new one, but now Target Direction.
The new light source, unlike the previous ones, has the shape of a cylinder. Just like the Target Spot, it has a die to indicate the target of the light. As you probably guessed, Free Direction cannot aim and shines, just like Free Spot down.
The last type of light we'll touch on in this section is called the Omni. It denotes omnidirectional point lighting, which has no restrictions in the form of zones.
The shape of the light source is important for properly illuminating the scene, and each parameter can be pre-configured, which we will talk about in the next chapter.
Light settings
We will configure a lighting source of the Target Direct type. To get to the settings menu, highlight the source and go to the Modify tab, as shown earlier.
In the menu that opens, you can see many lines, to the right of which there are plus signs. This means that you have the name of a drop-down menu that you can open or close simply by clicking on it.
There are a lot of settings, so we will only go through the most basic ones. You can view the rest yourself, watching how the light changes.
But let's talk about everything in order:
- The first tab is called General Parameters;
- Here you can change the type of illuminator by selecting the desired one from the drop-down list;
- By removing or checking the box next to the On item, we turn the light on or off;
- The Targeted checkbox determines whether our source is targeted or not;
- In the Shadows sub-item we can enable the display of shadows and fine-tune them.
The next tab Intensity\Color\Attenuation (Intensity\Color\Attenuation) is one of the most important, as it contains very interesting settings.
Let's look at everything one by one:
- The first item Multiplier (Multiplier) - determines the power of our light. By increasing this parameter, we make the source shine brighter, that is, we make it more saturated, and vice versa, by decreasing it, we dim it.
- Next door is a white square. By clicking on it, we will open a panel in which we can change the color temperature of the light.
- The next item is called Decay.— allows you to limit the spread of light, or rather, to put up a barrier that will dim the light after itself. To see the process in action, check the Show box, change the type to Inverse, and add the Start parameter.
Advice! In fact, this function resembles the action of a diffuser, making the light softer and more subdued.
To see the effect of this item, you will also need to visualize the scene.
- Next are the Near Attenuation and Far Attenuation parameters, which limit the spread of light in the scene space.
- If we activate the first parameter by checking the Use and Show checkboxes, we will see two limiters with which we define the area where the light will hit objects.
- Useful for use in cases where some of the objects in the scene should not be illuminated.
Let's see what happens if we move the limiters beyond our primitives.
The second parameter works similarly to the first, but with the only difference that it darkens from the reverse side - that is, away from the light source.
The next settings item is Directional Parameters, which contains very interesting settings.
- The first thing you can do is change the shape of the source, making it rectangular. To do this, check the Rectangle item.
- Hotspot\Beam (beam) - a parameter that controls the size of the main beam. By changing the values in the window, you will see how the radius of the inner circle of the light source changes.
- Falloff\Field (field) - similar to the previous parameter, changes the size of the outer circle.
In practice, these settings allow you to create a smooth attenuation of light from the center to the edges.
This is where we will probably finish the review of the main settings, since a deeper study of the remaining parameters will be useless for beginners at this stage.
Photometric light sources
Now let's try to create a more saturated and realistic light in our scene. For this we use photometric illuminators.
Types of illuminators
These light sources come in two types: Target Light and Free Light. As you already know, the difference between them is having a goal. These sources do not have any form, as they imitate natural light, which is not limited in space by anything.
As you may have already noticed, the external display of such a light source in the program differs from the standard one. It is shown as a net ball connected by a line to a cube, which is the target of the lighting.
The same as in the case of standard sources, it can be freely moved and customized in a convenient way. This is what the figures now look like after rendering.
For greater realism, we have enabled the shadow parameter for objects. You can find out how to do this by returning to the description of the basic settings.
Photometric Light Settings
Like other lighting sources in 3Ds Max, photometric ones have their own settings. Some of them are no different from those already described above, while others are unique. Let's take them apart.
The first settings item that interests us is Template. Here you can choose the type of lighting for our lamp, and make it, for example, halogen or fluorescent, and immediately set its power in Watts.
The Intensity\Color\Attenuation parameter allows you to change not only the color temperature, but also set the lighting power, setting the values in the most convenient units for the user (for example, Lumens).
The higher the values of these parameters, the brighter and more powerful our light becomes. Next, consider the Shadow Parameters item.
It consists of the following parameters:
- The Color item controls the color of the shadows, so if you wish, you can even make them yellow.
- Density - responsible for the transparency of shadows. If you increase this parameter, the shadow will become very clear. If you bring the value closer to zero, it will become barely noticeable.
- Values below zero will cause the shadow to disappear altogether.
- Size - also adjusts the saturation of the shadow;
- 2 Sided Shadows - makes the shadows double-sided.
This concludes our 3ds max lighting lesson. We examined its main types, as well as their parameters.
This knowledge will allow you to start working with light and make your first creations more realistic. Additionally, we advise you to learn how to properly arrange lighting on the stage. To do this, search the Internet for videos on relevant topics.