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Let’s start STEP 2 of 5SR-Workflow® : Lighting.
In this lesson we will talk about:

• Creating global lighting with HDRI
• Creating basic metal chrome for Nails
• Using a V-Ray Light to create nice reflections
• Learning how to fix black splotches

If you don’t know these topics below, take a look before to start this lesson:

• V-Ray Lesson #2: Gamma and Presets  -premium area!
• V-Ray Lesson #9 – HDRI  -premium area!

Step 2: Lighting and more

2.1 – BASIC LIGHTING WITH HDRI

This scene does not have complex lighting, but the important thing in this case is to create nice and catching reflections. This is because we have a metallic object. The easiest way to create a good global lighting with nice reflections is an Hdri map…

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The process is also explained in the  V-Ray Lesson #9, and it’s quite simple:

1. Add a V-Ray Dome in the scene (wherever you want)
2. create VRayHDRI in the “texture” channel
3. Drag and drop it in the material editor, then load an .hdr file

Create a basic Metal chrome for the nails and render with “TEST-preset” – Result:

PARAM.: V-Ray Physical Camera = Default values / V-Ray Dome multip. = 40 (units: default)

 

 

2.2 – OOPS! BLACK SPLOTCHES

As you can see the nails have strage black splotches on the surface. To check if the problem is related to the material add a new cylinder, and apply the same material:

Metal Chrome on the cylinder appears correct, so the problem is the 3d nail: probably  “overlapped faces“.

There are many reasons for this artefact: imported model, strange manipulations with edit poly… it doesn’t matter, I just want to give you a simple tip on what has saved my life so many times. Here’s how to fix this problem:

Setting:
RENDER SETUP > SECONDARY RAYS BIAS = 0,001   –Look the screenshot / Look before-after

« 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.» –  Check here more examples.

NOTE: If you load a preset, remember to set again Secondary Rays Bias! The preset overwrites this value.

 

 

2.3 – CREATE HIGHLIGHTS

Let’s create the reflections – Reflections are crucial to communicate the nature of the materials, especially working with glass and metals. The professional way to get nice reflections is not just “put a light and see what happens“, this is for beginners! You should figure out the best place for your reflections, then play with a V-Ray Light to create what’s in your mind. It’s not casual, it’s designed.

To see how to do that watch this video:

Remember: V-Ray light for reflections should be “soft” to avoid affecting the shadows created from the primary light (hdri in this case).

Click here to see the Light balance analysis
The final shadows are the same shadows we have with only Hdri: OK!

 

2.4 – CONCLUDING

This is the result after this step:

• V-Ray Physical Camera = f8 / Shutter 200 / ISO 100 (Default values!)
• V-Ray Dome = multip. 40 (units: defaults)
• V-Ray light for reflections = multip. 18 watts

In the next lesson I’ll show you how to create a complex V-Ray material to simulate Rusty Nails.

 

 

EXERCISE

It’s all about balancing between V-Ray light hdri and V-Ray light for reflections. In this lesson the application is easy, but the concepts are really deep. So, please read it again to understand the idea and try to create the same render above starting from this file:

Download: NAILS STEP2—START | OBJ Version (hdri is included)

Tasks:

• Create global lighting with an Hdri
• Fix black splotches
• Create beautiful reflections with another (soft) V-Ray Light
• Work the lights separately

Solution: NAILS STEP2—FINAL

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