- Hey everyone, today I'm
gonna walk you through the key steps you need to know when you're setting
out to render interiors in V-Ray for SketchUp. These steps have helped
thousands of professionals gain a clear understanding
of what goes into creating stunning, photorealistic renderings and avoid the common pitfalls that cause people to struggle in V-Ray. I'm Alex Oliver, lead
instructor at SketchUp School, the place where professionals go when they're serious
about learning SketchUp. And in this video, I'll
show you the seven things you need to know before creating your first interior rendering in V-Ray for Sketchup, keep watching. If you're one of the hundreds
of thousands of people who already checked out our Watch This Before You Get Started with
V-Ray for SketchUp video, you already know that simply following our render-ready checklist can save you all kinds of headaches when you're new to rendering in V-Ray. Still, there are a ton of challenges when it comes to creating
that perfect interior shot and we constantly hear
stories, like this one. I already know how to build in SketchUp, I just am confused on
how to do the lighting and set up the V-Ray render settings. I need help. Lauren was an experienced SketchUp user but when she set out
to teach herself V-Ray, she got lost and ended
up wasting a ton of time. The thing is, just having a great model, doesn't mean you're
automatically gonna have a great rendering. Thankfully, Lauren
signed up for our course and was able to overcome the obstacles that she'd run into in V-Ray and achieve the results she was aiming for with her interior renderings. Of course, we can't cover
everything from our course in this video but I've compiled
a list of seven key things that will help you steer
clear of the issues that cause most people to struggle with their first interior
renderings in V-Ray for SketchUp. But before we dive into that list, a couple things to keep in mind. Every good rendering begins with a render-ready SketchUp model. So, I recommend you pause this video and review our Watch This
Before You Get Started with V-Ray video because it
covers the essential steps to getting your model ready for V-Ray. While you're at it,
make sure you also watch our Learn How to Render in SketchUp video. These two videos go over
concepts that you'll need to know in order to implement the
tips I'm about to cover. Okay, you're back from
watching those videos? Great, just one more thing. We're gonna cover a lot
of ground in this video. So, I put together some notes for you to help you remember everything. Stick around to the end of the video and I'll let you know how
you can get a copy of them. Alright, let's bring back up that list and jump into number one,
start with draft settings. The secret to setting up great renderings is to make small, iterative adjustments and render after each
one to test the results. This means you'll need
to render frequently. So you wanna use settings
that will give you a preview as fast as possible. Here's what I recommend. First, smaller images render faster so set the resolution as low as possible where you can still get
a sense of the effect of each change you make. Also, there are three
rendering modes to choose from, interactive, progressive
or bucket rendering, that's the default mode
when you don't have either interactive or
progressive turned on. Each can be useful in different situations but for quick test
renders use progressive. Set the quality to Draft
and enable denoise. This combination will allow
you to see results quickly and give you enough quality to see if your changes are working. Lastly, if you're using the
latest version of V-Ray, you should also go into
the camera settings and enable auto exposure
and auto white balance and let V-Ray take care
of those things for you. Okay, once you've dialed in
your draft render settings, it's time for the next step. Number two, use material override. Your first step when rendering a room is to get the lighting right. During that step, seeing the
materials can be distracting. Turn them off using the
material override feature. Now, all surfaces will render with the default pale gray color, allowing you to better
focus on the lighting. There's just one problem. You don't wanna override
materials like the window glass that will allow light to pass
through and light the room. To avoid that, there
are two steps to take. First, make sure that you're using a pre-configured V-Ray
material for the glass since it will reflect and refract
the light more accurately. If you have a SketchUp glass material, just find it in the V-Ray materials list and select all of the objects in the scene with that material. Then add a V-Ray glass to
your in model materials list and apply it to the selection. This will swap out the SketchUp
glass for the V-Ray glass. Just a quick note. If your glass is modeled with thickness, any glass material will work but if your glass is
modeled with a single plane, be sure to use the fake glass material. And now your second step. You need to make sure that the
glass isn't being overriden. To do that, just find
the material's properties in the fly-out menu and uncheck the option for can be overridden. Okay, you've got everything
all set for the next step. Number three, figure out
your key lighting first. As you know from our Learn How
to Render in SketchUp video, you should think of rendering
like you are a photographer taking a photo of a room. Your first step is to
set up your key light. For a daytime interior rendering, let's talk about your two best options. You can either use the V-Ray sun or you can use a V-Ray dome light. So, how do you choose between the two? Different rendering situations will call for different solutions but let me compare the
options to help you pick the best one for you. Let's start with V-Ray's default sun. This is the easiest to
use as you get it for free in every rendering. If you need highly accurate
shadows, this is the way to go since it is driven from your
SketchUp model's geolocation and shadow settings. While this option is the
most straightforward to use, there is another option that can often produce better results. You can use a V-Ray dome light to cast more realistic
daylight into your scene. The light is more realistic because it is based on an HDR image which is a special kind of image taken in a real world
environment that captures all of the lighting and
color information in the sky. So, rather than just
shining realistic sunlight into your scene as you
can with the V-Ray sun, you're also accounting
for the varied lighting that comes from the clouds and sky in your dome light's HDR image. In the latest version of V-Ray, another advantage of the dome
light is that it is adaptive. This just means that V-Ray
has built-in intelligence that both helps the dome
light better cast light through your windows into the interior and speeds up your overall render times. If you decide to go with the dome light, just know that Dome
lights have a default HDR associated with them. But you can also add your
own HDR images instead to get different lighting qualities. I've included links to a
few sources for HDR images in the notes I've put together for you. Now whether you've used the V-Ray sun or you've used a dome
light as your key light, you'll probably have harsh shadows or some dark areas of your room. That's where the next tip comes in. Number four, add fill lights next. We covered fill lights in our Learn How to
Render in SketchUp video but I wanna point out the specifics for how to set them up in V-Ray. First, think about any natural light that might be entering
the space from off-camera and try adding a Rectangle light or two to simulate that light in your scene. Then for any other
shadows you wanna fill-in, remember that the best results often come from placing a fill light
at roughly 90 degrees relative to your key light. And if possible, the fill
light should be placed on the opposite side of the
camera from the key light. Again, as a basic rule of thumb, a rectangle light is best for
casting a wider, softer light. Remember that once you add fill lights, you'll need to balance the
intensity of those lights relative to your key light
to get the desired result. And it's a good idea
to adjust the intensity of each light in isolation
so you can get a clear sense for what they each add to the scene. Then turn everything back on
to see how they work together. Also, don't forget to adjust
the color of your lights. Real world light is rarely true white, so be sure to subtly adjust the color to better match the type of
light you are simulating. And of course, don't
forget to name the lights as you add them. That way it's really
easy to find them later when you need to make adjustments. Your future self will thank you. Thank you Alex from the
past for reminding me to name my lights. It made it so much easier to
find and adjust them later. Love, your future self. Okay, so you've got your daytime lighting. Now, you're ready for the next step. Number five, use realistic materials. Up until now, we've focused
on the direct lighting that comes from the key and fill lights. Now, it's time for the indirect lighting that comes from the reflection
and refraction of light as it interacts with the
materials in your model. Your first step is to
disable material override so we can see the colors
and materials again. If you render now,
you'll have nice lighting but all of your materials will fall flat. That's because V-Ray doesn't
yet know how the materials you've used should
interact with the light. At this point you have two options. The first, and easiest option, replace each material
with a comparable one from the V-Ray library. The upside is that you get
all of the material settings preconfigured for you. So, out of the box, a V-Ray material will know how to reflect and
refract light realistically. The downside of course is
that you might not be able to find a V-Ray material that
matches up closely enough to the one you need to replace. In the case where you really need to keep the specific material
you've already found, you'll have a little more work to do to configure that material's settings so that V-Ray renders it properly. Now there's a lot more to
setting up materials in V-Ray than we have time to cover in this video but here are a few quick tips that should cover common scenarios. First, almost everything in the real world has at least a little bit of reflectivity so you'll want to adjust
how much reflection the material has by adjusting
the reflection color. 100% black equals no reflection, while 100% white is 100% reflective. Also, you can set how blurry
or clear your reflections are via reflection glossiness. For most material types, you
can search online for settings for these two parameters that
should get you close enough. When you are dealing with
things like glass, water or other partially transparent materials, you'll also need to adjust
the refraction color and the refraction IOR values. Again, you should be able to search online and find something that works
for most common materials. Lastly, if your material has a bit of real world texture to
it like wood flooring, tile with grout lines, or even fabrics, you can simulate it using a bump map. This is the kind of feature that's more than we can cover
here but as a quick hack, take a copy of the
texture and desaturate it in a program like Photoshop. Then take the grayscale
version and add it as a bitmap to the bump map's texture slot. When you re-render, you
should be able to see that the material has the
illusion of more texture. Now, whether you're using
V-Ray's pre-configured materials or you're setting up your own, remember to name the materials as you go and make it easier to find
and adjust them later. Okay, we've been focused on getting things to look good inside the interior but we can't forget about the next tip. Number six, mind your background. If you have a window with
a view to the outside, you'll need to think about
what to show in the background. There are two options for handling this. You can model the background in SketchUp. Or you can leave it blank and add an image later in Photoshop. I prefer the hybrid approach
where I add 3D models of the more prominent things
that are closer to the camera and then use an image
for the far background. If you do plan to add-in a
background later in Photoshop, here are a few tips to
set-up your V-Ray rendering. First, if you are using a dome light, it will need to be set to invisible. Also, you'll need to
uncheck your Background in the environment menu. And lastly, if your background
is behind a glass window, you'll need to find your
glass material's settings. Then turn on the advanced
settings for refraction and set affect channels to color + alpha. Then be sure to render out a PNG which will retain the
transparency you need so you can drop in your own
background in Photoshop later. But let's back up just a moment. Since we're talking about
rendering out a final image, we're ready for the last tip. Number seven, choose good render settings and make a few easy adjustments. Once everything is looking pretty good, it's time to create your final render. So, you'll wanna go back and change your draft render
settings to higher quality. The ideal settings
depend on a few variables but when you're just getting started, here are a few guidelines
that should work great. First, switch off
interactive and progressive to use bucket rendering mode. Then switch your quality to high. Very high isn't always necessary
as it takes a lot longer and since you're new to rendering, you may not even notice the difference. And switch on denoise,
it will help smooth out some of the graininess that could appear in your final rendering. And of course, set the
resolution to a size you want for the final image. Now, once your rendering is
done, in the V-Ray Frame buffer, you can open your
corrections control panel and check exposure. Then turn on force color clamping. Anywhere you see weird
colors means that the light is too bright or burned out in the image. To fix those areas, just slide
the highlight burn value down until the force color
clamping colors go away. If the overall image needs
to be darker or brighter, dial the exposure up or
down and then rebalance with the highlight burn. And once it all looks good, click the icon to save
your final rendering. And that's it, congratulations! You've made it through the entire list. Did you learn something new in this video? Do me a quick favor and tell
us which tip you liked the most in the comments below right now. Or, just let us know you liked the video by giving it a like. Just by watching this video,
you've already learned how to avoid a lot of
frustration people experience when trying to create their
first interior renderings and you're well on your way to creating beautiful photorealistic
renderings with V-Ray. From here, it's definitely possible to learn everything on your own. However, if you want to
invest your time wisely and avoid picking up bad habits then I recommend checking
out our Video Course Library. It's filled with $8,700
worth of SketchUp courses, exclusively for professionals, including our comprehensive
V-Ray for SketchUp course. Head over to our SketchUp School website and try our courses for free. And if you're not ready to
try one our courses right now, make sure to at least review what you learned in
this video, right away. As I mentioned earlier, I've
put together some notes for you that make it easy to do that. They summarize everything
we covered in this video and include links to resources for things like high resolution
materials and HDR images. I put a link to them in the cards. Oh and one last thing, if you don't wanna miss our next video, make sure to subscribe to our
YouTube channel right now. Just click on the subscribe
button below this video. Until next time, happy sketching. So, I think I'll go, I'll
do this and then we'll just. (classical music) I'm not redoing that part. (mumbles) Through these glasses.
