Material Settings

VRay for Rhino

Start
Start by either opening mat settings_start.3dm or create a test
scene with the following settings.
Base Settings
+ Current Renderer changed to VRay
+ Global Switches- Default Lighting Off
+ Output- Override Rhino, 640x480
+ Indirect Illumination- GI On | mat settings_start.3dm |
+ Environment- GI- On, White Background-On, Black
+ Irradiance Map- Min/Max= -4/-1 Subdivs- 20
Uncheck Show Calculation Phase
+ Everything else use default settings

Starting Materials
For each of the objects setup a VRay material by opening up
the Material Editor and changing the diffuse color. For the test scene
the big teapot is red, the small teapot is blue. and the base is light gray. | first rendering |
Remember to name each material so that know which material is which
when you go to apply the material. After the materials are created you can
apply them to each of the objects. Render.

Reflection Layer
Now we will change the material of the first teapot to have | material editor and color editor|
reflections. Under your material for the teapot right click on reflection
layers and click on Add new layer. The color next to reflection will
change the amount of reflection. It works with grayscale with white being
completely reflective and black having no reflections. Go ahead and set the
color to Dark Gray. Render.

Fresnel Reflections
Your result should look somewhat like the rendering on the right,
which looks a little odd and is actually inaccurate. This is because it is
reflecting the same amount everywhere on the object. In the real world the | standard reflections |
amount an object reflects changes depending on the angle of that the light
is reflecting. This is called Fresnel reflection and it is very important for
creating realistic reflections in VRay for Rhino. To add Fresnel reflections
click on the “m” next to the reflection color. Now under Type select Fresnel
and click Apply. Render
If you would like to change the amount of reflection it must be
changed with through the Fresnel settings not the reflection color. To do
this click on the “m” and change the reflection IOR. A higher number will
increase the reflections, but behave more like reflections without Fresnel.
Lower numbers will decrease the amount of reflections on parallel faces. | fresnel reflections |
Material Settings
VRay for Rhino
cont.

Reflection Glossiness
Reflection Glossiness can adjust the reflections so that the
reflections themselves are not sharp. Lets start with the first tea pot by
just adding the reflection layer and changing the color to dark gray. The
reflections are fine, but what if we would like those reflections to be a bit
| standard reflections | | reflect gloss = .8 |
softer or more blurred. For the second tea pot change reflection glossiness
to .8 and click Render. These results are smoother, but lets see how much
more the reflections can be blurred. The third tea pot has the reflection
glossiness set to .6 and although the result is much smoother there is a bit
more noise in the reflections now. In order to decrease some of the noise
increase the subdivisions to 32 and Render. The fourth tea pot has a much
smoother result with a very even gradient through the reflection due to the
increase in subdivisions. | reflect gloss = .6 | | subdivisons = 32 |

Refraction Layer
To start open up refraction_01.3dm and the base settings are
the same as used for the previous file except that the GI multiplier in the
environment rollout is .9 and that Caustics are on. First set up a material
for the background object. For this we will have it set up as Lavender. Next
we need to set up a material for the main object. After adding the refraction
layer, the next thing that must be done is to change the transparency color
to black in the diffuse rollout. This is because Rhino reads the material
properties in layers and if the diffuse layer is not transparent then the
refraction layer which is underneath the diffuse layer will not be visable. | refraction layer |
Also go to the options rollout and uncheck double-sided. Render.
The result should look something like the image on the right but
this looks a little odd because there are no reflections on the material. Go
and add the reflection layer to the material. Leave the default settings and
render.

You will notice that now the material is reflecting allot of the black
background. This is because fresnel reflections are not on. Without fresnel
reflections on VRay will not be able to be read the refractive layer of the
material. Enable fresnel reflections and Render. | standard reflections and refractions |

Now the material is looking much better and is reflecting both its
environment as well as having very good interior reflections. This is a good
start for setting up glass in VRay for Rhino.

| fresnel reflections and refractions|

Material Settings
VRay for Rhino
cont.

Index of Refraction
The Index of Refraction (IOR) is a number that dictates how light
bends when it passes through or reflected by a surface. There are actually
three places in VRay for Rhino that are linked to IOR. The first two are in the
fresnel settings and the last one is in the refraction rollout. In real life all | All IOR set to 1 |
three of these values are the same, and there are specific values for different
materials. By default these values are all the same, but each of them can be
changed to create interesting effects.
First we will change the IOR of all three settings to 1 and turn off
the light in the scene. Render. The object is now gone. This is because
no light is being bent and therefore the path of the light rays don’t change.
Now change the reflection IOR in the fresnel settings to 1.55 and render
again. This is just the reflections of the environment on the object without
any of the refractions or interior reflections.
| fresnel reflection IOR set to 1.55 |

Now turn the light in the scene back on and in the fresnel settings
change the refraction IOR to 1.55. Render. This image just has the
environment reflections and the internal reflections from the object. Also
notice that the shadows are only transparent where there are not any of
the interior reflections, this is a great way to see the effects of fresnel
reflections.

Now change the refraction IOR in the fresnel settings from 1.55 to |fresnel reflection and fresnel refraction IOR set to 1.55|
1 and change the refraction IOR to 1.2 then render. The result is similar
to what we had when there were no reflections at all, but with a number of
clear differences. We now have the same environment reflections as we
had before, but the refraction of the object itself is much different. First of
all you will notice that there are fewer black spots then before, which is due
to less refractions within the object. The biggest difference, and the change
that is of the most concern, is the differences in the caustics. Before the
caustics were much more spread out, but now the are much closer together
and stronger. They are closer together because of the lower IOR and
they are stronger because more of the light energy is retained making the | fresnel reflection set to 1.55 refraction set to 1.2 |
caustics brighter.

By having all three IOR at different values the overall effect of the
image can be drastically changed. For the last image go back and change
the fresnel settings to 1.75 for the reflection IOR and 1.6 for the refraction
IOR. Render. The resulting image looks as though it has lighting which
is much stronger and more focused while having much more contrast in
the overall lighting. Also notice that the stronger internal reflections of the
object are dissipating some of the caustics around the edge of the shadows
which contributes to the focused feel of the lighting.
| fres reflec = 1.75 | fres refrac = 1.6 | refrac = 1.2 |
Material Settings
VRay for Rhino
cont.

Fog Color
Start by opening up refraction_01.3dm. Then setup the
background object to be white so that we can see the true colors of the
main object. Now you need to create a material for the main object. Start
with the basis set up for glass which was created previously. From here
we are going to go over some of the fog settings which are in the refraction | Fog Settings in the Refraction Layer |
layer.
For the first fog setting set the fog color to lavender and leave
the multiplier at 1. Render. The first aspect that you should note is the
differences in the color with different thicknesses of the object. This is
because the fog is directly related to the light energy passing through the
object, so when the object is thicker there is more energy which creates a
darker color. The second aspect is that the overall color of the object is
not exactly the color that was selected. This is because the selected color
is approximately what the color of the object would be with minimal light
absorbtion. So rather than picking blue, which was the desired color, we | fog color = Lavender (191,191,255) |
picked a color that would darken to a blue. With Vray for Rhino the color of
the fog is more important that the multiplier. Although the multiplier can be
used to adjust the desired effect, ultimately if you have the wrong fog color
nothing will come out right.
Now for the next setting change the fog color to blue and render.
You will notice that there is notice that there is now no variance in the color
of the object at all. This is because the color blue is completely saturated.
In other words pure blue (rgb 0,0,255) cannot get anymore blue than it
already is, and so the color will not have any variance. When selecting a
color for fog it is best to pick a color that is a faded or desaturated version | fog color = blue (0,0,255) |
of the color that is actually desired.
When it comes to fog colors any color that is an extreme on the
scale (0 or 255 in either rgb or hue sat val) will cause issues with fog.
Either there won’t be any variance in the fog itself or if you are using a
higher multiplier the fog will not darken to a black. If those kinds of colors
are what you would like to use scale them back from the extremes of the
scale (from 255 to 250 or 245) and the effect will act and look much more
natural.

Fog Multiplier | fog color = (191,191, 245) fog multiplier = .4 |

To see the effect of the fog multiplier start by setting the fog
color to 191,191,245 which is very similar to the lavender. If you want
you can render this with a multiplier of 1, but the result will be almost
indistinguishable from the first rendering. Now set the multiplier to .4
and render. The multiplier decreases the amount of light energy that is
absorbed by the fog, therefore lightening the whole object. Now set the
multiplier to 10 and render. With this high of a multiplier the fog is now
absorbing nearly all of the light energy in the thicker parts of the object.
Notice that the fog absorbing all of the light energy has greatly decreased
the effect of the caustics. |fog color = (191,1919,245) fog multiplier = 10 |