Bump mapping has been greatly improved in 1.6

Very strange. I assume the lights are components. This was an issue with the early 1.6 beta that was quickly fixed. Have you thought about trying 1.6 beta?

Scaling it does seem to work now. Interesting. I swear it didn't work the other day.

Does scaling it work though?

I cam across this one, but for some reason it no longer works in 2013. Any ideas why?

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@dkendig said:

• Render directly to a VRImage to reduce the amount of memory that the VFB uses to display your rendered output (it can use a TON, especially if you're rendering multiple channels)

+1 - This will usually solve the problem by itself. You can render to EXR, but if you have channels, you need to have ProEXR installed in Photoshop to see the channels.

There is 2 ways to approach this type of rendering.

1. Is to do as suggested above by Andy and just set your GI to a white color. This will essentially remove the casted shadows and just render the plan with a ambient light.

2. The other way, which makes for a real nice rendering is to place a ceiling plane on your model. Use a SketchUp 2-sided material in V-Ray and make the front face (should be facing into the plan) a white color and make the back face a material that is 100% transparent. Then you want to add some interior lights by using IES or spots and some planar lights at your window openings, and then render the view. Essentially, what happens is that V-Ray renders with no sun flooding into the room from the hole in the ceiling, but keeps it transparent because the face that is facing the camera is 100% clear.

Give it a try.

I think what we really want is an override material like seen here -

http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150SP1/examples_vray_overridemtl.htm

Any ideas why this no longer works?

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RC2 came out today, so I am sure upgrade pricing will be available very soon.

If the glass has a refraction layer, check that the front/back faces are facing correctly. You may have a back face facing out. I tend not to use refraction for glass like this. I just use a simple plane with 95% transparent material with reflection layer.

This is noise associated with low subdivs. I would suggest to up your Subdivs multiplier in the DMC sampler options. Try 1.7 or 2 - This will apply a X2 to all subdivs in the model - not just materials but light subdivs and GI as well. Also change your noise threshold to .003

Render times will increase dramatically, but your renderings will be much cleaner. The noise on glossy reflections is the sacrifice we make for faster render times sometimes.

This uses Gunthrie's 1325 sun clouds - GI and BG are off, the scene is only lit by the dome light. I changed the gamma of the HDRI to .8

http://3docean.net/item/hdri-1325-sun-clouds/101801?WT.ac=search_item&WT.seg_1=search_item&WT.z_author=paguthrie

It really depends on the HDRI you are using. There is a trick out there for adjusting the gamma of the HDRI image to increase the intensity of the shadows, but if the HDRI was taken, lets say, on a cloudy day, or the HDRI is low quality, then you will never get sharp shadows. Some the best HDRIs are from Peter Gunthrie. I think you can buy them on 3DOcean.

Also, check out some at http://www.hdri-hub.com/ There are some nice free ones on this site.

I dont think gamma will give more realistic images but the setting is under color mapping and the default is already set to 2.2.

Some suggestions for more realism -

If you are using 1.6 beta then try a dome light with an HDRI image
If you want to use Sky, then try changing the size of the sun in order to get softer shadows.

Realism can only be achieved through detailed modeling, great materials, and interesting lighting.

Good luck!

Liking the new avatar TT - congrats on the new job!

They are working feverishly at getting the final candidate out, so they may be not logging in as much as they usually do.

I would suggest to email vraysketchup@chaosgroup.com

I am not a member of the team at Chaos. I have been in the beta testers group since the early private beta though. Devin or Fernando frequent these forums, so I am sure than can answer your questions.

I am very knowledgable about installing a GPU, but my understanding is that you will have access to higher power cards on a desktop rather than a laptop machine due to limitations on cooling fans and power supplies (I think).

Contact Chaos Group for starters. Also, try to uninstall completely - this includes deleting any ASGVIS folders in your ProgramData folder.

1. This is Graphics Card. With GPU, the rendering is off loaded to your graphics card and not your CPUs - results in faster RT renders but you need a high end card to do so.

2. A dongle is a physical piece of hardware that contains your license. It will be a USB thumb drive and will arrive when you purchase/upgrade to 1.6 once it comes out of beta. You need to have it plugged in for V-Ray to work.

3. Models in Max format are everywhere - Evermotion, CG Axis, VizPeople, Turbosquid, to name a few. It depends on what you are looking for. Trees? Cars, Furniture? I should mention 2 things. 1 - if they are in Max format, you need a license of 3D Studio Max and V-Ray for Max ($$$). 2- If you can buy the OBJ version, then you can convert in Blender or using the utility that comes with VR4SU - see my tutorials on the V-Ray for SketchUp forums over at Chaos' website.