Lesson 1 Extra Modules

This lesson comes with 8 Extra modules. For each module there is a video, and a scene file with the
same name in the Lesson 1 folder.

01 Light Plane
This extra module covers the Plane Light in more detail. The Plane Light is a physically accurate light
source that has a physical measurable area which emits the light and the light decays (loses intensity)
accurately as it travels through space. The shape and size of the light affect the softness/sharpness of
the shadows cast by it.

Main settings - these settings are the same for all V-Ray lights:

• Color/Texture - allows you to pick a color for the light or use a texture file to control it
• Intensity - controls the strength of the light. This parameter depends on the Units parameter and
in its default state (Units = Default(Scalar)) the value of the Intensity parameter directly affects
the intensity values of the pixels of the light source when they are visible to the camera
• Units - the other possible settings here will be covered in the second Extra videos

Plane light specific options

• Shape - allows us to control the shape of the plane light - the available options are Rectangle and
Ellipse
• Directionality - allows us to focus the light in the direction of the plane's normal.

02 Light Sphere
This extra module uses the Sphere Light to discuss the Units parameter and demonstrate how it relates
to the light intensity and size. The Sphere Light is a physically accurate light source that has the shape
of a sphere. It emits light in all directions equally and the light decays (loses intensity) accurately as it
travels through space.

• Units - this parameter determines the unit used to determine the Intensity of the light. Using
different units may be necessary when we are trying to match the intensity of a virtual light
source to that of a real-world light.
o Default(Scalar) - this is the only mode that is not based on real world measurement units
of light intensity. Instead when the Units is set to Default(Scalar) the intensity parameter
directly controls the brightness of the light when it’s shape is directly visible by the
camera, assuming no color/exposure corrections are applied. This means that the total
 amount of light emitted by the light source depends on its size - smaller lights emit less
light and larger lights emit more light but the intensity of the light is a constant.
o Luminous power - sets the total "amount" of light emitted in Lumens, the amount of
emitted light remains constant when changing the light size. This means that if you make
a light smaller it will shine brighter, in order to emit the same amount of light from a
smaller area and vice versa.
o Radiant power - sets the total "amount" of light emitted in Watts, the amount of emitted
light remains constant when changing the light size. This means that if you make a light
smaller it will shine brighter, in order to emit the same amount of light from a smaller area
and vice versa.
o Luminance - sets the amount of light emitted in Lumens per unit of area - larger lights
emit more total light than smaller lights with the same Intensity
o Radiance - sets the amount of light emitted in Watts per unit of area - larger lights emit
more total light than smaller lights with the same Intensity

03 Spot Light
This extra module discusses the Spot Light - a light source that can create the effect of a flash light or
spot light which focus the light in one area. This source emits the light from an infinitely small point in
space so it cannot be seen by the camera or in clear reflections. The settings we discuss in the video
are:

• Cone angle - the angle at which the spot light emits light
• Penumbra angle - the angle at which the light begins to fadeout to "no light"
• Penumbra falloff - determines how the light transitions from full strength inside the cone to no
light outside the cone
• Decay - this parameter controls the method used to calculate how the light intensity diminishes
as it travels away from the source. The physically accurate method is Inverse Square
• Shadow radius - this light source emits the light from an infinitely small point and thus it can only
create sharp shadows. This parameter allows us to specify a radius of the shape of the light that
is used only when calculating shadows. Larger numbers make the shadows softer.

04 Light IES
This extra module discusses the IES Light - A light source that allows us to introduce real world lights
into the scene. Lighting manufacturers sometimes provide .ies files which hold photometric data for
the lights they manufacture. You can use a V-Ray IES Light to load those files and have the physically
accurate illumination in SketchUp.
 • Intensity - usually the IES file holds information about the actual intensity of the light. However,
this value can be overridden
• IES Light File - a slot for the .ies light profile
• Shape - specifies how the light shape is determined for the purposes of calculating soft
shadows.
o From IES file - uses the shape information (when available) saved in the .ies file
o Point - the light is considered as a point - only can create sharp shadows
o Circle - the light shape is a circular plane, the normal of the plane is the direction of the
light and the diameter of the circle is determined by the Diameter parameter
o Sphere - the light shape is a sphere, the size of which depends on the Diameter parameter
• Diameter - controls the softness of the shadows generated by the IES Light when the Shape
parameter is set to either Circle or Sphere. Larger values make for softer shadows

05 Light Omni
This extra module uses the Point Light to examine some of the extra parameters of lights. A Point Light
is an infinitely small point (like the Spot Light) that emits light in all directions equally. This light cannot
be seen by the camera or in clear reflections. It creates sharp shadows by default. The Shadow radius
parameter allows us to specify a radius of the shape of the light that is used only when calculating
shadows. Larger numbers make the shadows softer.

• Affect Diffuse/Specular - allows you to enable or disable the effect of the light on the diffuse and
specular components of the materials in the scene. This can be used for artistic purposes but
disabling these checkboxes or using multipliers different than 1 will create physically inaccurate
results
• Shadows - enables/disables the casting of shadows by the light

06 GPU Acceleration
This extra module covers the usage of Graphic Cards to accelerate the rendering.

GPU acceleration works for the Interactive and Progressive rendering modes only.

With the Interactive Rendering mode, it works directly and it only has one slider controlling it. The
Interactivity slider determines the rate at which V-Ray refreshes the image. The speed of the
calculations remains the same however you can control how often V-Ray shows you the result of those
calculations. When the slider is at its right most position V-Ray refreshes the image very often but the
first few iterations are going to be noisy. This is useful for lighting as you can quickly see the effect of
changes made to the scene. When the slider is to its left most position V-Ray refreshes the image less
often but each new iteration greatly improves the quality. This may slightly speed the rendering,
because V-Ray is not "wasting" time showing you images at the lower quality.

If you want to use the GPU Acceleration with the Progressive Rendering mode you need to set the
Primary and Secondary Bounce engines to Brute Force. You can use the Quality slider to choose
between faster rendering or better-quality result. Additionally, if you expand the right fly off menu, in the
Raytracing rollout you can set a time limit for the rendering.

07 Batch Render and Animations

08 Advanced VFB
This extra module goes deeper into some of the settings of the V-Ray Frame Buffer including:

• A/B comparison – allows you to compare images that were saved in the VFB History
• More detailed color corrections
• Saving/loading color corrections to a file – this can be useful when working on a project that has
multiple shots and you want to all the images to have the same “feel”