V-Ray is an incredibly powerful renderer — but it’s also remarkably easy to use. The number-one* 3D renderer used in architectural visualization is battle-tested and industry-proven, used daily to realize world-class products, buildings and much more. And if you like to spend the majority of your time being creative but still crave the highest quality images possible, V-Ray can help you easily and speedily render everything from your quickest concepts to your largest and most detailed 3D models.
What’s more, it works seamlessly with SketchUp’s versatile 3D modeling tools while also being built with a full set of creative tools for lights and materials. The best part, perhaps, is that you don’t need to be a rendering expert to get great results with V-Ray. This collection of six, simple, quick-start tutorials will help you learn how to use V-Ray Next for SketchUp — and give your renders a boost in no time at all.
Let’s get started!
Introduction to V-Ray Next for SketchUp
This first video walks through V-Ray’s simple UI and details just how easy it is to get started with a basic project. The video guide also covers the simplified V-Ray Asset Editor and shares how to manage your Materials, Lights, Geometry, Render Elements and Textures with ease.
Tutorial 1: How to light an exterior day scene
In this first tutorial, you’ll learn how to quickly set up exterior lighting for a daylight scenario. The video also covers how to tweak various light settings of the Sunlight and Domelight features to achieve the desired lighting outcomes for your scene.
To help you follow along with this video guide, you can download assets for this tutorial here (design by Doomo).
If you’re new to V-Ray, you can download a free 30-day trial for V-Ray for SketchUp here.
Tutorial 2: How to light an exterior night scene
This next video guide takes you through the process of setting up a nighttime exterior render for an arch-viz workflow. The simple workflow showcased reveals how you can use a variety of V-Ray lights for great-looking night renders.
To follow along with the techniques in this video, download assets for this tutorial here.
Tutorial 3: How to light an interior day scene
You’ll now discover how to light arch-viz interiors. This video builds on the concepts from the exterior lighting videos above, and by the end of the next two videos, you’ll have a solid understanding of the simple lighting workflow for rendering interiors in SketchUp.
To try out the workflow shown in this video, you can download assets for this tutorial here.
Tutorial 4: How to light an interior night scene
This video tutorial now walks through how to set up an interior project for nighttime lighting. The guide will show you some quick examples of how to easily simulate moonlight as well as how to adjust your lighting and colors for maximum realism.
To follow along, simply download assets for this tutorial here.
Tutorial 5: How to create and use materials
This next tutorial details the basics of materials in V-Ray Next for SketchUp. This simple video demonstrates how to use the Material Library to create, edit and apply various realistic materials, as well as how to edit preset materials and create new materials from scratch.
You can follow along with this video: Simply download assets for this tutorial here.
Tutorial 6: How to create fog and atmosphere
In the last video tutorial in this series, see how Environment Fog can be used to quickly simulate fog, dust, and smoke. You’ll quickly understand how to add depth to your images using volumetric environment effects and learn how to use Aerial Perspective to simulate atmospheric haze to illustrate distance.
You can download the scene file here to follow along with this tutorial.
*according to 2019 Architectural Visualization Rendering Engine Survey
