One of the most important parts of 3D rendering is lighting. The good news is that V Ray for Maya is getting better at lighting through an adaptive dome light and global illumination. Many of the newer features will save you time and produce better results. 

Global Illumination

The Global Illumination Render Element is a image used to store indirect lighting information that comes from reflected diffuse light found in a scene when you enable indirect illumination. This feature can be adjusted for brightness and color to give you full control over the scene. But sometimes, you need extra help when working with image-based lighting.

Dome Lighting

V-ray very intelligently samples lights in a manner that has been integrated into the dome light and image-based lighting. This is an important feature due to how commonly it is used in CGI. Image-based lighting has improved much over the years, but still relies often on sampling. Fortunately, V-ray can sample the HDR dome efficiently to produce very little noise. 

One problem you may encounter is that light enters interior spaces through openings like doors and windows and this can lead to the rendering being less efficient. However, this can be solved through the use of Skylight Portals through windows, doors and skylights. However, this process is time-consuming.

Adaptive Dome Lighting

To save time, V Ray has developed a smarter adaptive dome light that uses a light cache calculation to determine which parts of the dome light affect the scene. Skylight Portals are not necessary with this feature. Instead, the portions of the environment to sample are automatically determined. 

You will be able to generate a much more accurate scene with adaptive dome lighting. This technology is able to concentrate lighting in the right locations. This not only makes the lighting faster, but more accurate. In some cases, the change in lighting might be subtle, but it will be much more beautiful. Improvements in speed can vary, but it can be anywhere from 10% to 700%, drastically improving productivity.

Achieving Great Results Efficiently

The render times are based on the rays and samples that are needed to get a clean image. Therefore, V-ray has become more intelligent with how it analyzes and optimizes rays. This feature is constantly being improved. Once you understand how to use this feature and other lighting features, such as global illumination, you'll be able to create beautiful scenes in Maya.

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