This course, taught by Daniel Buck, runs through the basics of V-Ray, from lights, to shaders, to render settings and a few optimization tips. Buck’s professional career has been vehicle related, so the course will focus more on vehicle related things than other things, since that’s his specialty. He will, however, present basic principals so that the knowledge gained applies to other things, not just purely vehicle related issues.

Buck will assume that course participants have at least basic knowledge of Maya, and preferably some knowledge of lighting and shaders in general. No advanced knowledge of any other rendering software is necessary, but for those that do, Buck will go through a few areas where V-Ray differs from other rendering software. He will be using Maya during the term, but operations are very similar between 3dsMax and Maya. It renders identically, and all the options and settings are very similar…the differences are in how you apply properties and find the settings.

The course will focus on the creation and manipulation of lights and shaders, as well as some basic V-Ray settings. It won’t get into to much of the technical nuts and bolts of V-Ray, just giving practical approaches to using the renderer. Ultimately the content will involve setting up a scene where we are creating shaders and lighting for a vehicle. Global illumination will not be covered very much in this lesson, as the main focus will be lights and shaders, as well as touching on basic render settings.