As an Enscape user, you may be wondering when and why you would use V-Ray as part of your workflow. The answer is simple: when you want to create professional production renders from your Enscape scenes.
V-Ray offers a level of realism and detail that can take your renders to the next level, and with improved compatibility, it’s easier than ever to integrate V-Ray into your Enscape workflow.
At Archilime Academy, we are Chaos partners and V-Ray certified trainers with over a decade of experience with V-Ray. In this article, we’ll share our expertise and show you how to use V-Ray to enhance your Enscape scenes.
From replacing assets with higher quality versions from Chaos Cosmos to adjusting lighting and materials for maximum realism, we’ll guide you through the process of converting an Enscape scene into a stunning V-Ray image.
So if you’re ready to take your renders to the next level and discover the power of V-Ray, read on!
Note: Viewing your Enscape scenes in V-Ray is easy. Depending on which design application you are using, the process may be slightly different. Take a look at the following video for Revit, and support documentation for more information:
- [Video] How to transfer Enscape data to V-Ray in Revit (timestamp 24:20)
- Enscape and V-Ray compatibility in: SketchUp | Revit | Rhino
- [on-demand webinar] Combining Enscape and V-Ray for Unmatched Results
1. Replace assets with Chaos Cosmos
One of the key benefits of using V-Ray as part of your Enscape workflow is the ability to replace Enscape assets with higher-quality V-Ray-ready assets from Chaos Cosmos. This is a vast library of high-quality 3D content that has been optimized for use with V-Ray.
Unlike the Enscape Asset Library, which is designed for real-time rendering and must be optimized for interactive environments, Chaos Cosmos offers assets that are designed for maximum realism and detail in production renders.
In a recent webinar (The Best of Both Worlds: Combining Enscape and V-Ray for Unmatched Results), we demonstrated how to replace an Enscape bed and a plant with higher-quality versions from Chaos Cosmos using the component replacement technique within SketchUp.
This is just one example of how you can enhance your Enscape scenes by incorporating V-Ray-ready assets from Chaos Cosmos. With a wide range of models, textures, and lights to choose from, Chaos Cosmos offers endless possibilities for adding realism and detail to your renders.
So if you’re an Enscape user looking to take your renders to the next level, incorporating V-Ray-ready assets from Chaos Cosmos is a great place to start. And now, it’s easier than ever to integrate V-Ray into your Enscape workflow and take advantage of the vast library of high-quality 3D content available in Chaos Cosmos.
2. Adjust lighting for maximum realism
Another benefit of using V-Ray as part of your Enscape workflow is the ability to adjust lighting for maximum realism.
V-Ray offers a range of advanced lighting tools and features that allow you to fine-tune the illumination in your scenes.
From using the Light Gen feature to auto-generate different options for lighting configurations, to fine-tuning exposure values using the color clamping technique to gauge how bright pixels are within the scene, V-Ray gives you complete control over the lighting in your renders.
When beginning a project, we advocate using the Light Gen feature to generate many different options for lighting configurations using the sun and sky or HDRs. This is just one example of how you can use V-Ray’s advanced lighting tools to build upon and enhance your existing Enscape lighting environments.
With V-Ray, you can adjust the intensity and colors of lights within the light mix, giving you complete flexibility and control over the final appearance of your renders in post-production.
3. Modify materials for enhanced realism
In addition to adjusting lighting, using V-Ray as part of your Enscape workflow allows you to adjust materials for maximum realism. V-Ray offers a range of advanced material tools and features that give you a depth of control over your materials.
With multi-channel materials and shaders, as well as cool V-Ray generators such as hair, stochastic flakes, and sub-surface scattering, you can create incredibly realistic and detailed materials in V-Ray.
For a quick win, refining the glossiness of materials using gloss or reflex maps is a great first step. You can then wrap your material in a color correction to edit it even further. And to start understanding how your material reflects direct light, you can use the ‘floor’ preview mode.
4. Prepare to render in V-Ray
Once you have adjusted your lighting and materials, the next step in using V-Ray as part of your Enscape workflow is to set up for render. V-Ray offers several different rendering options, including CPU, GPU, or hybrid rendering, as well as progressive or bucket/production rendering.
The noise and light quality settings are distilled into an easy-to-use ‘quality slider’ in the asset editor, with options ranging from Low to High+ quality settings. And for those who require more detailed configurations, these are also available.
In addition to these rendering options, V-Ray also offers denoisers to further help reduce noise in your final image. Denoisers work by analyzing the image and removing any noise or graininess while preserving detail. This can help to improve the overall quality of your final image and reduce the amount of time required for rendering.
5. Make post-production edits
After rendering your image, the final step in using V-Ray as part of your Enscape workflow is to make post-production edits.
V-Ray offers a range of advanced post-production tools and features that allow you to fine-tune the appearance of your final image.
One of the most powerful of these tools is Light Mix, which allows you to adjust the color and intensity of lights in your scene without having to re-render. With Light Mix, you can even convert daytime production renders into nighttime renders within minutes.
In addition to Light Mix, V-Ray also offers a range of color corrections that allow you to build your own unique style.
The importance of post-production in building an artistic style cannot be overstated, and with V-Ray’s advanced post-production tools, you have complete control over the final appearance of your image. You can even save and reload your settings for future use.
Finally, V-Ray offers Lens Effects that allow you to add the finishing touches to your image before saving it out. With Lens Effects, you can add bloom, glare, and other effects to create a truly stunning final image.
Take your renders to the next level
In conclusion, using V-Ray as part of your Enscape workflow is a great way to take your renders to the next level. By incorporating V-Ray’s advanced tools and features into your workflow, you can achieve a superior level of realism and detail.
And the best part? V-Ray reads all Enscape-compatible assets, so you won’t be starting from zero. With just a little bit of extra effort, you can extract an additional 10-20% from each of your Enscape images to reach full photorealism in V-Ray.
So if you’re an Enscape user looking to create professional production renders from your scenes, why not give V-Ray a try? It’s now easier than ever to integrate V-Ray into your Enscape workflow and take advantage of the powerful tools and features available in V-Ray.
At The Archilime Academy, we are Chaos partners and V-Ray certified trainers with over a decade of experience with V-Ray. Our Complete Guide to V-Ray for SketchUp teaches the process in much more detail and offers over 45 lessons covering everything there is to know about V-Ray. If you’re ready to take your renders to the next level and discover the power of V-Ray, You might just be surprised at what you can achieve.
