The Key Steps to Rendering Exteriors with Vray for SketchUp

Hey guys, today I'm going to show you the key steps you need to know when you're setting out to render exteriors in V-Ray for SketchUp. These steps have helped thousands of professionals learn what it takes to create polished, photorealistic renderings, and avoid the common issues that cause people to struggle in V-Ray. I'm Alex Oliver, Lead Instructor at SketchUp School, the place where professionals go when they're serious about learning SketchUp. And in this video, I'll cover the seven key things you need to know before creating your first exterior rendering in V-Ray for SketchUp. Keep watching. In our courses, we've taught thousands of architects and design professionals the tools they need to achieve stunning, photorealistic renderings with V-Ray for SketchUp. And we know when it comes to selling your design, oftentimes what you need most is that marquee shot of the exterior. V-Ray for SketchUp is a powerful tool that can help you create that. But if you're most self-taught V-Ray users I talk to, you may be running into issues. Maybe you're in the same boat as Karen, who reached out to us after struggling with her renderings in V-Ray, saying, while I'm figuring out some things on my own, it's very inefficient, time-consuming, and frustrating, and the results aren't to the level I want. Karen is certainly not alone. There are a lot of tools and concepts to master in order to get the best results out of V-Ray, and exterior renderings can present many unique challenges. What's worse, it's easy to get lost and waste a bunch of time, and sometimes you may even get completely stuck. That's why I put together this list of seven key things you need to get right, specific to exterior renderings, that will set you up to achieve better results faster in V-Ray for SketchUp. Now, everything in this video will assume you've already taken the steps outlined in our If you haven't watched it yet, you should pause this video and go watch that one first. I also recommend you watch our Learn How to Render in SketchUp and How to Render Photorealistic Interiors with V-Ray for SketchUp videos, because the tips in this video will rely on concepts covered more thoroughly in those videos. You'll find links to the videos in the cards. Just one more thing. We're going to cover a lot of ground in this video, so I've put together some notes for you to help you remember everything. Stick around to the end of the video, and I'll let you know how you can get a copy of them. Okay, we're ready to jump into our list of seven key things you need to know to create photorealistic exterior renderings in V-Ray for SketchUp, starting with... Number one, compose your shot. The quality of your final rendering depends a great deal on how you compose your shot. Of course, there are an infinite number of ways to do this, but for the purposes of this video, let's focus on one of the most common views you may be after, a rendering that makes your client feel like they're experiencing your design firsthand. The mistake I see all too often with this is that users just take the Orbit tool in SketchUp and position themselves in front of the model, but actually end up with a view that's about 10 to 20 feet in the air. This makes the whole composition feel unnatural. To truly help a client feel what it would be like to experience the project firsthand, you need to position SketchUp's camera at a more natural eye height. To do this, just click the Look Around tool, type in an eye height, and hit Enter. I usually go with 5.5 feet or 1.67 meters. Now, a common practice in architectural photography is using a technique called two-point perspective. This makes vertical lines look vertical rather than tilted due to perspective. If this is the look you're going for with your exterior rendering, you can turn on two-point perspective by clicking the option under your camera menu. Just know that once you set up two-point perspective, you can only adjust your view with the Pan and Zoom tools. If you use the Orbit or Look Around tools, it will jump you back into the camera's default perspective. Finally, I recommend using the rule of thirds to guide the composition of your shot. To do that, imagine dividing your SketchUp drawing window into a Then as a rule of thumb, try putting points of interest either at the intersections in the grid or along the lines. You can even overlay a visual grid on your SketchUp drawing window. I've already created one for you and put a link to it in the notes. To use it in your Styles window, under Watermark Settings, set it up as an overlay. Stretch it to fit the entire window and unlock the aspect ratio. Using the rule of thirds for human-level exterior shots like this one, I recommend you start by lining up your SketchUp model's horizon along the bottom line in the grid. If you're using a template like mine where you can't see the horizon, just turn on the sky in your Styles background settings. Then play around with whether you can get another focal point to match up with the other lines or intersections in the grid. Bonus tip, when you have everything just about right and need to zoom subtly in or out of the shot, don't use your mouse wheel to zoom. It will leap too far and throw off your composition. Instead, click on the zoom tool to select it. Then click and hold down on your left mouse button and drag up or down to zoom in or out of the center of your frame. This feels like a real-world camera zoom where you can push directly into or out of your shot. Then make any other small adjustments to the framing to get the composition looking right and be sure to save it as a scene. Okay, next up. Number two, choose the right lighting. Now that we have our shot all set up, it's time to light it. Before we set up our light though, keep in mind the following three things. One, turn on material override. Then set up your glass so it can't be overridden. Now you can focus on getting the light correct without the distraction of the materials. Two, set up draft render settings that render quickly as you iterate through changes. And three, think like a photographer and balance your camera's exposure to the available light. In the newest version of V-Ray, if you switch off interactive, you'll have the ability to set your exposure to auto. So you can do that to not have to worry about it as much. Okay, to light a daytime exterior shot, you'll have to decide between two options. You can either use the default V-Ray sun or a dome light. So which is the right choice? While it depends on your unique situation, let me compare the two options to help you make the best choice. With the V-Ray sun, it's easier to control exactly where it is in the sky relative to the orientation of your model. So if accurate shadows for time of day and year are important, this is your best choice. The downside of using the V-Ray sun is that you'll have a generic looking background that will require extra more advanced steps to replace later in a program like Photoshop. And even if you do replace the background later, it won't impact reflections or environment lighting. So it's more likely to look unnatural. Your other option is to set up a dome light, which uses an HDR image to light your rendering. Now we don't have time in this video to go through everything about dome lights that we cover in our full V-Ray for SketchUp course, but here are a few high-level things you should know. First, what is an HDR image? HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, which means that it contains extra data about the lighting conditions of the environment it was taken in. It's also a 360-degree image, which means that you'll be able to look in any direction and see it in the background. The upside of using a dome light over the default sun is that you get more realistic lighting, a more realistic looking sky and background, and reflections of the visible elements of the HDR image on materials in your model, such as being able to see the clouds reflected on the glass of the windows. The downside of using a dome light is that you need to do a little work to get the light pointing in the direction you want or to get the right elements in the background. Plus, you often need to adjust the brightness to match up with the rest of your rendering. Overall though, for exterior renderings where perfectly accurate shadows aren't necessary, I recommend you go with the dome light. If you decide to give the dome light a try, just know that out of the box, the dome light defaults to using an HDR image that comes packaged with V-Ray. Of course, you can swap the default for something else. Just know that finding the right one can take a little time, and the best ones often cost money. For more info on finding the right HDR image for your project, I've added some tips to the notes. Alright, once your lighting is all set, you're ready for the next tip. Number three, use realistic materials. If you've got material override enabled, now's the time to turn it off. But don't expect magic just yet. That's because basic SketchUp textures will always make renderings look amateur. For one, they tend to be lower resolution images, so they may look a little blurry in the final rendering. More importantly, they lack reflectivity. The easiest way to get more realistic looking materials is to swap the ones you've used for some of the pre-configured ones that ship with V-Ray. In one fell swoop, you get higher resolution materials with their reflection settings pre-configured. If you want to really dive into how to work with materials, I recommend checking out our V-Ray for SketchUp course. For now, here are a couple of quick pointers. First, if you can't find the exact material you want in the V-Ray library, you can either modify one of V-Ray's materials to fit your needs, or search online for the exact material you need. I've included some of my favorite resources for high quality materials in the notes. Next, keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to swap each and every SketchUp material for one in V-Ray's library. If you're in a hurry, only the materials that make the biggest impact need to be addressed. That would include materials covering the largest areas seen in the rendered image, such as the paint on the house, and materials with noticeable reflections and refractions, like glazing on the windows. And remember, take the time to name your materials as you go, to make it easier to find and adjust them later. Your future self will thank you. Okay, once your lighting and materials are all set, you're ready for the next tip. Number four, fill in the environment. As you know from our watch this before you get started with V-Ray for SketchUp video, any good rendering starts with a render-ready SketchUp model. But even if you have a render-ready model, when it comes to rendering an exterior, you'll often find you end up with a model sitting in blank 3D space. To fill it all in, you have one big decision to make. Should you model it in 3D, or should you add 2D elements in a program like Photoshop later? Again, it depends on your unique situation, but let me compare the options to help you make the best choice. Modeling things in 3D is great because it will add more realistic depth and shadows to your rendering. Plus, you can render from different angles. The downside is it adds to your polygon count and can slow down your renders if you're not careful. Adding everything as 2D elements in Photoshop later is the other option. If you know what you're doing, this can be faster in a number of situations, but there's also a higher risk of things looking unnatural. For those who are comfortable using Photoshop, the most efficient strategy may be a hybrid approach, where you tackle some things in V-Ray and handle the rest in Photoshop. But for the purposes of what we're covering in this video, let's stick to an approach where everything is handled within SketchUp and V-Ray. To start off, you can model the terrain using the sandbox tools that come with SketchUp. Even in the case where things are relatively flat, showing some subtle undulation in the site will go a long way. Next, you can use SketchUp's native tools to model things like the sidewalk, road, and surrounding hardscape. Then, when you get to adding things like grass, plants, trees, rocks, and other elements, keep the following in mind. For grass, you can actually handle that using a feature inside V-Ray called V-Ray Fur. Make sure the grass area is grouped, select it, and click on the V-Ray Fur tool. Then click on the Render button, and voila! You have 3D grass! For plants, trees, rocks, and other elements, your best bet is to import V-Ray Proxy Models, which are low-polygon representations you can add to your SketchUp model that will render in full detail in V-Ray for SketchUp. One warning, be careful if you try to use models from the 3D warehouse. You can end up wasting a lot of time trying to get them to work. It's actually possible to turn them into V-Ray Proxies, but that's a more advanced process we won't get into here. And of course, as you add in all of these elements, you'll want to make sure they look natural by varying size, placement, and rotation. You can handle this manually using SketchUp's scale, move, and rotate tools, but when you have a lot of elements, I recommend you try the Scatter extension, which not only allows you to randomize large amounts of objects, but also plays nicely with V-Ray by randomizing proxies that keep your SketchUp model light, while still rendering them beautifully in V-Ray. There are a ton of other useful resources for filling out your environment. I've included links to some of my favorites in the notes. Okay, moving on to the next tip, number five, add the smaller details. In SketchUp, it can be a good idea to use materials to convey certain details, rather than trying to model those things in 3D. But when it comes to a rendering in V-Ray for SketchUp, it's those smaller details that make a big difference. That's because most materials still look two-dimensional and flat in the rendering. Fortunately, there are a few smart options to handle the smaller details so you can get all of the realistic nuance and texture without having to reinvent the way you already work. For the minor stuff that really won't add anything to the rendering, such as things further from the camera, too small to notice, or hidden in the shadows, save yourself time and leave those things alone. For the few details that will make a difference, you have two choices. First, certain details make sense to model in SketchUp. For example, a simple relief in the garage door panels will get them to look good in the rendering. But for details that are too numerous or complex to model by hand, you can handle them using one of two V-Ray material properties, Bump Map or Displacement Map. A Bump Map is a grayscale version of the material that helps it appear to have some three-dimensional texture in the render, even though it's still rendering a 2D surface. It's kind of like a visual trick or illusion. A Displacement Map, on the other hand, actually gives the material three-dimensional texture and can look a lot more realistic. The downside is it slows down the render a lot, since it's more intensive for V-Ray to process. Here's a rule of thumb. Use Bump Maps a majority of the time, and for everything except for things that are really close to the camera. To do that, just enable Bump Normal Mapping. Then, load a grayscale copy of your material into the texture slot. For those things that are front and center, consider trying a Displacement Map. To do that, just enable Displacement. Then, load a grayscale copy of your material into the texture slot. Again, just be warned that they can take a long time to render. Alright, let's move on to the next tip. Number six, set up your final render settings. A lot of people have the misconception that just using the right render settings is like waving a magic wand and ta-da! You've got a magnificent rendering. But as you've seen so far in this video, creating a great rendering involves a lot more than just using the right settings. In fact, if you've set up your model, composition, lighting, materials, environment, and details correctly, V-Ray's default render settings should look pretty great. So all you really need to do is switch from draft settings to higher quality ones. To do that, first disable Interactive and Progressive Render Modes to use Bucket Rendering Mode. Switch the quality to High. Very high is overkill. And make sure Denoise is enabled, which will remove some of the grainy areas in the final rendering. And of course, be sure to enlarge your resolution to the desired size and enable V-Ray to save the image on your computer. When you're new to V-Ray, that's about all you need to know. There is one exception. If you plan to enhance the rendering in Photoshop later, you'll want to take the time to add render elements. In addition to the final rendered image, V-Ray will save a file for each of the elements, allowing you to composite them later in Photoshop. As I mentioned before, we're not going to dive into Photoshop in this video. For now, we'll skip adding render elements and click Render. So we're done, right? Ah, except just one more thing. Number seven, make basic image adjustments. Nearly every rendering you've admired has had some amount of post-production done to it. And while most of the time that post-production is done in Photoshop, it's worth knowing you can make some pretty powerful adjustments in the V-Ray Frame Buffer. There are too many options to cover them all in this video, but let me tell you how to make one adjustment that's really important to getting your exterior lighting just right. First, turn on Force Color Clamping to show you any areas of your image where the light is getting too burned out. Then show your Corrections control panel and check Exposure. Finally, adjust the Highlight Burn until those areas are no longer being indicated as overexposed. Once you've done that and played around with any of the other adjustments, just be sure to click to save the adjusted image. And that's it. Congratulations, you've made it through the entire list. Did you learn something new in this video? Do me a quick favor and tell us which tip you like the most in the comments below right now. Or just let us know you like the video by giving it a like. Just by watching this video, you've already learned how to avoid a lot of frustration people experience when trying to create their first exterior renderings, and you're well on your way to creating beautiful photorealistic renderings with V-Ray. From here, it's definitely possible to learn everything on your own. However, if you want to invest your time wisely and avoid picking up bad habits, then I recommend checking out our video course library. It's filled with $8,700 worth of SketchUp courses exclusively for professionals, including our comprehensive V-Ray for SketchUp course. Head over to our SketchUp school website and try our courses for free. And if you're not ready to try one of our courses right now, make sure to at least review what you learned in this video right away. As I mentioned earlier, I put together some notes for you that make it easy to do that. They summarize everything we covered in this video and include links to things like extensions and resources for filling out your environment. I've put a link to the notes in the cards. Oh, and one last thing. If you don't want to miss our next video, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel right now. Just click on the subscribe button below this video. Until next time, happy sketching!