Best Settings for V-Ray (?!)

What are the best-of-the-best settings for V-Ray?

Here the solution:

1. Set V-Ray as the current rendering engine
2. Antialiasing: Adaptive DMC / Min=1 , Max=100
3. Indirect illumination: 1° Brute force + 2° Light cache.
4. Light cache: 5000 and Interpolation samples to 5.
5. Color mapping: ‘Clamp output’ and ‘Sub-pixel mapping’ must be off.
6. DMC sampler: Adaptive amount parameter to 1.0 – Noise threshold 0.005

Are not my words, these setting are on the official V-Ray online guide of Chaosgroup.
They call this configuration “Universal Settings” :

We must believe 

But look at this. I compared Universal Settings / My Final Settings / My Test Settings / Real Time

Uhmm… I can’t see any miracle in “Universal Settings” ?! Why? O_o

Of course you can see some different reflection, a small difference in brightness, but the truth is that there’s no difference in terms of look and emotional impact.

That’s the point: parameters don’t affect ‘Aesthetic Quality‘.

‘Universal Settings’ represents the best setting about sharpness (6h rendering)…. so remember: In ‘Render Setup’ you have tools to get the same image in less time (36mins), but there’s no way here to affect Aesthetic quality.

Now, the real question is: what affects  ‘Aesthetic Quality‘ ?
This is my list:

• balance of light
• the right choice of color
• dynamic balanced composition
• photographer’s eye
• artistic approach
• detailed 3d models
• nice shaders
• nice shot

In fact all these things never change during my 4 tests
For this reason Aesthetic Quality can’t change, of course.

Usually people make efforts to improve quality, trying and testing all Render parameters: that’s wrong.
« Parameters and Aesthetic Quality are two different things »

HERE MY MAIN RULE:
Learn parameters to reduce your render time;
Study photograpy/color design/art to improve your Aesthetic Quality.

To your success.

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NOTE: The goal of this post is not giving the best settings. This post is an experiment to separate two concepts:sharpness and beauty. Usually we call both “quality”… that’s right but they are two different kind of qualities. I hope to help you understanding where to direct your efforts to improve the results.