Lighting an Exterior Daylight Scene - Photographic Rendering with V-Ray for SketchUp - page 143

So while the Brute Force engine is certainly a viable option for producing nice, strong
shadow details when lighting a scene using the V-Ray Sun and Sky system, the
setup actually becomes a less-than-optimum approach to rendering if we decide to
make use of image-based lighting in our scene. In this instance, this is exactly what
we are going to be doing, and so it would make much more sense for us to use the V-
Ray Dome light. It can make full use of importance sampling techniques, and works
very nicely alongside the Irradiance Map and Light Cache GI engines, both of which
will help bring a little bit of speed back to our renders.
Image-based lighting for exteriors
To add a Dome light, let's load up a fresh version of our scene to both reset all of the
lighting, putting us once again in total darkness, as well at the same time as re-en-
abling the Irradiance Map and Light Cache GI engines. The scene we want to load is
the DayTime_Exterior_03.skp file that can be found in the exercise files down-
load.
Note
While initially set to render in complete darkness, this scene still retains all of the
Camera and Color Mapping options that we have set up in the chapter thus far.
First of all, let's go ahead and get our Dome light set up and functioning as a skylight,
and then we can set about choosing and adding a High Dynamic Range Image
( HDRI ) to the mix. To add the Dome light, perform the following steps:
1. Click to switch to the Orthographic - Front scene view, and then on the VfS:
Lights toolbar, click to select the Dome Light option.