Creating God Rays Effect

This quick tutorial shows how to create God Rays effect in V-Ray using the Environment Fog feature.

Overview

God rays is a volumetric effect, often used by 3D artists to achieve a more dramatic effect to a 3D scene. This effect is caused when direct pointed light (such as a sun) passes through dusty or foggy atmosphere.

To download the simplified example scene, used in this tutorial, click the button below: Download Scene Files

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Creating God Rays in 3ds Max

To create God Rays effect in V-Ray for 3ds Max, follow the steps below.

1. Create a camera, e.g. V-Ray Physical Cam.
2. Create a light, e.g. V-Ray Sun.
3. Add VRayEnvironmentFog effect from: Rendering menu > Environment > Atmosphere rollout > Add button > VrayEnvironmentFog

At this point the Environment Fog should be visible in the rendered image. To achieve a more convincing effect, adjust the Fog color, Fog distance, and Fog height parameters accordingly.

1. The Fog color parameter determines the color of the fog.

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1. The Fog distance parameter controls the fog density. Larger values make it more transparent, whereas smaller values make it denser.

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1. The Fog height parameter determines the height of the fog.

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When multiple lights are present in the scene, but you want only some of them to be responsible for the god rays effect, you can include or exclude light sources by disabling the Use all lights option in the VRayEnvironmentFog nodes rollout and then clicking the Add button.

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