Outdoor Daytime Scene

This is the first tutorial of the outdoor scene series.

Overview

This tutorial series has two parts - a daytime scenario, where we will go through three stages:

1. Turning the scene into a daytime setting using the V-Ray Sun and Sky system.
2. Adding the Toon Effect to exaggerate the cartoon style and enhance the outlines.
3. Adding the Aerial Perspective effect for more depth.

The second segment of the tutorial focuses on a nighttime scenario, where we will:

1. Reveal some of the hidden geometry and lights in the scene.
2. Add a Fog effect.
3. Tweak the render settings to render the fog effect better.

This workflow focuses on the daytime scenario.

Download the scene to follow along

The downloadable file includes three scene instances - the Start scene is in the initial state of the Daytime tutorial, the EndOfDay scene is the final state of the scene after completing this workflow. The End scene file is the final setup of the scene, after completing the Outdoor Nighttime Scene workflow.

Steps

1. 1Creating a Sun and Sky systemGo to the V-Ray menu > Lights > V-Ray Sun And SkySee the location in the UI
   Then, in the the Outliner, you can find the Suzanne_SunPosition_Day object. This object has the Disable in Renders icon turned off and will not show in any render. It is placed as a guide for the Sun's position for the day and night scenarios. Open its Object Properties tab and copy its Location values onto the VRaySunLight.In the video, you can notice when we move the Sun around, the Sky automatically changes its appearance based on the Suns height and direction. Leave the default intensity of the Sun and the default sky model PRG Clear Sky.
   
   
   Here is how the scene looks after we've added a Sun and Sky system. You can change the Sun's position as you like, you can make the scene render as an early morning or a late evening. For this render, the Sun position is as follows:
   
   The scene's style is quite cartoonish, so we will add a Toon effect to enhance that.
2. 2Adding Toon EffectGo to the Editor at the bottom of the viewport and expand it. Switch to the V-Ray Node Editor and set it to the World Node Tree for access to the Effect and Environment Trees.
   Create a V-Ray Volume Toon node and link it to the Effect 1 slot of the V-Ray Effects Container. You can create nodes through the Add menu. You can find it either in the right-click context menu or by using the shortcut Shift + A.
   Set the Inner Line Width to 0.75.
   Create a V-Ray Noise texture node and connect it to the V-Ray Volume Toon node's Line Opacity slot. This will make the lines' thickness inconsistent, lightly mimicking hand-drawn animation.
   
   Here is how the scene looks with the toon effect applied. You can click on the image to view it in full resolution.
3. 3Adding the Aerial Perspective EffectWe will now add an atmospheric effect, for some soft atmosphere in the background. This will give the scene more depth, and make the mountain look farther away.In the V-Ray World Node Editor, create a V-Ray Volume Aerial Perspective node.
   Add an Additional Effect slot in the V-Ray Effects Container by clicking on the Add button.
   Link the V-Ray Sun to the Aerial Perspective node's new slot (Effect 2). You can do so by either picking the VRaySunLight in the scene using the eyedropper from the Sun option in the node or dragging and dropping the VRaySunLight from the Outliner into the Sun parameter. After that, set the following properties:

These are the final adjustments we are making for the daytime setting. Here is the final render.

Follow along in the next steps, where we transform this scene into a nighttime setting with lights and the V-Ray Volume Fog effect:

Outdoor Nighttime Scene