Enhance Renders with Vray Light Mix

Rendering scenes with the perfect lighting can be time-consuming and frustrating. Getting the right balance between lights and shadows to create the desired mood or look is an iterative process of tweaking settings, rendering, and reviewing. However, Vray has a powerful trick that makes it easy to modify the lighting in your scenes after rendering - the Vray Light Mix.

What is Vray Light Mix?

The Vray Light Mix is a render element in Vray that allows you to adjust the intensity and color of individual lights in your scene after rendering. Instead of having to go back and manually change the settings of each Vray light and re-render, the Light Mix gives you control over each light right in the Vray frame buffer.

To use the Light Mix, you simply need to add it as a render element before rendering. 

Go to the Vray frame buffer and click the "+" button. Under "Render Elements", select "Light Mix". Make sure to check "Group by Group Instances" so lights that use the same Vray light settings will be controlled together.

Once rendered, the Light Mix controls will appear in the frame buffer. You'll see sliders for each of your scene's lights, along with settings for the environment, self-illumination, and other elements.

How to Use the Vray Light Mix

Using the Light Mix is easy. Simply adjust the sliders to make the lights brighter or dimmer. You can also change the color of the lights by clicking on the color swatch next to each slider. For example, you can warm up an interior by increasing the intensity of yellow lights or change the mood by making blue lights more prominent.

The Light Mix gives you an incredible amount of control over your scene's lighting, instantly and interactively. You no longer have to go back and meticulously tweak each light, render, and repeat. Just adjust the sliders and see your changes update live in the frame buffer.

It's important to note that the Light Mix works best for smaller adjustments. You won't be able to radically transform a night scene into broad daylight. But for refining the balance of lights and fine-tuning the ambiance of a scene, the Light Mix is an indispensable tool.

Using Color Correction with Light Mix

In addition to adjusting lights, you can further enhance your renders by using color correction tools like exposure, curves, and color balance along with the Light Mix.

With the Light Mix controls open in the frame buffer, go to the Display menu and open the Color Correction controls. Here you can add adjustment layers like Curves and Exposure to tweak the colors and contrast of your rendered image.

The Color Correction tools and Light Mix give you a powerful one-two punch for bringing your renders to life. Get the lighting looking just right with the Light Mix, then polish it off with some selective color and contrast adjustments.

Conclusion

The Vray Light Mix unleashes lighting flexibility like no other render engine. Forget the frustrating cycle of tweaking and re-rendering. With the Light Mix, you can interactively fine-tune lights and dial in the perfect mood for your scenes.

Combined with Color Correction options also built into Vray's frame buffer, you have all the tools needed to make your renders shine, right inside the Vray interface.

So the next time your scene's lighting needs some finesse, reach for the Light Mix. In no time, you'll have renders lit exactly the way you envisioned.