CREATE VOLUMETRIC GOD rays

01Add Create your light SOURCE

a Vraysun to your scene and put in values of between 1 and 3 for the intensity multiplier and 5 for size multiplier. Point your light source in the direction you would like the rays to travel. The size value will change the sharpness of the shadows cast. Big values will soften the edges while smaller values will give sharper edges to any projected light. The light intensity will add density to your rays. Change the filter colour to a bluish tint.

02 add the Camera

Next you need to put a new V-ray Physical Camera into your scene. Switch on Exposure and adjust the ISO and Shutter Speed values to suit the dark environment of your scene. Continue to tweak and experiment and try out small test renders until you are satisfied with the level of lighting.

The assumption is that your scene is relatively dark in order for the god rays to be visible.

03 Vrayenvironmentfog

Under the Rendering tab in the main menu choose Environment and then in Atmosphere click Add and choose Vrayenvironmentfog. The distance and height values in this effect are dependent on the scale of your scene and you will need to do a few small test renders to set it up correctly.

The fog height value will determine how high above the ground plane the rays will stretch.

04 FOG SETUP

In my example I have set the fog distance to 30 metres and the height to 12 metres. Adjust the fog colour if you want a colour tint to the rays, and the fog emission colour affects the ambient illumination produced by the fog itself.

Scroll down to the bottom of the dialog where you can add the light source producing the effect. You can also switch off such things as affect background and affect reflections if required.