V-Ray Tip: Brute Force Primary with Light Cache Secondary for Stable, Fast Global Illumination

Use Light Cache (LC) as your secondary GI engine to gain stable, fast global illumination while keeping Brute Force as the primary for accuracy.

• Recommended pairing: Primary GI = Brute Force, Secondary GI = Light Cache. This combo delivers crisp contact shadows with efficient multi-bounce GI.
• When it shines:
  • Interior renders where multi-bounce diffuse light dominates.
  • Fly-through animations with static geometry (one cache, many frames).
  • Look-dev previews that need quick, predictable GI feedback.

Core settings to start with

• Subdivs (samples): begin at 1000–1500 for interiors, 600–1000 for exteriors. Increase only if you see splotches or blotchy GI.
• Sample size: choose a value relative to scene scale. Smaller values capture tighter GI detail (good for close interiors); larger values smooth exteriors. Start modest; reduce if corners look muddy.
• Filter:
  • Nearest for crisper detail and precision.
  • Fixed for smoother GI when minor blotches appear.
• Prefilter: enable and keep samples low to gently smooth LC without over-blurring.
• Retrace threshold: use a moderate value to restore contact detail and fight light leaks in creases and behind thin geometry. It slightly increases render time but pays off in quality.

Animation strategy

• Single frame: default for stills or fully animated scenes; computes LC each frame to avoid flicker.
• Fly-through: for camera-only animation with static geometry. Compute LC once (prepass), save it, then render all frames using the saved cache for flicker-free results and a big time savings.
• Save/Load: store LC to disk and reuse across shots with the same lighting/geometry. Great for versioning and render farm consistency.

Quality vs. speed tips

• Let Brute Force handle first-bounce precision; keep LC conservative to avoid oversampling.
• Use the V-Ray Denoiser to clean the last 5–15% of residual noise instead of pushing LC Subdivs too high.
• For interiors with tiny apertures or strong indirect contrast, prefer slightly smaller Sample size plus a reasonable Retrace for cleaner corners.
• Monitor memory: higher Subdivs increase LC footprint; scale wisely on large scenes.

Troubleshooting

• Splotches/blotchy GI: raise Subdivs modestly, enable Prefilter, or switch Filter to Fixed. Reduce Sample size if details are lost.
• Light leaks/over-bright edges: increase Retrace threshold and verify surface thickness and normals.
• Flicker in animation: use Fly-through mode for static geometry, keep lighting stable, and reuse a single saved cache.
• Soft or muddy corners: lower Sample size and ensure Retrace is active; avoid excessively aggressive filtering.

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