VRay vs MR: Blur point of view

[cecofuli]

You can use a VRayBlend shader? Anyway, i hope that in Chaosgroup's plains there are some tools for shader, for fast, but accurate jobs. VRayMtl is very robust shader, but for me it's time to built a "VRayAdvancedMtl" and preset shader built-in.

[Morbid Angel]

You can use a VRayBlend shader? Anyway, i hope that in Chaosgroup's plains there are some tools for shader, for fast, but accurate jobs. VRayMtl is very robust shader, but for me it's time to built a "VRayAdvancedMtl" and preset shader built-in.

quoted for agreement. A powerful shader set, weather physically accurate or not, is essential in any render. Vray material offers that to an extent, but working deeply with mr custom shaders I realized how much control and flexibility there is in that.

[vlado]

What would go into a VRayAdvancedMtl material from your point of view? Won't it be even more complicated than the regular VRayMtl which people already said is too complex?

A powerful shader set, weather physically accurate or not, is essential in any render. Vray material offers that to an extent, but working deeply with mr custom shaders I realized how much control and flexibility there is in that.

Can you give an example of a shader you built for mr in 3ds Max that you could not do with V-Ray? Also, Maya itself offers a lot more shader building blocks than 3ds Max, and a large amount of these work with V-Ray as well.

Best regards,
Vlado

[bardo]

I'm a fan of vrayMTL but some specific shaders would be fine too ( i'm thinking to a car shader and skin shader for example)

Probably it's more a problem of 3dsmax that doesn't allow the freedom degree of a node based material editor like in Maya (i know that there is NodeJoe and similar, but they're plugins) and this limitation is more visible with complex shader but this it's not directly chaos-related.

In general I prefer more freedom is better, so VrayMTL with some specific shaders would be the best for all situations, like the possibility to use the best GI method for the specific situations.

My 2 cent

[zeronove]

it would still be nice to have some preset templates included with the program as well, to guide one initially when trying to start out on the material making process. Material creation is definately one of the most important things to learn and can be overwhelming at first due to the sheer number of variable parameter configuration possibilities. (from an architects point of view )

We all are aware of VRaymtl power to manage almost ever shading issue but I admit that some preset templates ala MR could be a great support!!!

[joconnell]

What would go into a VRayAdvancedMtl material from your point of view? Won't it be even more complicated than the regular VRayMtl which people already said is too complex?

Can you give an example of a shader you built for mr in 3ds Max that you could not do with V-Ray? Also, Maya itself offers a lot more shader building blocks than 3ds Max, and a large amount of these work with V-Ray as well.

Best regards,
Vlado

Vlado I'm with you in that the vray material covers nearly anything you'd want to do but in some cases where you'd like a tiny lift of self illumination or some other slight fake it be handy to have the option. I'm also baffled how people can't understand the vray material, it's as pared down as it could possibly be aside from values dependant on scene scale.

[rmejia]

To me it's not that the VRay material parameters are complicated ... it's the very nature of the materials what I don't carry around in my head. I wish I knew what are all the physical properties of all elements on earth... but I don't. I don't know how many people do, which is probably why MR created the ProMaterials.

I find the VRayMtl material options easier, simpler, than the MR A&D when customizing materials. Thing is, when I start out a material, let's say I want a "Brushed Metal", what would be a "typical" diffuse level, the reflectivity, the glossiness, the IOR, the Anistropy? Let's say next I want to add a water material to the scene, again, what is the diffuse level, the refraction, the IOR, etc... One always has to start from scratch, from the same default values. I just think it would be cool if there was a dropdown list with common materials (eg. Concrete, Glazing, Metal, Glass, Stone, Paint, Water) that automatically changed the basic parameters to those numbers to start with, rather than start with the same default generic material parameter values. Kind of like saving render presets ... saving material presets.

I already have several libraries with all the materials I use, and just edit those to suit my needs, but I think for someone just starting out on 3ds Max and VRay it would be a great help to have some built in preset templates. I'm not talking about copying MR and creating 14 new VRay ProMaterials; just keeping the 1 VRayMtl and adding templates to change the default preset values to saved material presets.

[Morbid Angel]

What would go into a VRayAdvancedMtl material from your point of view? Won't it be even more complicated than the regular VRayMtl which people already said is too complex?

Can you give an example of a shader you built for mr in 3ds Max that you could not do with V-Ray? Also, Maya itself offers a lot more shader building blocks than 3ds Max, and a large amount of these work with V-Ray as well.

Best regards,
Vlado

I would say that, vray material can be left alone. Its a good material.

What I was talking about is a choice for a end user to have weather or not to use a full material (vray mtl) or to build a shader from ground up.

There are those shaders which are essential to any production, like fast skin (not the simple sss we have in vray today), and a number of secondary shaders as well, such as separate bump map, raytype shader, and a custome specular shader, and hair shader.

As a small example I can demonstrate, to have multiple shaders combined at the end and parse through bump map node to allow for single bump map to control multiple shaders + textures.
Another one for me is a powerful layered shader. And yes there is vray layered material, but it lacks many options mental ray's layered shader has to offer. (in regard to mix8layer/mix20layer shader)

A separated motion vector shader, in case a user should make its own motion vector pass (such as lm2dmv)

What Im really referring to here, is the amount of control, and not so much photorealism.
For example miss_skin_specular shader is a really great shader to do the specular effects with. Its just a simple specular component, but with some great controls which we often use.
And yes, most likely it can be reproduced with vray, but through multiple steps, of layering several vray materials together, in result a more complex setup for vray and longer time, then for miss_skin_spec.

A set of light shaders to control multiple lights with one shader, and add specific custom controls for lights such as falloff, attenuation etc...

My 2 cents.

[percydaman]

Morbid kind of hit it on the head for me when he spoke of setting up more specific shaders. It's not that you can't necessarily create the look you want with vray's current mats, its the sometimes convulted/complicated approach required to create them.

Just one example is extra illum. Why is it necessary to use a vray blend mtl just to get some self illum in certain portions of a mat? Why not have an illum map like the standard material or raytrace material? Sure it doesn't take super long to do it using the vray blend mtl, but it seems unnecessary and 'unelegant'

Ive never found the vray material to be over complicated. Once you figure out how to use it, its really simple. Its simplicity is both its strength and its weakness.

[Morbid Angel]

Morbid kind of hit it on the head for me when he spoke of setting up more specific shaders. It's not that you can't necessarily create the look you want with vray's current mats, its the sometimes convulted/complicated approach required to create them.

Just one example is extra illum. Why is it necessary to use a vray blend mtl just to get some self illum in certain portions of a mat? Why not have an illum map like the standard material or raytrace material? Sure it doesn't take super long to do it using the vray blend mtl, but it seems unnecessary and 'unelegant'

Ive never found the vray material to be over complicated. Once you figure out how to use it, its really simple. Its simplicity is both its strength and its weakness.

exactly...

[simmsimaging]

Don't take this the wrong way, but when guys like you say you don't find the VrayMat overly complicated it only goes so far. It's a different world for those of us with less advanced CG ability



The notion of complex/simple is very relative, but I think it's inarguable that Maxwell mats, for example, are far simpler. The downside (for some) is that optimizations are not as easy to do (if you know how/what to do them in the first place) or not possible at all.

There's a price for everything, but in terms of quick and intuitive (as in: more like "real life") setup and trouble-shooting then you can't beat the simple BRDF and layer type approach in Maxwell or Fry type mats. To me that is worth a lot, but for others it won't be.

Just my opinion.
b

[cecofuli]

Hi,

for example: SSS: imo in VRay is not the best tool. It's very slow if you use e VRayMtl (VRayFastSSS is not very good in some objects) especially for curve object. It's tremendously slow if you want a clean solution. And interpolation Refraction has very poor quality. For me this part needs some development.

[percydaman]

Don't take this the wrong way, but when guys like you say you don't find the VrayMat overly complicated it only goes so far. It's a different world for those of us with less advanced CG ability



The notion of complex/simple is very relative, but I think it's inarguable that Maxwell mats, for example, are far simpler. The downside (for some) is that optimizations are not as easy to do (if you know how/what to do them in the first place) or not possible at all.

There's a price for everything, but in terms of quick and intuitive (as in: more like "real life") setup and trouble-shooting then you can't beat the simple BRDF and layer type approach in Maxwell or Fry type mats. To me that is worth a lot, but for others it won't be.

Just my opinion.
b

It's only a matter of time before you find the vray material simple as well. And then you'll likely be like the rest of us, wishing for more features/capabilities without comlicated mat stacks.

[simmsimaging]

It's only a matter of time before you find the vray material simple as well. And then you'll likely be like the rest of us, wishing for more features/capabilities without comlicated mat stacks.

I understand your point, but doesn't that suggest that it is not that the Vray mat that is currently simple, but that I am? If so then I totally agree.

b

[joconnell]

I think it's more of a case of the material hasn't been documented or explained in a way that clicks with you just yet - I spent a while lecturing and everyone takes in information in different ways so maybe it's someone explaining the material in a way that sits well with you!