DarkTree material

[FlynnAD]

While going thru Vray Help, I noticed there is a Vray DarkTree material. DarklingX is no longer selling DarkTree until they come out with the new software version (who knows when).

Does anyone still use DarkTree? It looks helpful in creating 3D procedural materials.

If not, do people use another plugin for making 3D procedural materials (beyond what is natively available in 3dsmax)?

Thanks,
Matt

[rajdarge]

I still use Darktree, but it seems I am a lone voice.
I just upgraded to Vray Next B3 and it seems they deleted support for the darktree material all together.
To me i think it still remains one of the best ways to create infinite complexity seamless procedural texture both for both 3d and 2d textures. Substance designer was a very poor substitute - but marketed much better and supported.

I did read the removed it B2 but I thought they would keep it as "hidden" code like the vray camera always was. I will have to take all the references to the VraySymbionMtl() out of my maxscripts. Not entirely sure why they did this, and it was one of the main reasons that I didn't install the b2 update.

Can I ask for it to be put back ?

Not sure what I can use as a substitute, I didn't use it a lot, but when I did I couldn't really see an alternative that didn't require properly mapping the UV space of an object. Plus you could modify a lot of the materials in the repository without a lot of thought to get stunning results.
A sad day

[vlado]

The VRaySimbiontMtl material is indeed hidden and not removed; it will be loaded from old scenes just fine, but you can't create new materials. The reason it's hidden is that there is no longer any development support for it from DarkTree - we are not sure for how long it will continue to work and if there are issues we will not be able to help.

On the bright side, 3ds Max 2019 includes the OSLMap texture which gives you many more possibilities.

Best regards,
Vlado