How do I use Vray Materials such as .vismat files?

[newrob]

I have just setup the trail of Vray in 3ds Max and wanna learn it. I am wondering how do I use the .vismat files that I download from various sites? they usually come with a .jpeg which I understand is the diffuse. But what and how do I load the .vismat file?

thanks you guys

[vlado]

For the moment .vismat files are only usable in V-Ray for Rhino and V-Ray for Sketchup. We will support .vismat materials in V-Ray for Maya and V-Ray for 3ds Max in one of the next versions.

Best regards,
Vlado

[andybot_cg]

For the moment .vismat files are only usable in V-Ray for Rhino and V-Ray for Sketchup. We will support .vismat materials in V-Ray for Maya and V-Ray for 3ds Max in one of the next versions.

Best regards,
Vlado

oooh - does that mean you'll be able to transfer material settings through all the flavours of vray? Very exciting!

[vlado]

That is what it means, yes

Best regards,
Vlado

[super gnu]

how deep are these vismat files? i.e. how complex are the material definitions?

[vlado]

You can create quite complex stuff including layered materials, procedural textures, blends and mixes, color corrections and so on.

Somewhat of a drawback is that you can only use native V-Ray stuff (no 3rd party textures or materials), but that would tie in with the whole portability thing.

Best regards,
Vlado

[super gnu]

fantastic

[ALFRED_ST_MEDIA]

sooo...coming from a maya standpoint, what about support for math nodes, ramps, utility nodes...etc? Basically, would we have the same issues we have with some of our shader trees in RT? I would love to have a format for archiving our shaders that doesn't require writing out an .ma file.

[vlado]

Which RT version - CPU or GPU? All of the texture shading nodes supported by the production V-Ray should work in the CPU version. In any case, the .vismat files can store any V-Ray shading network that the production V-Ray can render.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ALFRED_ST_MEDIA]

RT for GPU.

[vlado]

Well that has nothing to do with the format the materials are stored in; they end up exactly the same way in the final V-Ray scene anyways.

Best regards,
Vlado