Maya Shader

[Yannick]

Hi,
is there any documentation that explain how the Maya native shader work in Vray? I have seen the section about Maya shader in the documentation but it doesn't explain much.
I am asking as I have noticed that if in my material, I have no reflection but some specular, I will get the materail to reflect its environment. It seems that the specular control the reflectivity as well.
Is it suppose to be like that?

Thanks

Yannick

[vlado]

It works similar to the VRayMtl material, where by default the specular reflection and the hilights are locked to the same value. If you want them to be different, you can add the "Glossiness controls" V-Ray attributes (select the material in the Attribute editor and go to Attributes > VRay > Glossiness controls). You will get some additional controls, which allow you to specify different values for hilight/reflection glossiness. See http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/maya...xtr_attrib.htm for more information.

Best regards,
Vlado

[MatthewRF]

is there a good place to see all the documentation for the v-ray texture/plugin nodes (create-v-ray->create texture from v-ray plugin)?

i imagine they're available in some 3ds max docs, but i know that not all of them exist in maya as well.

[jasonhuang1115]

is there a good place to see all the documentation for the v-ray texture/plugin nodes (create-v-ray->create texture from v-ray plugin)?

i imagine they're available in some 3ds max docs, but i know that not all of them exist in maya as well.

Same here. It will be great to see some documentation covering this for Maya.

[alexitoland]

Hi,
Still no documentation covering these topics, correct ?
Thanks,
Alex.

[Wobi]

I would be interested in this too. Especially the integer type variables that exist in most of the textures. Any chance of getting a documentation on this???

[Sacha]

Yes, that would be great.. some parameters are not clear for me even when I switch to max and compare them. It would really be a great enhancement to the docs!!

[vlado]

You can use the plgparams utility from the SDK to list the parameters for a given V-Ray plugin; if you are lucky, the programmer will have included a description of the parameter and the possible values. For example, this is what you get for TexNoiseMax:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2012\vray\bin>plgparams.exe TexNoiseMax -plugindir ..\vrayplugins

Parameters for plugin 'TexNoiseMax'
  compatibility_with: integer = 0, This is used to differentiate between textures exported from different applications. The value means : 0 - 3ds Max (this is also the default), 1 - Maya, ...
  alpha_from_intensity: bool = false, If true, the resulting alpha is the color intensity; otherwise the alpha is taken from the bitmap alpha
  invert: bool = false, If true, the resulting texture color will be inverted
  invert_alpha: bool = true, If true and invert is on, the resulting texture alpha will be inverted too. If false, just the color will be inverted
  color_mult: acolor texture = AColor(1, 1, 1, 1), A multiplier for the texture color
  color_offset: acolor texture = AColor(0, 0, 0, 0), An additional offset for the texture color
  alpha_mult: float texture = 1, A multiplier for the texture alpha
  alpha_offset: float texture = 0, An additional offset for the texture alpha
  nouvw_color: acolor texture = AColor(0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1), The color when there are no valid uvw coordinates
  color: output acolor texture, The resulting color
  out_transparency: output acolor texture, The resulting transparency
  out_alpha: output float texture, The resulting alpha
  out_intensity: output float texture, The resulting intensity
  use_3d_mapping: bool = true
  uvwgen: plugin, The uvw generator for the texture
  placement_type: integer = 0, The way the valid portion of the texture is applied: 0 - the whole texture is valid, 1 - crop, 2 -place
  u: float = 0, U coordinate of the valid texture sector
  v: float = 0, V coordinate of the valid texture sector
  w: float = 1, Width of the valid texture sector
  h: float = 1, Height of the valid texture sector
  jitter: float = 0, Amount of random placement variation
  tile_u: integer = 0, If true there is horizontal tiling
  tile_v: integer = 0, If true there is vertical tiling
  uv_noise_on: integer = 0, If true the noise is enabled
  uv_noise_animate: integer = 0, If true the noise is animated
  uv_noise_amount: float = 1, UV noise amount
  uv_noise_levels: float = 1, UV noise iterations
  uv_noise_size: float = 1, UV noise size
  un_noise_phase: float = 0, UV noise phase
  color1: acolor texture = AColor(1, 1, 1, 1), First color
  color2: acolor texture = AColor(0, 0, 0, 0), Second color
  size: float = 1, Size
  phase: float = 0, Phase
  iterations: float = 3, Number of iterations for the fractal generator
  low: float = 0, Low threshold
  high: float = 1, High threshold
  type: integer = 0, Type (0 - regular, 1 - fractal, 3 - turbulence)

Best regards,
Vlado

[Sacha]

You can use the plgparams utility from the SDK to list the parameters for a given V-Ray plugin; if you are lucky, the programmer will have included a description of the parameter and the possible values. For example, this is what you get for TexNoiseMax: [code]C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2012\vray\bin>plgparams.exe TexNoiseMax -plugindir ..\vrayplugins
....

Best regards,
Vlado

Ah... good to know.. thanks vlado!!