Shader related improvements

[matanov]

Almost all V-Ray materials and textures have Qt UIs now, which means faster UI drawing for smoother experience.

VRayMtl: Implement energy compensation for the GTR BRDF

Quote from Vlado's public post on the topic:

"A long-standing problem with the VRayMtl material has been a certain darkening of the reflections for very low glossiness values; for some time we've been working to compensate this energy loss so that rough materials gracefully transition to a diffuse reflection distribution without becoming darker. This is done by approximating multiple reflection bounces of light between the microfacets of the material. The end result is a much more realistic appearance of rough metals and other reflective surfaces."

Mind that it will be on by default for new materials, but for existing ones it's off to keep the consistency. You need to switch the option manually in MaxScript if you want to test it on old scenes (.option_gtrEnergyCompensation).

VRayMtl: Improved SSS translucency mode of VRayMtl

New implementation of the SSS mode that is faster to render and deals with faceting of low-poly objects. Again - on by default for new materials, but off for existing to keep the consistency. You need to switch the option manually in VRayMtl / Basic parameters / Illumination

VRayMtl: Add Thin Film rollout in VRayMtl

New additional layer for the VRayMtl. Good for doing soap bubbles and oil spills.

VRayTriplanarTex: "Use displaced surface" option in VRayTriplanarTex for diffuse

Ability of the V-Ray triplanar texture to work better with displaced surfaces by choosing the projection based on the original undisplaced points. This allows much easier setup of materials that use triplanar mapping for displacement as well.


And a lot more ..

[Jiri.Matys]

Really cool features. I was looking for Thin Film in new version and here it is

[matanov]

Really cool features. I was looking for Thin Film in new version and here it is

Waiting for your tests results then

[Pixelcon]

You need to switch the option manually in MaxScript if you want to test it on old scenes (.option_gtrEnergyCompensation).

Does this affect the entire scene, or selected object's materials or somesuch?

[matanov]

Does this affect the entire scene, or selected object's materials or somesuch?

This is a property of VRayMtl, so you can change it for the materials you want.

[DestinHalfmann]

VRayMtl: Improved SSS translucency mode of VRayMtl

New implementation of the SSS mode that is faster to render and deals with faceting of low-poly objects. Again - on by default for new materials, but off for existing to keep the consistency. You need to switch the option manually in VRayMtl / Basic parameters / Illumination

Is Directional the old version and Uniform the new one?
Not sure how to interpret this.

[matanov]

Uniform is the new one.

[Jiri.Matys]

is there somewhere in the docs some images or references of the differences?

[^Lele^]

I've uploaded here a contact sheet (zoom in 1:1, it's massive in size.) of one of the scenes we used to test, courtesy of Neal Biggs.
On average (meaning, +- 10%), in this scene, the new method (bottom row) took half the time as the old method.
The speed difference will be bigger the more lights are shining on the shader.

[anders]

"VRayMtl: Add Thin Film rollout in VRayMtl" anyone managed to figure out what the settings should be for a Soap Bubble?

[matanov]

"VRayMtl: Add Thin Film rollout in VRayMtl" anyone managed to figure out what the settings should be for a Soap Bubble?

Here you go - soap.zip

[nicklas_byriel]

anders

result, and 2 options, with and without thin-walled set on basically (bubble on the left is a VraySphere, bubble on the right is a Sphere with a very small shell modifier on)

I haven't had any luck getting maps to work with Thin Film Thickness however - no matter what value i set a VRayColor at (0, 1, 10, 100, 500, 1000) in any channel i get the same result as 0 nm thickness, maybe this is a bug matanov ?
i also tried with gradient ramps, output node etc. all the same.

[Jiri.Matys]

anders

result, and 2 options, with and without thin-walled set on basically (bubble on the left is a VraySphere, bubble on the right is a Sphere with a very small shell modifier on)

I haven't had any luck getting maps to work with Thin Film Thickness however - no matter what value i set a VRayColor at (0, 1, 10, 100, 500, 1000) in any channel i get the same result as 0 nm thickness, maybe this is a bug matanov ?
i also tried with gradient ramps, output node etc. all the same.

Seems as bug to me too. I started thread about it some time ago but still no good answer on this one. Thread here:

https://forums.chaos.com/forum/v-ray...-new-thin-film

[matanov]

Yes, the map is not working in this build. We'll release a new one soon.

[nicklas_byriel]

Yes, the map is not working in this build. We'll release a new one soon.

Nice! Thanks for clearing that up, looking forward to play around with it with maps