PBR material set-up?

[notamondayfan]

Hello,

We're looking into using the PBR method for materials, but struggling to find much info on setting up materials within Next.

I have this https://www.chaosgroup.com/blog/understanding-metalness which is great for the values, but doesn't cover the finer points of Next, such as do we use Fresnel reflections and other options.

So is there a library anywhere with the basic metal materials setup 100% correctly? We could the reverse engineer them to make sure we're working in the correct way.

Also,a side question / query - When we open a file and try to create a PBR based metal, it always looks mirror like, with the diffuse having no effect. Is this just an issue with using files from Vray 3? Just want to avoid any mess ups with projects that were created in Vray 3.

Thanks,
Dean

[francomanko]

yeah having a library with basic material setups would be awesome

[AC5L4T3R]

https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/v-ray-for-3ds-max-forums/v-ray-for-3ds-max-tutorials-tips-tricks/1016696-pbr-workflow-from-substance-painter-to-vray-for-3ds-max

[vlado]

For metals, both Fresnel and glossy Fresnel need to be enabled (they are by default for new materials), metalness needs to be 1.0 and the reflection color needs to be white. Then the diffuse color controls the appearance. The blog post lists some accurate values for some metals. I hope to include some presets in the VRayMtl material for the next update.

Best regards,
Vlado

[notamondayfan]

https://forums.chaosgroup.com/forum/v-ray-for-3ds-max-forums/v-ray-for-3ds-max-tutorials-tips-tricks/1016696-pbr-workflow-from-substance-painter-to-vray-for-3ds-max

Thanks for the link, some very useful points in there behind the theory!

[notamondayfan]

For metals, both Fresnel and glossy Fresnel need to be enabled (they are by default for new materials), metalness needs to be 1.0 and the reflection color needs to be white. Then the diffuse color controls the appearance. The blog post lists some accurate values for some metals. I hope to include some presets in the VRayMtl material for the next update.

Best regards,
Vlado

OK thanks for clearing up the Fresnel query.

I dont think presets are required too much, just need to make sure we're setting everything as you guys would really.

[^Lele^]

I dont think presets are required too much, just need to make sure we're setting everything as you guys would really.

Presets, in this respect, act as a convenient, on-hand library of settings.
Over the years, the dissemination and scattering of information has grown and grown, it's really hard to track anything down.

A preset would -much like for the fastSSS2 material- change just the key parts needed to indicate a direction: ie. no texture plugging or such but metalness, proper IoR, basic colors, various checkboxes, etc etc. would be modified so to make sense.

[danio]

Presets, in this respect, act as a convenient, on-hand library of settings.
Over the years, the dissemination and scattering of information has grown and grown, it's really hard to track anything down.

A preset would -much like for the fastSSS2 material- change just the key parts needed to indicate a direction: ie. no texture plugging or such but metalness, proper IoR, basic colors, various checkboxes, etc etc. would be modified so to make sense.

I, for one, would love this. Just making sure you had the proper PBR setup for a metal or non metal, etc. would be great!

[notamondayfan]

Presets, in this respect, act as a convenient, on-hand library of settings.
Over the years, the dissemination and scattering of information has grown and grown, it's really hard to track anything down.

A preset would -much like for the fastSSS2 material- change just the key parts needed to indicate a direction: ie. no texture plugging or such but metalness, proper IoR, basic colors, various checkboxes, etc etc. would be modified so to make sense.

Yes I agree this would be useful, especially when there are so many settings. What I meant was there isn't a need to have every material in a massive library, rather than just a handful of ones, set-up by the Chaos Group guys, so we know what's the correct method of setting up and using the materials.

Cheers