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Converting Textures to tiled .TX format with V-Ray (3.x to 6.x). Guide + Scripts.
While Next got the tools for the .TX workflow it needed right into the basic installation, 3.x needs a bit of attention to get it to work.
This thread aims to detail the steps, and provide the tools for, the conversion of a scene's texture, or disk archive, to .TX files, loaded through VRayHDRI maps.
A) You should have "makeTX.exe" in the v-ray bin folder. It should be enough to have V-Ray correctly installed.
B) Use this script to convert the textures on disk to .TX format.
Because the script analyses a folder and subfolders recursively, attention should be paid to the location of the scene's textures, to avoid lengthy conversion processes.
If you already had the textures converted to .tx, side by side with the original files, then you can skip this step.
The script will try and find makeTX by itself, and if it doesn't (as is the case for 3.x) it will offer inputting a path manually.
In that case, point it to the path as per point A) above.
C) Open a scene, and use the right-mouse click menu utility called "V-Ray Bitmap to VRayHDRI converter".
As the dialog comes up, press "convert" without checking any box.
This will convert all the scene's shaders' bitmaps to VRayHDRI loaders, preserving gamma.
Notice this part can be fairly slow, because to know a max bitmap's gamma, one needs to *open* the file, to then query the Max setting.
This will produce storage/network activity, and potentially take quite a long time, but it will spare us from having to fix the gamma values manually later, so overall it's a huge saving.
D) Use this script on the open scene to change the VRayHDRI loaders (only!) to .TX.
TXSwapper_002.zip
Notice the script assumes that the .TX files are in the same folder of (i.e.: side-by-side with) the original textures.
Running it in quick mode without that condition satisfied will produce a stream of "file not found" errors in the asset tracker, while running the script in safe mode will swap no texture out at all.
E) Render. If the scene worked as expected, you can now delete the source textures, should you wish to do so.
EDIT: makeTX_batcher_006.zip has fixed the issue with the ini file and manual maketx.exe search. It also adds the --unpremult and the --hicomp options.
EDIT: makeTX_batcher_008.zip Added multi-threading with four threads. It should be considered a testing version. I've prettied up the listener prints (now also with the size of the file being processed, and all decimal places limited to 2), made the dos window invisible (Thanks Vlado!), and added cancelling messages.
To cancel, simply have the script selected, and stand on the ESC key. Some threads may take longer to stop as they are processing, and i can't currently quit them mid-work.
This thread aims to detail the steps, and provide the tools for, the conversion of a scene's texture, or disk archive, to .TX files, loaded through VRayHDRI maps.
A) You should have "makeTX.exe" in the v-ray bin folder. It should be enough to have V-Ray correctly installed.
B) Use this script to convert the textures on disk to .TX format.
Because the script analyses a folder and subfolders recursively, attention should be paid to the location of the scene's textures, to avoid lengthy conversion processes.
If you already had the textures converted to .tx, side by side with the original files, then you can skip this step.
The script will try and find makeTX by itself, and if it doesn't (as is the case for 3.x) it will offer inputting a path manually.
In that case, point it to the path as per point A) above.
C) Open a scene, and use the right-mouse click menu utility called "V-Ray Bitmap to VRayHDRI converter".
As the dialog comes up, press "convert" without checking any box.
This will convert all the scene's shaders' bitmaps to VRayHDRI loaders, preserving gamma.
Notice this part can be fairly slow, because to know a max bitmap's gamma, one needs to *open* the file, to then query the Max setting.
This will produce storage/network activity, and potentially take quite a long time, but it will spare us from having to fix the gamma values manually later, so overall it's a huge saving.
D) Use this script on the open scene to change the VRayHDRI loaders (only!) to .TX.
TXSwapper_002.zip
Notice the script assumes that the .TX files are in the same folder of (i.e.: side-by-side with) the original textures.
Running it in quick mode without that condition satisfied will produce a stream of "file not found" errors in the asset tracker, while running the script in safe mode will swap no texture out at all.
E) Render. If the scene worked as expected, you can now delete the source textures, should you wish to do so.
EDIT: makeTX_batcher_006.zip has fixed the issue with the ini file and manual maketx.exe search. It also adds the --unpremult and the --hicomp options.
EDIT: makeTX_batcher_008.zip Added multi-threading with four threads. It should be considered a testing version. I've prettied up the listener prints (now also with the size of the file being processed, and all decimal places limited to 2), made the dos window invisible (Thanks Vlado!), and added cancelling messages.
To cancel, simply have the script selected, and stand on the ESC key. Some threads may take longer to stop as they are processing, and i can't currently quit them mid-work.
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