Vray 5 Mat Library network share

[Moriah]

So i have to silently install vray 5 in dozens of machines on our render farm. They are not connected to the internet. What's the best way to deploy a network share of the material library and point the render nodes to it?

[trinity3d_cg]

So i have to silently install vray 5 in dozens of machines on our render farm. They are not connected to the internet. What's the best way to deploy a network share of the material library and point the render nodes to it?

All the materials are placed in a folder in the Documents folder, called "V-Ray Material Library". The files are 8 GB total. So it might work to just copy out this 8 GB set of files to all the render nodes.

But, you can also just add a network path to the Project Paths. V-Ray install does this by default (see screencap) but you could change it to a common network path and then you would not have to clone out the 8 GB set of files.

You can see in the material editor that the .tx bitmaps are pathed to "assets" but since they are in the external file path list they are always found.

Hope this helps!

Jim

[vlado]

What Jim said. Another approach is to specify a network path for the library in the installer when running the installation on all nodes - then only the first install will download the library, the rest will just use what's already there, but will still set up the paths appropriately.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Lewis107]

Ok this makes sense...but when VRay 5.1, 5.2 gets released how will this folder be affected?
Will it add new materials or modify what has be already downloaded? Will it overwrite the 8GB folder completely? or will it not change till VRay 6?
I ask as this will influence how/where I add this folder to my automatic backups...if the whole folder will change frequently I might just leave them locally and leave it off the backup.

Also will I be able to add my own set of custom materials using this new material library interface?

Thanks

[vlado]

Will it add new materials or modify what has be already downloaded?

Modifying the textures in general is not a good idea, because it will change the way older scenes are rendered, so we try to avoid it (although it may happen occasionally). We might add new materials from time to time though.

Will it overwrite the 8GB folder completely?

No, this will not happen. After all, the textures are perfectly reusable between multiple versions. We might update the .mat files though, but they are much much smaller.

Also will I be able to add my own set of custom materials using this new material library interface?

Yes, the library is designed to be extendable by users - we will add tools for this in the updates.

We might also add the ability to download the materials on demand when they are needed, instead of downloading the whole library at once.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Lewis107]

Thanks for the info

[Moriah]

Configuring the Project Path was the easiest solution for now. Thank you!

[dean_dmoo]

What Jim said. Another approach is to specify a network path for the library in the installer when running the installation on all nodes - then only the first install will download the library, the rest will just use what's already there, but will still set up the paths appropriately.

Best regards,
Vlado

Could you add an option menu to the installer when a new update is released? ("save to" or "set path" or something similar) Would make it easier and something a lot of other programs do.

This is more of a general comment; but I really don't understand why more and more companies (who work in sectors that have high data levels) seem to be using the user documents folder as a standard place to save large amounts of data. Maybe I'm old skool but I've always had a programs harddrive (usually as fast as possible within the budget available) and a data harddrive. And it's not like ssd's are costing similar to regular harddrives. I've always spent about a 100€ on a harddrive. Now that gives you a 4TB regular harddrive. An ssd for that amount is 500€. (or a 1TB ssd for 100€ now, not so long ago it would have been 250GB or 500GB).

[dean_dmoo]

Ignore above, see that it's all set up in the advanced tab.

[kosso_olli]

I have huge troubles setting the material library to a network location.
The files are all downloaded to our server using the option in the installer. However, somehow the project path comes set up wrong in Max. It is missing a \ at the start of the network location. I can modify it in Max, but as soon as I click onto the library button or restart Max, the project path resets itself to one slash \
How can I fix it? Already deinstalled V-Ray two times, but it will not accept the \\ at the network location.

[bildform]

Yes, the library is designed to be extendable by users - we will add tools for this in the updates.

We might also add the ability to download the materials on demand when they are needed, instead of downloading the whole library at once.

Best regards,
Vlado

Are there plans to integrate Vray Scans with on demand downloads?

[hermit.crab]

kosso_olli Thanks for the report. There is, indeed, an issue with such server paths. I've logged the issue (internal bug-tracker id: VMAX-10111) for developer investigation. There is a workaround, however. Rather than downloading the V-Ray Material Library through the installer, use the "mtllib.exe" (located here: "C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\3ds Max 2020\bin"). It seems to correctly recognize the server path.