weird problem with vray fur and hair

[brit_bunkley]

I am new to Vray after using Corona for years. I'm using the GPU version to take advantage of my two used 3090's (which work wonders with Blender 10-20 times faster than the CPU with no obvious difference in quality). Since the GPU version does not render 3Ds Max hair and fur, I'm trying out Vray fur. It works fine in the few tutorials I've tried with simple primitives, but when I place it on a horse model, I get a weird black plane. Any idea what that is and how to get rid of it?

(I added a sphere to my scene in the attachment to test the fur/hair modifier, and there is no weird black plane.)

[hermit.crab]

That's just the VRayFur's "Icon" so to speak, it's created for each VRayFur. You can place it anywhere in the scene and there shouldn't be any issues.

[brit_bunkley]

Thanks. I can scale it as well! ...though I'm not sure why it came in so large, but since I can move it and resize it, it works.

[brit_bunkley]

Today I tested the hair...and the first obstacle is there seems to be missing the ‘thickness’ parameter. Any idea what happened to it? Is there a way to style and cut the hair as with the Max modifier?

[hermit.crab]

Today I tested the hair...and the first obstacle is there seems to be missing the ‘thickness’ parameter. Any idea what happened to it?

It was renamed some time ago to "Radius" (right below the Lenght).

Is there a way to style and cut the hair as with the Max modifier?

Yes, but you need to download and install the VRayStyler.

[brit_bunkley]

Thanks, this is helpful. I see that one can make the hair denser by using mesh smooth in the poly editor on the selected faces. And by just adding another Vrayfur object.

However, I am still confused about how to use the VRayStyler. Chaos doesn't seem to have instructions, though I did finally locate a 9-year old YouTube video on the VRayStyler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yWTN1Li8kg - It implies that one needs to use an old standard Max "vertex color map". This works on a sphere placed in the scene but not on the horse. Could this be because I have two poly select modifier (two of them for extra density-one with meshsmooth) to select the faces around the mane?

[hermit.crab]

Could this be because I have two poly select modifier (two of them for extra density-one with meshsmooth) to select the faces around the mane?

Yeah, it doesn't seem to work with those modifiers. Collapsing the object to an Editable Poly works as expected. Also, make sure the Bend direction channel and Initial direction channel in the VRayFurStyler match the VertexColor nodes' channels.

[brit_bunkley]

So, it seems that the Style Modifier won't work on animated models since styling does not work with modifiers in the modifier stack, and collapsing the models loses the animation. Any ideas? I can't easily re-animate these models.

[hermit.crab]

What you may try is styling the hair on the copied and collapsed object and after that bake the VertexColors (Bend/Initial) via a VRayExtraTexMap to be later used in the original model directly as VRayBitmaps.

[brit_bunkley]

This is getting a bit over my head. I'm not sure how to bake the VertexColors (Bend/Initial) via a VRayExtraTexMap.

There is no other way to use vray hair on an animated model? I have dozens of them that need to be converted and then hair added.

[hermit.crab]

This is getting a bit over my head. I'm not sure how to bake the VertexColors (Bend/Initial) via a VRayExtraTexMap.

Check this article.

There is no other way to use vray hair on an animated model?

The issue concerns the VRayFurStyler. No issues with using VRayFur on an animated model. Otherwise, I found out that the VRayFurStyler does work with objects with a PolySelect modifier, however, there's no real-time preview (you need to disable and reenable the styler to see the effect). I'll notify the devs about this, however, I am uncertain if any improvements will be made soon.

[brit_bunkley]

Holy moly. This is convoluted. I'm used to Corona where it just works. I upgraded to max 2025 and reinstalled The instructions say the XML must be manually edited so that it includes the new DLO in the list here... so I copied <ComponentEntry AppName="VRayFurStyler" Version="6.10.08" ModuleName="./plugins/vrayfurstyler2022.dlo" />. But the version is clearly wrong ..and there is no indication of where to find it.

The styler won't show up under modifiers.

So I went back to max 2024 (where it somehow does show up) and tried that baking technique ....but I cannot add the maps to the baking queue. i give up. The rest looks way over my head...even if I do get that far. Why does a hair styler modifier have to be so complicated? So this last step of many hours of trying Vray disqualifies vray for me. Sorry.

So in the future for new versions of Max can I download Vray and Corona demo again so I can use conversion software for my hundreds of files?