Problem with Material preview balls on some computers

[andre_ravenna]

I'm experiencing an issue with V-Ray on some workstations. All the computers have the same setup—3ds Max 2025 and V-Ray 7. However, on certain machines, the material preview balls in the Slate Material Editor do not display rendered results with shadows. Instead, they appear like the old V-Ray material previews.

I suspect there is a setting to enable or disable preview rendering in the Slate Material Editor, but I’ve checked everywhere and can’t find it. I’ve also tried adjusting the Render Setup and the Custom Default Switcher settings.

As shown below, one preview renders correctly with shadows, while the other appears flat and lacks shadows.

Does anyone know what might be causing this?

[victoria_beswick]

check you render settings.
you probably have the wrong material editor in render settings.

[andre_ravenna]

Thats how it is set? ANy other sugestions?

[DCHA34]

You have to check/unchek 3DS Max material swatches in Render Settings.

[victoria_beswick]

Material swatches??

[andre_ravenna]

I've already tied this with both checked and unchecked after restart, still the same... Is there any other place that this might be controlled?

[DCHA34]

I can't think of anything else.

[Vizioen]

Maybe the installation got f-ed up and the material scene wasn't properly installed? No idea what else could cause this. But your last screenshot displays it being checked, you need to uncheck it.

[hermit.crab]

You don't need a restart for the 3ds Max material swatches option to work, only an update of the shaders' preview. I'm not sure if there's another way to control this option. Do you by any chance have start-up scripts controlling the render settings? As Vizioen said, check if the preview scene is here:

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\VRay3dsMax2025\assets\material_preview.vrscene"

[andre_ravenna]

I've checked and unchecked that box, but nothing happens. This is in an educational environment, and all the licenses are deployed centrally by our IT administrator, so something must have happened on their end. I'm considering reinstalling V-Ray to see if that resolves the issue.Thanks for all the help

[andre_ravenna]

I only have thease? Is there a way to add material_preview.vrscene???

[hermit.crab]

Yeah, no need to reinstall. I've attached the one from my installation. Just paste it in the folder.

[andre_ravenna]

Thanks allot. I'll try this. !

[DanSHP]

This was an issue for us since we updated to V-ray6 Update 2.

The fix hermit posted above has resolved it. Thanks.

[andre_ravenna]

It worked... Thanks for all the help