Any alternatives of Mentalray Environment/Background Switcher and Matte/Shadow Ref?

[seishi]

Hi, all.

I am learning how to use MatchMover coming with Design 2011, and am seeing Autodesk's tutorials at
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/louis...cking_workflow

They use Environment/Background switcher for the environ map and Matte/Shadow Reflection Material for the building and street, which looks wonderful!!

Does anybody know any alternatives or the similar functions of those Mentalray map and material?

Thanks!

[vlado]

V-Ray already has different environment overrides for reflection, refraction, gi and background so there is no need for an environment switcher. With regards to materials, the VRayOverrideMtl material can provide similar functionality.

The VRayWrapperMtl material provides matte/shadow capabilities (or the options in the V-Ray object properties - they do the same thing). You can get reflection masks using the reflection occlusion options in VRayDirt.

Best regards,
Vlado

[seishi]

Thanks, Vlado.

I had an experiment about the Matte settings, and found a problem.
I did as follows:

1. I set an image as the background and environment in Max;

2. I put four objects; Vraylight, Floor(plane), Cardbord(Box), and CabinetSurface(Plane) in dicated in the next wire frame;

3. I set the settings of Floor(plane) and CabinetSurface(Plane) so they would invisible but recieve shadows and generate GI;

4. The camera view is like this. CabinetSurface(Plane) is a bit smaller than the real cabinet;

5. When render an image, CabinetSurface(Plane) is darker while it should be transparent. Why does this happen? How I can fix it so it wouldn't be dark?

When I turned off the "Affect Diffuse" option of the Vraylight, the darkness is gone. But this way isn't always a good solution. Again, why are the objects whoes "Matte object" is ON darker than the background image and how can I control it?

Thanks,

Seishi

[bob-cat]

Set your Alpha contribution to -1.0 and enable the Affect alpha option.

[seishi]

mmmh,,,. It didn't change.
Meanwhile, I found the darkness was gone when I set GI amount "0" in Reflectio/Refraction/GI in Vray object properties. But I 'm not really sure why this happens.