Vray Material Maps that are altered by HDRI values over 1

[rjohnson33]

Could somebody tell me if I'm right in thinking that the following map slots in a VrayMtl shouldn't respond to input values over 1?:

Diffuse / Reflect / RGlossiness / Refract / Glossiness / Bump

(so for instance an HDR 32bit map in the reflect or diffuse slot creates exactly the same render as the same map reduced to 8bit?)
It looks that way in a test render (although the material preview sphere does change when switching to the HDR maps).
Theoretically the only HDR map that should effect anything would be in the Self-illumination or in Environment I guess.

I was just in the process of replacing a bunch of Color Correction maps with 8bit maps rendered from that node in the material editor and got concerned that I'd be cropping a lot of the values driven over 1 but then it doesn't matter if those end up in a diffuse or reflect slot as the material will do exactly the same thing. Is that right?

[tashko.zashev]

Hi,

Мost of your thoughts are correct. Generally for Diffuse, Reflect, Refract and glossy maps 32bit textures with values over 1 are not very usable. Note that the 32 bit maps can prevent some banding issues for some renders.

Textures with values over and below 1 are useful for displacement, bump, Env, light maps, e.t.c.

[rjohnson33]

Thanks, that's useful to know. In particular I wasn't aware that bump maps respected values over 1.