Vray Material Editor: Can anyone explain how it is supposed to work?

[kosso_olli]

Can anyone here from the Chaos team explain in depth how I create materials with this monster? The background of this is that I am the only guy here in the company who is using Max, the other artists are using Maya. So now I thougt I could share my materials with the collegues by using the VrMat. But the editor is totally confusing. Here a short overview of what I am trying to do.

Task: Create a matte plastic material with subtle reflection and a slight bump.

1: Open the material editor
2: Right click "New Material" and create a VrayMaterial
2: Set diffuse color to black
3: Set reflection to white, glossines to 0.6 and fresnel to 2
4: Change BRDF to GGX: Umm, where is GGX? Doesn't matter, Blinn should be fine, too.
5: Add noise to the bump slot: Umm, where is the bump slot? Slot for opacity?

I figured out there is a standard material that has the slot for bump etc. but is missing the other settings for reflection, refraction etc. Do I have to add them as layers? If I add the reflection layer I get the reflections etc, but I can't find any settings for fresnel in it. Why is that? Why not make the whole thing an exact copy of the Vray Material we have been used to for 10+ years...

Also, how do I create a blend material with different layers and blend maps?
Honestly, I am totally confused.

[vlado]

There is some info here:
http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/V...terial+Editor#

If you have additional questions - ask here.

Best regards,
Vlado

[kosso_olli]

Okay, so I created a simple VrayMaterial. How do I add bump to it? As I said, the slots for that are missing. The maps section from the documentation looks different, but why?

Also tried it with a standard matetial, but there I don't get the fresnel options. Again, why? What is the difference between the standard material and the Vray Material? Okay, I can get the fresnel options back by adding the BRDF layer to the standard material, but then again I have two diffuse and roughness slots? Turning the reflection color to white doen't have any effect on the material, it just looks exactly like before.

Okay, so I applied a reflection layer to the standard material and I now can get both reflection and bump, but I am missing the fresnel for the reflections. How can I add these?

Vlado, you see I would really like to create some usefull materials with this, but I can't. I honestly can't, and I have tried this for an hour now.

[glorybound]

Maybe, this might help.

http://www.aversis.be/tutorials/vray...-materials.htm
http://viscorbel.com/vray-materials-theory/

[kosso_olli]

Bobby, I know perfectly well how to create good looking vray materials in Max and it's tools. I am talking about creating them inside Vray's own material editor introduced in Vray 3.0.

[glorybound]

I am unaware of the difference from previous V-Ray versions, but I have only been in V3 for a little while.

[kosso_olli]

Any tips? I am really struggling to get any result.

[tsvetan.geshev]

Hello,

4: Change BRDF to GGX: Umm, where is GGX? Doesn't matter, Blinn should be fine, too.
- For the moment there is no GGX in there.


5: Add noise to the bump slot: Umm, where is the bump slot? Slot for opacity?
- After creating standard material, add VRayBRDF, you can remove Diffuse layer.
Bump slot is in the bottom - Maps rollout


Opacity is in Maps area of VRayBRDF rollout


"Also tried it with a standard matetial, but there I don't get the fresnel options."


"What is the difference between the standard material and the Vray Material?"
The standard material is the "original" material for Rhino and SketchUp, V-Ray material is standard
V-Ray material.

For more flexibility create standard and add VRayBRDF, also keep in mind, that after every change
of the material in V-Ray material editor, you need to click save in order to update the material for
rendering.

[3LP]

I wonder if it's something with our Vray version related as I don't see all the settings as kosso_olli :



Where is the bump?

Stan

[kosso_olli]

Same here. I feel that the interface is somewhat bugged, because I can not see the layers I create. This was also bugging me, I didn't know how to remove the layers I created before. I have to delete the whole material and start again. Here is a screen capture. As you can see, there is a BRDF layer in there, but it is not listed on the left. So I can not remove the diffuse layer...

[svetlozar.draganov]

I wonder if it's something with our Vray version related as I don't see all the settings as kosso_olli :

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24266[/ATTACH]

Where is the bump?

Stan

The bump is under the Standard Material, not i V-Ray Material:

[svetlozar.draganov]

Same here. I feel that the interface is somewhat bugged, because I can not see the layers I create. This was also bugging me, I didn't know how to remove the layers I created before. I have to delete the whole material and start again. Here is a screen capture. As you can see, there is a BRDF layer in there, but it is not listed on the left. So I can not remove the diffuse layer...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24267[/ATTACH]

What V-Ray and 3DSMax version are you using?
Does the issue disappear on Material Editor reopen?

[kosso_olli]

What V-Ray and 3DSMax version are you using?
Does the issue disappear on Material Editor reopen?

Figured it out, there is a little arrow or something that I need to click. It is really hard to see when the 3dsMax interface is set to dark colors. So, after clicking that arrow I can now delete the diffuse layer. Also, I can see the bump slot, but assigning maps to it doesn't do anything. The preview looks the same.

[tsvetan.geshev]

Did you see any difference if you manually update the preview or if you render the material?