Physical Material in V-Ray Standalone?

[Echadwick]

When I try to Analyze or Export & Render with a teapot using a default Physical Material, I get "Unsupported material 'Material #25 (Physical Material)'

Changelog for the newest Standalone says:

Auto-translation of Physical Materials
Autodesk's Physical Materials are auto-translated to V-Ray materials without additional conversions.

https://download.chaosgroup.com/down...lone-51002-adv

3ds Max 2022
V-Ray 5.10.03
V-Ray Standalone 5.10.02

I'm hoping we can get this figured out, as Physical Material is pretty much required if we're going to use MaterialX in Max.

Thanks!

[hermit.crab]

I'm afraid, the feature concerns rendering within 3ds Max, not exporting. There must have been some kind of a mistake in the update log, I'll notify my colleagues to resolve this.

[Echadwick]

Thank you. However it is unfortunate that Standalone isn't meant to support Physical Materials. This will make it difficult for us to use MaterialX with V-Ray, especially since we are moving all our rendering to V-Ray Standalone on Linux. I'm curious how many other V-Ray users are interested in this feature.

[matanov]

We have it planned for the future, but actually having requests will help to prioritize it. Also:

1. Why don't you use the converter in this case?
2. Can you describe your material workflow? Not necessarily here if it's a private info, you can do it over email

[Echadwick]

Thanks Peter.

V-Ray Scene Converter looks good, we just need to test with complex node graphs, MaterialX conventions, etc.

I'll send more info via email, but the basics are:

1. We're moving to USD for interop, referencing, and automation. So we're looking for a material structure that works there; MaterialX looks good so far.
2. V-Ray materials are feature-rich, but offer too many options. Creatives tend to make unnecessarily complex node graphs, use ill-informed/ad-hoc/inconsistent material settings, create models that do not support reuse and automation, and push us to implement and maintain a complex validation system.
3. We want to create customized shaders to help modelers improve material quality, speed up material creation, improve viewport preview, use reasonable editing choices, reduce rework, speed up rendering, and improve material reuse.
4. We're moving our render farm from Windows/Max to Linux/Standalone.
5. We'd like to improve real-time down-conversion for glTF/USDz.

[seq]

Hope you don't mind if I hijack your thread: We come from the Maya side with a mix of Maya, Houdini, Unreal, Substance and V-Ray and we are currently checking out USD for the same reason like you mentioned. So if you don't mind asking: Did the USD route works fine for you so far? And did you go the MaterialX way? Has it some disadvantages compared with using V-Ray native shaders?

Thanks for any input.
Lars

[Echadwick]

I don't have all the answers for sure, but we are still working on USD integration. We're only partly done but we're committed to completing it. MaterialX is still the goal for us though we haven't done much work with it so far.

We are still working on the foundational part, which is item #3 in my previous reply. This is required for us to transition materials from V-Ray into MaterialX. Without a carefully sandboxed material system, modelers are making too many of their own arbitrary V-Ray shader trees, which are then impossible to convert.

We love working with V-Ray, it's an excellent renderer and we'll continue to use it. But our workflow it too limited having 100% rendering in 3ds Max and V-Ray, because we need more support for automation and efficiency which in some cases are better served in other applications.

The biggest disadvantages to using USD and MaterialX that I see is they are relatively new formats, so tools are still in early development. They require a lot of R&D to integrate into our pipelines. It's a lot of work, but ultimately worth it for a more healthy pipeline.

[vlado]

To get back to the original topic, it is on the "to do" list to export the physical material to .vrscene files - it will be converted to a V-Ray material in the same way as when it is rendered with V-Ray in 3ds Max.

Best regards,
Vlado