how to get "bevelled" edges using VrayEdgeTex on most imported CAD Objects?

[caypiranha]

Thanks seaandunderdale for describing your experiences. In my memories, I found that EdgeTex once was working better and I don't know, why it messes up now. (bug in the latest release?)

I already made everything new from scratch and haven´t used any "older" preset scenes I once made.

I used my last Joker and yes - and got rid of the problem of having the edge lines visible while using anisotropy shading: once exported as OBJ Format and reimport did the trick.
Now all lights are also (better, more real) interpreted by the surface. Shading seems more correct

But there is still the most annoying thing left, that the edgeTex is quite ugly and not usable at all.
As the OBJ reimport, it becomes a more reliable piece of geometries. This process succeeded a lot when having problematic geometry.
So I think here come probably Chaos in game which I like to ask, how to fix this issue?

I once have a new test scene here uploaded with both mentioned Geometries.
This sample shows how huge the interpretation factor of the light between the 2 Objects is. So, I believe, the OBJ reimport is much more reliable.





OBJ Imported:




All with one and the same ansiothrophic material. But disappointingly, vrayEdgeTexture is not working properly. (Vray 5 for Max - latest release)
S here I would like to ask Chaos on how to get this working well? I knew it was once working well, but now I can do what i want - it´s making trouble.


Ok, before I wanted to post this, I had the idea just to take two simple boxes freshly created in Max.
Vers surprisingly, the result is as bad as the direct STEP import I had with all it´s problems: bad edged and edges are reacting to ansiotrophic settings



pure confusedness....

[caypiranha]

I really need this to sucseed this job here... how is that working on vray 6? Was not my plan to uprade now, but I need some results / solutions somehow.

thanks very much in advance!


See by your own:

VrayEdgeTex_testscene_public_v3.zip

[kosso_olli]

The scene you posted last time was rendered with 6 on my end. I still got the weird look on all the rounded edges, until I merged the parts into an empty scene.
Maybe resetting V-Ray would work as well as the support describes, but I did not test this. Anyway, merging and resetting a scene should not be the solution to a problem.

[caypiranha]

The scene you posted last time was rendered with 6 on my end. I still got the weird look on all the rounded edges, until I merged the parts into an empty scene.
Maybe resetting V-Ray would work as well as the support describes, but I did not test this. Anyway, merging and resetting a scene should not be the solution to a problem.

Indeed & absolutely. Nothing against "workarounds". But that is not very handy especially measured by a tool that should work as it once did already. This is here something, where Chaos should definitely do improvements. In fact, I believe so, since also from Maya side reports similar things.

[caypiranha]

Dear Chaos, what's the reason for this? Like kosso_olli already said happens exactly here on my Scene: After re-merging everything in a new Scene, instantly every object is calculated properly and EdgeTex is looking good as expected.

But this is absolutely not an acceptable way of workflow. I mean, selection sets are gone, render settings - well could be restored, but render layer and associated objects on e.g. setting up multimatte all have to be redone and gives a lot of opportunities to run into new mistakes, hassling a workflow.

[vladimir_krastev]

Hi, tested your VrayEdgeTex_testscene_public.max scene again with our latest official V-Ray 5 and latest official V-Ray 6 in 3ds max 2021 and 3ds max 2023. Each time after resetting the render settings I got this result:

[caypiranha]

Hi Vladimir, thank you and yes, kosso_olli found already out that reimporting and resetting helps here and there.
Resetting may be the "best" solution in case of keeping every dependencies in case of selectionsets etc. but we find, that is not a cool and

Maybe the development department will find something self-refreshing / self-resetting in future.

[vladimir_krastev]

Yes you may have a point in general and I will make sure your message gets trough.
In this specific scene though I found the exact setting that is causing issues. By default we have the Secondary rays bias (found in global switches) set to 0. In your scene this parameter has been changed to 0.01.
Bring back to default this parameter and the above issues are gone.

[caypiranha]

Hi Vladimir, perfect - thank you! =)
I´ll check that. This makes sense, since I am using a longer-lasting project, that goes over some versions of Vray (and Max).
That's then also the reason, why the Maya Guy here reported same issue with his older default scenes... makes all sense now.

[kosso_olli]

In this specific scene though I found the exact setting that is causing issues. By default we have the Secondary rays bias (found in global switches) set to 0. In your scene this parameter has been changed to 0.01.
Bring back to default this parameter and the above issues are gone.

Okay, this explains why it worked with merging into a new scene and resetting the renderer.
Is the secondary ray bias still needed? Maybe it would be a good idea to get rid of it in the future.

[seandunderdale]

Isnt secondary ray bias useful for when meshes overlap and cause render errors, the ray bias fixes that, right?

[vladimir_krastev]

Is the secondary ray bias still needed? Maybe it would be a good idea to get rid of it in the future.

If you have overlapping faces it helps or at least it helped. You know when you have overlapping faces they might get black and if you set your secondary rays bias to 0,01 this cures it most of the times. Haven't used it recently.
I think there is an idea to remove it but I am not sure.

[kosso_olli]

I remember getting shading artifacts when using secondary ray bias.

[caypiranha]

should also only be used in very small values. It maybe had a reason, when 0.001 was once the default. I personally would like to keep this setting. Sometimes you can persuade sticky buckets to go ahead etc.
I doubt that a system recognizes automatically how much of that value is good for improvements ( like z-fightings) and how less is needed to render a proper edgeTex.
It seems like you can't be on both parties at once. Maybe the edgeTex will be improved to work in every situation.

[Joelaff]

Secondary Ray Bias is like a parachute. When you need it you really need it. When you don't it doesn't matter.

I have made my opinions on removing features clear over the years.

NEVER remove features.

Don't try to "declutter" or "cleanup" the interface by removing things-- this is a technical field. You can stick them in Advanced, or super-secret-advanced mode, but don't remove stuff.

For every obscure feature someone thinks is unused and useless there is the small group of people who are relying on it to do their job.