3DS Max 2024 Color Picker not working with Vray Material

[OPEN_RANGE]

Using 3DS Max 2024.1 = most current version I believe. Using Vray 6 update 1.2 (most current version).

This seems to happen only with Vray materials. Just tested on 3DS Max Physical Material and problem does not exist.

With Vray material type 15 in to lower right value filed. then click in the saturation field just above. the 15 you enter in the value filed changes to 21.

type 5 into the value field. click in the saturation field. the 5 stays the same. close the selector click on the color swatch again. color picker opens. the 5 is now a 0.

Other weird, frustrating and problematic behaviors exist with Max 2024 new color picker and Vray materials.

[hermit.crab]

Seems like it's an Autodesk thing since Standard and other 3ds Max native shaders exhibit the behavior too. It seems to be related to Max's Color Management - it does not happen if it is unmanaged. We'll see if something can be done on our end. If not, we'll most likely contact Autodesk.

[OPEN_RANGE]

Thank you for your reply. Agree it seems like an Autodesk thing. Problem only began with the new 3ds color picker. Who knows how long this may take to fix. I may have to revert back to Max 2023

[fabio_bellato]

hello everyone, do so few of us have this problem? it's not trivial

[kosso_olli]

We have this too, and it drives us crazy.
You simply can not enter a specific color value. The whole thing is just broken.

[hermit.crab]

We've already contacted Autodesk and their reply was that the color picker issue was spawned from some of their legacy plugins and that they were working on a fix. I guess we'll have to wait for it.

[OPEN_RANGE]

See this link. They say a fix is finally in process. https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-m...r/m-p/12184907

[flat]

It looks like the new 3ds Max 2024.2 Update doesn't fix it either.
What's happening?

[kosso_olli]

It looks like the 3dsMax-guys are handing over this problem to the V-Ray-Devs.
However takes care of this, I hope it can be fixed without breaking backwards compatibility with older scenes.

[andrei_lazar]

Yes, what Autodesk is saying is that their color picker is not 8bit anymore and thus V-ray can't handle the extra color and rounds them up so it needs an update to take into account the changes. Hopefully some Chaos rep. can clarify this and maybe surprise us that the fix is underway

[vladimir_krastev]

With Vray material type 15 in to lower right value filed. then click in the saturation field just above. the 15 you enter in the value filed changes to 21.

type 5 into the value field. click in the saturation field. the 5 stays the same. close the selector click on the color swatch again. color picker opens. the 5 is now a 0.

This issue still exits with 3ds Max 2024.2 and V-Ray 6.10.08. I will check if we can do something about it.

[yavor.rubenov]

Yes, what Autodesk is saying is that their color picker is not 8bit anymore and thus V-ray can't handle the extra color and rounds them up so it needs an update to take into account the changes. Hopefully some Chaos rep. can clarify this and maybe surprise us that the fix is underway

That is not the case actually. The whole 8bit is an internal part of the color picker itself. V-Ray is unaware of it and is working in full 32 bits per component for colors. For user interface we tell Max that VRayMtl has this color property (f.e diffuse) and that it is 32bits per component RGB (no alpha). Showing the color swatch, showing color pickers, loading and saving of the colors to file - all this is handled by Max transparently for us.

[andrei_lazar]

well, i'm no programmer or sorts, but its very frustrating to see Autodesk doing this update and causing this odd behaviour only with Vray. I've installed for example from Fstorm and Redshift, and they both work correctly with the color picker. Corona color picker does not do any good either its has the exact same behavior as the the default picker. Right now this Max 2024 issue is blocking our update on the render farm. And for now we see only one option to work as before with 2022 or wait for a fix. quite problematic if you work with a lot of freelancers.

[^Lele^]

Could anyone give me updated steps to repro the issue?
The OP's approach works fine for me in gamma workflow and OCIO, but maybe i am doing it wrong.

[andrei_lazar]

Hey ^Lele^ ,
You must have 3dsmax 2024, and vray 6 no matter the build ( i have not tested this with an older version of v-ray) , set v-ray to render engine, gamma workflow, open material editor and create 2 materials 1 vray and 1 physical and try to enter in the color swatches values from 1 to 9 in the RGB areas then close the swatch, open it again and tell me what you see in the one with vray and the one with physical. Also Use this image attached and pick the penultimate dark color from the diagonal. it should be #111111 (17,17,17) if you pick it with the color picker for both materials you will see that vray picks #111111 and then on close goes to #151515 but physical material stays on #111111. If on your side it works please share a video or something with the settings you have.