VRayBlend Advanced blending mode

[trixian]

As a follow up, how would we use the vraybumpmtl (what is it?) in this instance (what would the node layout look like).
Not possible to add an option to the existing blend mat then?

[trixian]

Ok.

Now that we have a VrayBumpMtl node (albeit as a separate download), what would the procedure be Vlado?
Could you make a simple diagram\flowchart\description to aim me in the general direction?

[vlado]

Here is what I got so far, is this what you need?



Best regards,
Vlado

[tricky]

Oh, and here is a really good video showing off this feature with animation and other logic set up for automated effects: Video

That's amazing. Is the idea that all this is realtime?

[trixian]

Well all the examples are done realtime (UDK) yes, but the whole point is making an artist friendly toolset so one can rapidly paint in variations and nice "blends" between materials, hence my inquiry. Obviously we wont get the realtime feedback in our viewports, but maybe we could get it with VrayRT (later).

Vlado, not to knock your artistic abilities or anything , but could I get the file to look at the nodes so I can maybe see it in action? Your example is maybe not showing the principle in its best possible light, so I'm not sure I understand what you have going on in your example.
If I was to judge what should be going on, the stucco material would "linger" in the grout areas of the tiles (if each material was set up logically), but it is all depending on how you set it up in your file.
Is this dependent on some custom Vray build onlly meant for internal devs and NSA or possible to do with v.2.40.04 ?

[vlado]

Is this dependent on some custom Vray build onlly meant for internal devs and NSA or possible to do with v.2.40.04 ?

This was just a VRayBlendMtl material inside a VRayBumpMtl material using the same texture for the blend mask and for the bump.

Best regards,
Vlado

[trixian]

But, what about the respective blended materials own bump and normals?
These should affect the way the mask is blended, and distort it according to the underlying "shape" so the mask gets details automatically that you otherwise would have had to manually paint (in respect to your example, the stucco should creep into the grout areas of the tiles, since the grout probably would be slightly recessed, while the internal bump/normal of each tile would "bend" the profile of the mask as well).

I'm getting the feeling that the main point of this request is still not clear to people. Not sure how I can explain it more clearly.

The video of the animated dynamic shaders shows this perfectly.
The part where it starts raining, you can see the water pooling in the recessed areas and following the virtual "geometry/shape" of the cracks. When you consider that the blending mask in these examples are just vertex-painting on a pretty sparse mesh (for in-game use), you have to see that you would not get these types of details without taking the normal/height of the blended materials into consideration.

[vlado]

Well, now that we have OSL, you can actually code all that stuff yourself Because I don't know how to do it...

Best regards,
Vlado

[trixian]

Great....I have no idea either, but would love a set of nodes to connect in the slate editor like one does in udk

[Dave_Wortley]

Could you convert a Normal Map to a Greyscale Displacement/Bump Map and then clip this to allow the blend... I'm sure it's possible in Max....

[vlado]

Great....I have no idea either, but would love a set of nodes to connect in the slate editor like one does in udk

Then get someone to write those nodes This is not strictly related to rendering so I don't think we'll go there (we have our hands full with V-Ray itself), but writing a full weather system might be an interesting project for someone to undertake.

Best regards,
Vlado

[trixian]

How does one clip it? Through the comp node? Set to min or max?
I also think this is done purely through normalmaps in udk, as the examples I have seen don't have any heightmaps loaded, and I can't say I have seen them being converted to height in the node graph either.

[trixian]

Also, OSL......this is only for VRay 3.x?
Can't seem to find any OSL shaders in my v.2.40.04.

[trixian]

I can totally respect that you don't feel like coding this, but I'd claim that shading/materials comprise about 1/3rd of what relates to rendering. The other thirds being lighting and the underlying systems for sampling, calculations and output (i.e the crunching part).
That being said, I can see that this also falls halfway into the domain of Autodesk (or at least it should) as all of this could be implemented inside vanilla 3dsmax. Vray would still need to support it if it was though....

[vlado]

Also, OSL......this is only for VRay 3.x? Can't seem to find any OSL shaders in my v.2.40.04.

OSL is inside 3.x, yes. In the 2.x builds there is VRayGLSL, which has similar capabilities.

Best regards,
Vlado