More maps

[Macker]

Hey guys,

I appreciate that the number of varoius maps (often for specific purposes) has increased hugely over the years, however I'd love to see some more that are included with VRay rather than having to resort to third parties that can (and do) drop support at any given time, and that by extension of being a part of VRay are available when using render farms. I'm thinking the various bercon maps/tiles/noise/etc, cg-source multitexture (randomisation of hue, saturation, gamma, lightness), maybe some new procedural noises too?

[Art48]

Well any proper render farm has these industry standard maps. And why would Chaosgroup re-program these maps when they work just fine? Especially since most are free.

[Macker]

Well any proper render farm has these industry standard maps. And why would Chaosgroup re-program these maps when they work just fine? Especially since most are free.

Because (as I said) support for them is inevitably dropped (due to them being free); for example bercon maps and ivy generator just recently. There will always be a reason NOT to do something, but it strikes me as mad not to include some new maps; it is after all just another selling point for VRay/Corona.

[andy51]

Only reason for ivy generator being dropped (which has nothing to do with maps) was because of the donation fiasco, as stated on the official website. They were going to update the plugin, but when they got a message to say someone had donated 0.001 euros, A JOKE as they put it, they decided to pack up and move on to better things. A lot of this free stuff, gets abandoned, not because it is free, but because the people who create these freebies, get old, want to do other things, move in in life and there is nobody there to carry on, unlike bigger companies, who charge for the majority of their work, who can get someone else to work on certain projects, if the person originally responsible for them, moves on.

Bercon maps, lost support, far as the official site goes, in 2013, which is hardly recent. and as stated

The maps continue to be available here, but I?m not providing any support for them. They are open source and licensed under Apache 2.0. If you need another type of license for them please contact me via email. If you wish to have these maps on later 3dsmax versions than supported by existing binaries, I recommend asking somebody with 3dsmax SDK and few hours to spare, it usually doesn?t take much to recompile them.

So even if Chaos group have no plans to add them to their product, maybe you can find someone with the requisite skills to recompile them for whatever version of Max they are not compatible with.

[Macker]

the people who create these freebies, get old, want to do other things, move in in life and there is nobody there to carry on, unlike bigger companies, who charge for the majority of their work, who can get someone else to work on certain projects, if the person originally responsible for them, moves on.

My point exactly.

So even if Chaos group have no plans to add them to their product, maybe you can find someone with the requisite skills to recompile them for whatever version of Max they are not compatible with.

Except if they were a part of the software (not necessarily bercon maps) then this would be a non issue; they'd simply work out of the box.

[^Lele^]

On a purely personal note, i'd love those too.
They'd enable cross-DCC work which right now can be patchy, for lack of said maps (and baking isn't really an option in certain scenarios) among other things.

On the other hand, there's OSL now, and that allows users to write (supposing they know how to) their own set of procedurals, to be used with any V-Ray (and perhaps other renderers too, with or without modifications due to supported features).

So i would understand reticence to allocate efforts in this direction, as much as i'd understand spending resources in it...

[Macker]

On the other hand, there's OSL now, and that allows users to write (supposing they know how to) their own set of procedurals

The exact same reason I bought a render engine rather than coding one myself! Hah

[Ihno]

1+
I'd love to see those too.
A few more (or better) geometry dependent maps would be nice too. And from what I heard almost impossible with OSL.

Rens made a blur node with OSL which was unfortunately dead slow.
Is it possible to make such map more efficient with C (or whatever language regular map nodes use ).
Because that would be soo super useful.

[Macker]

It'd be nice to know whether this is a non-starter or not? If it is something Chaos Group is willing to look into, then people could start pitching ideas for new maps. I would like a "clouds" procedural that would allow me to produce clouds akin to those in e-on vue/ozone.

[joconnell]

I think that type of thing is so specific and difficult to do well that it was discussed as outside the bounds of a renderer for now. Most places rely on other tricks depending on distance and interactivity so you're either using maps on cards for far bits or cached vdb sims of clouds loaded in through the volume grid for things you've to see parallax on. What's your typical needs in terms of clouds?

[Macker]

I'd like to be able to create very realistic skies, with artistic control and be able to animate them to create time lapses: e-on's Ozone achieves pretty amazing results from what I've seen. Surely adding hue/gamma/saturation/brightness randomisation to the already available Vray multisubtex map wouldn't be too big an ask either?

[^Lele^]

Genuine question to whom may know of this: is there any software at all out there which makes cheap *evolving* clouds?
Something that isn't dragging a noise layer around, and does not resort to simulating fluids?

[Vizioen]

https://elementacular.com/ been waiting for this to be ported to 3dsmax

[joconnell]

I'd like to be able to create very realistic skies, with artistic control and be able to animate them to create time lapses: e-on's Ozone achieves pretty amazing results from what I've seen. Surely adding hue/gamma/saturation/brightness randomisation to the already available Vray multisubtex map wouldn't be too big an ask either?

I thiiiiiiink terragen is better than ozone, plus the parent company isn't a total bunch of assholes either...

[^Lele^]

https://elementacular.com/ been waiting for this to be ported to 3dsmax

Pretty, but i meant flowing animation, not 3d noise phase animation.
Ie. add a generic wind direction, some turbulence, and watch tthe clouds fly over a terrain sensing it and behaving accordingly.