How to save Vray materials for later use?

[sean_brown]

I am creating my own vray materials with a diffuse map, roughness map and displacement map. How can I export this material to a file and import again for later use so i dont have build the shader network each time? I've tried exporting all to .vrscene, selected network to .vrscene and each time when I try to import from either the Vray scene manager or Vray>Import material from a file, into a new maya scene i just get a transform node in the outliner and no shaders. What am i doing wrong?

[stezza]

Select material in Hypershade File>export selected network save as .ma or .mb

[hermit.crab]

I've tried exporting all to .vrscene, selected network to .vrscene and each time when I try to import from either the Vray scene manager or Vray>Import material from a file, into a new maya scene i just get a transform node in the outliner and no shaders.

For shaders, you should use the "Import V-Ray material from file". It works as expected on my end, only note that displacement can't be transferred (internal bug-tracker id: VMAYA-13183) since it's in a different plugin. We are planning to improve this, though.

What stezza suggested is fine, of course.

[stezza]

Or you can use the ZooTools plugin shader preset manager

[sean_brown]

For shaders, you should use the "Import V-Ray material from file". It works as expected on my end, only note that displacement can't be transferred (internal bug-tracker id: VMAYA-13183) since it's in a different plugin. We are planning to improve this, though.

What stezza suggested is fine, of course.

what were your steps to export your vrscene for it to work as there are various way.

Thanks

[SonyBoy]

I am creating my own vray materials with a diffuse map, roughness map and displacement map. How can I export this material to a file and import again for later use so i dont have build the shader network each time? I've tried exporting all to .vrscene, selected network to .vrscene and each time when I try to import from either the Vray scene manager or Vray>Import material from a file, into a new maya scene i just get a transform node in the outliner and no shaders. What am i doing wrong?

This has been a shortcoming of Maya for 20+ years. Exporting your entire network to an external Maya file is probably the safest and most reliable method. Shader library plugins and tools come and go, they break upon Maya updates, and if you have texture maps then that's another level of complexity. There is of course the "preset" button within the Attr. Editor, but that's a preference that you'll then have to make sure you keep with every update to Maya. And again, that doesn't account for external texture maps.

If you really want to go crazy you could save the whole thing as a MEL script. But that makes creating the network in the first place a huge headache, unless you do it again after you've finished for the express purpose of having it.