Proxy shader workflow and displacements

[shadevfx]

Hello, I am curious about how other vray/maya users are working with V-ray proxies.

First, Im very impressed with the ease of use with this system. It's quite simple and seems to work very very well.

My first question, as we dig deeper into a workflow is: how are people handling shader assignments or changes to an imported proxy.

It seems like, as long as there is a unique shading group attached to each general shading set of items, you can then override the material.

This works great. However, the only problem I found was adding a displacement to a proxy. This does not seem to be functioning.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
B

[Coffee Rabbit]

In Max you can't add displacement to a proxy so I'm going to assume you can't do it in Maya. I think this is because displacement and proxies are both render-time operations. I could be wrong though.

[shadevfx]

Thats a bummer, so for any proxy object, it's impossible to use displacement?

This seems true for subdivision as well...

Any thoughts from our technical experts at Chaos Group?

Proxies seem to be a fantastic way to build a clean, asset based referencing pipeline... but that would essentially eliminate that possibility due to not having an option to use displacements.

[cpnichols]

Thats a bummer, so for any proxy object, it's impossible to use displacement?

This seems true for subdivision as well...

Any thoughts from our technical experts at Chaos Group?

Proxies seem to be a fantastic way to build a clean, asset based referencing pipeline... but that would essentially eliminate that possibility due to not having an option to use displacements.

From all that I know, proxies can support subd or displacement. However, you can make MASSIVE proxies and vray can handle them, so you could technically bake your displacement or subd into your mesh then proxy that. I have done renders of 28 million poly proxies with very little issues. Only using a gig of ram.

[shadevfx]

From all that I know, proxies can support subd or displacement. However, you can make MASSIVE proxies and vray can handle them, so you could technically bake your displacement or subd into your mesh then proxy that. I have done renders of 28 million poly proxies with very little issues. Only using a gig of ram.

any idea on how to connect them? I've tried attaching a displaced shader both before and after the proxy is created with no results.

Ditto for sub-d, for instance: Make a cube, apply vray sub-d. Renders fine. export as proxy.. sub-d is gone. Apply a sub-d to the proxy, and it does "something" but that result is really whacked out.

Good to know about the massive amounts of geo that can get pushed through though, thats a solid work around... would be nice to have the option though.

[cpnichols]

any idea on how to connect them? I've tried attaching a displaced shader both before and after the proxy is created with no results.

Ditto for sub-d, for instance: Make a cube, apply vray sub-d. Renders fine. export as proxy.. sub-d is gone. Apply a sub-d to the proxy, and it does "something" but that result is really whacked out.

Good to know about the massive amounts of geo that can get pushed through though, thats a solid work around... would be nice to have the option though.

You would have to do a polygonal displacement... meaning, not in Vray. Instead of doing Vray SubD, do a smooth. Make a heavy mesh, and displace the geometry.

For example, if you do a heavy Z-brush model. Output the whole heavy model without a displacement map, then proxy that.

The SubD and Displacement that is done by Vray is actually very specialized, and not really considered static geo.