vray proxies

[cdavis]

when I create a vray proxy & bring it in to a new scene it has none of my shaders applied to it. How Do I export a proxy with the shaders attached? the manual says the proxies are in a ready to render format, as i doing it wrong?

Thanks

Chris

[vlado]

The .vrmesh file does not store shaders, just geometry information. If you want to keep the shaders, you can merge or reference the original file.

By being "ready to render" I meant that the geometry shape is directly read and passed to the renderer, without going through the Maya scene. This does not include any materials though.

Best regards,
Vlado

[cdavis]

ok. when you say merge or reference the original.... could you elaborate. do you mean an actual maya referenced object?

So if vray proxies dont contain shading data what kind of thing would vray proxies be used for?

sorry havnt used vray proxies before. Previously I used final renders proxies which were more like the referenced type proxy object.

Thanks

Chris

[cdavis]

also, does the proxy not support if the original object has a vray-subDiv attribute applied to it.

[vlado]

ok. when you say merge or reference the original.... could you elaborate. do you mean an actual maya referenced object?

Yep, a scene that contains the V-Ray proxy along with its shading.

So if vray proxies dont contain shading data what kind of thing would vray proxies be used for?

They are useful for rendering large amounts of geometry where you don't want to bring that geometry into Maya itself, but want to pass it directly to the renderer. Further on, the proxies can be dynamically loaded and unloaded on demand during the rendering to keep memory usage in within given limits. They are not intended to be encapsulated assets. Part of the reason for this is that once exported, you can render a proxy object in many modeling applications that have plugins for V-Ray - e.g. V-Ray for 3ds Max, V-Ray for Cinema 4D etc. This would not be possible if the shading was stored in the proxy as all these applications have different approaches to materials.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

also, does the proxy not support if the original object has a vray-subDiv attribute applied to it.

Nope, you will need to smooth the geometry before exporting it as a proxy.

Best regards,
Vlado

[snivlem]

So if vray proxies dont contain shading data what kind of thing would vray proxies be used for?

I have set mine up so that there are little Maya ascii scenes. Each ascii scene contains a vray proxy in it with all the appropraite shaders. Then, using LayoutTools for Maya, in my main scene, I reference in these Maya ascii scenes and can have forests of proxies in no time all with shaders which I can tweak (as long as Maya referncing behaves itself).

Thats basically my workflow. V-Ray proxies are excellent for props/cars/trees/foliage etc...because the shading assignments are NEVER messed up per face unlike Maya....

[gardeler]

Just out of curiosity, would it be possible to save shaders to files just like the geometry? without knowing anything about programming I assume that the shaders for each application are being translated to a Vray scene specific format anyway? So if you could save shader files, and if it was possible to link proxies to "extrenal shaders", you would be able to use multiple softwares to generate assets and then gather it all at rendertime in Vray!
(i.e. doing fume sims in max, output the sim as proxies with a shader file, read it into maya and light and render it!) The way it has to be done now is with 2 people rendering and then you have to put it all together in comp...

Best

Martin

[vlado]

I assume that the shaders for each application are being translated to a Vray scene specific format anyway?

Nope, which is one of the problems. We try to use the native rendering API for shaders where such is available. In 3ds Max, we use the 3ds Max shader API, in Cinema4D we also use its own shading API to make use of textures that already ship with the application.

There some steps towards embedding shaders in the proxy file, but similar to geometry, once exported the shaders cannot be edited in any way, which may be too great a restriction.

Best regards,
Vlado

[gardeler]

Aahh.. I see. But it is great to hear that you are thinking in these terms. For us it would be great to have this possibility with external shaders. That opens up for possibilities to generate and update shaders procedurally using in house tools or just by simple text editing. (like renderman).I would also be totally happy if the extrenal shaders only were Vray specific ones, and not max or maya specific shaders.

Martin