OpenGL Approximation of VrayMtl for Mari

[nbreslow]

Hiya,

I was hoping to get some information about creating an approximation of the VrayMtl in OpenGL to use while painting inside Mari. Currently the selection of shaders available in Mari are reference BRDFs (like Blinn, Phong, Cook-Torrance) and the maps you paint don't really translate well when you bring them in to render with Vray inside Maya/Max/Etc. I recently created an approximation of the mia_material_x and the results were great (more here). I was hoping to do the same for Vray but wanted to post here first and ask a few things...

1) Have you ever created a hardware approximation of the VrayMtl in OpenGL, maybe for the Max viewport, that I could adapt to the Mari API?
2) Does the Vray SDK give any insight into the architecture of the VrayMtl and does it cost anything to apply?
3) Are there any forum discussions/white papers/etc. that would outline the inner-workings?
4) I am a nightly subscriber and the source is distributed, but is password protected. Is it possible to get access to the source and use it for this purpose?

Hope to hear back on this - I think it would be great. Less crying on your keyboard. ;>

-Nick

[vlado]

1) Have you ever created a hardware approximation of the VrayMtl in OpenGL, maybe for the Max viewport, that I could adapt to the Mari API?

Yes, we had to do that for the Maya Viewport 2.0 (Max does not use OpenGL, but DirectX).

2) Does the Vray SDK give any insight into the architecture of the VrayMtl and does it cost anything to apply?

The V-Ray SDK does not cost anything, but it does not include the information that you need. You can email me to vlado@chaosgroup.com for more info on VRayMtl.

3) Are there any forum discussions/white papers/etc. that would outline the inner-workings?

None that I'm aware of; the concept is quite obvious.

4) I am a nightly subscriber and the source is distributed, but is password protected. Is it possible to get access to the source and use it for this purpose?

If you are ok with signing an NDA, we can do this, yes. You will be able to look at the GLSL shader sources. Again, please email me to vlado@chaosgroup.com for more information.

Best regards,
Vlado

[nbreslow]

Hi Vlado,

Thanks so much for the information - I appreciate it and will send you an email right now. You're the best!

-Nick