From 3DsMax to Maya - Map Values

[Svetlozar Draganov]

We managed to reproduce the issue not only with the parameters you've specified but with other parameter too.
It is added as bug into our system and will be fixed at some point - we'll keep you posted.

[SDSNATCHER]

Hi Svetlozar,

Good to hear that the bug could be reproduced.
Do you have any indication at what amount of time we are talking about? before it will be fixed?
Are we talking about days,weeks,months a year?

And if such a bug if fixed, does the costumer need to wait until the next big release of Vray for Maya?
Or are there any temporary patches, nightly builds?

Can you explain to me, how that normally goes?

[SDSNATCHER]

hi Joconell,

I'm having one more question about your explanation:

If in 3Dsmax a attribute would have a glossiness reflection value of 0.7 and the texture map for that channel would be set at 100%. Would the 0.7 still impact the end result? or would it be completely overruled by the 100% value of the map?
I have seen some shaders that have the glossiness value set and have a texture map applied at 100%.

// Addon to my question: I see the same being used for color channels, they choose a color manually with the colorpicker and after that add a map to that channel and put that texture at a 100%.

I Can't get my head around that, can you explain it to me?

[joconnell]

Yep, a map at 100% totally overrides the value in the spinners.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Hi Svetlozar,

Do you have any indication at what amount of time we are talking about? before it will be fixed?
Are we talking about days,weeks,months a year?

And if such a bug if fixed, does the costumer need to wait until the next big release of Vray for Maya?
Or are there any temporary patches, nightly builds?

Can you explain to me, how that normally goes?

We usually cannot specify how long it will take to fix a particular bug, some bugs are fixed in a matter of hours other ones for a few mounts, it is not a straight forward process.
Once the bug got fixed the patch for it goes into stable-nightly build first and then into a official build. Access to the stable-nightlies could be provided if particular bug is fixed into those builds but not yet released into official one.

[SDSNATCHER]

Oke thank you for the explanation.

I will keep track of this topic then, see if a fix is available.

There is one more thing, you can maybe answer for me;
Is there a MEL command to create vrayPluginNodes?

The mel command for opening the vrayPluginWindow is this: vrayCreateNodeFromPluginWindow texture;

But I would like to create a FalloffTex (VrayPluginNode) in my script. I just can't figure out how to create one without doing it manual via the UI.

[SDSNATCHER]

Yep, a map at 100% totally overrides the value in the spinners.

Thanks again joconell,

I have been playing around some more with the shaders and i noticed that vray has a one stop node in the vrayPluginNodes called colorCombineTex or TexCombineColor.
Where you can just plugin the value and a texture map and a percentage of how much it should use of the map. Like it works in 3DsMax.
I woudn't have found out without your help.

[SDSNATCHER]

Svetlozar, I found another bug you can maybe add in the Bug-system.

When exporting shaders from max to maya. If it's using a Falloff Map in 3Dsmax.
It is sending a vrayPlugin Node TexFalloff, so that's good. But The converter puts the "Use Blend Input" checked.
But it isn't exporting a Blend Input. So this stops the Falloff Plugin Node from working correctly.
When disabling this checkbox. The result comes in as it should.
(Maybe you already found out, but i thought it is worth nothing.)

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Could you please be more specific about how exactly do you export and import materials in Max and Maya since there is more that one way to do that?
A sample scenes would be very useful.

[SDSNATCHER]

Yep, a map at 100% totally overrides the value in the spinners.

Hi Joconell,

I came to the conclusion that this is false.
What is happening in 3DsMax, is that they multiply the texture values over the set value/color by a precentage.
So even when the texturemap is set at a 100% and the color is lets say orange.

It will not just show the texture, it will take the base color and then take the texturemap and multiply it by the precentage set.

So setting a glossy value at 0,7 with a texture at 100% will multiply the full texture over the 0,7 grey.

Thought I would share this information with you, maybe it's handy to know.

[joconnell]

Hmm, must check that so. I did a quick test with a checker map with black and white in the glossiness slot. Cheers for bringing it up, I'll give it a closer look again tomorrow.

[jasonhuang1115]

Just want to bump this thread as it's quite awesome as I search the best approach to port materials from Max to Maya.

SDSNATCHER, can you share where are you on this process? Are all the bugs mentioned in this thread being fixed? The workflow you mentioned is very thorough and I am wondering if there is new updates on that workflow?

Thanks.

[emartin8907]

This thread was the most recent when I searched on the subject..

I am curious how SDSNATCHER is doing this with the vraypluginnodes those sound promising how do you access these? I only see the vraypluginnodematerial hmm have to do some digging to figure this out, any help is appreciated!



for anyone curious-
in maya go to create- vray- create from vray plugin - texture - combine color tex. plug the texture into texture. use Texture Multiplier value as you would use the Percentage value in max for your texture so happy this bothered me for so long.

[SDSNATCHER]

Hi Jason and Martin,

Good to hear that this topic is of help.

I haven't had the time to finish this thing, last year. But I can show you guys how far that I've came.

1. First Export a Scene from 3DsMax as a *.VRScene
2. Then in Maya go to Create/V-Ray/Import V-Ray Material from File/
3. Select all Materials and Import them. (I'm still planning to automate step 2 and 3)
4. Maya now extracts all these Vray Shaders from the VRScene.
5. You now have a bunch of Vray PluginNodes in your scene. The Problem is that the Attributes are not layed out as the original VrayMtl.



6. Run my Script.
7. Now the Script analyses the Maya scene, and it will find all the VrayPluginNodes.



!!! The sad thing is that the guys from Chaos Group, never fixed the bug with the following values in this window not being imported correctly. So this step is still needed. you Need to manually check the values in 3DsMax and enter them manually. !!!

8. The script will now automatically convert the VrayPluginNode to the Correct Maya Node. And will put the values you entered manually in place.




9. Now that there are no more PluginNodes to be found, the script will notify you that there are no more PluginNodes and you can do some other stuff.



10. In the background this script analyses the whole node network connected to these VrayPlugin Nodes and removes clutter nodes. (There are alot of nodes coming in that 90% of the time don't serve any purpose). And if possible it will replace a node that only
works with Vray to a Maya equivalent node, that does the same thing. I do this because i'm planning on writing a converter that can convert Vray Shaders to Arnold and Redshift and visa versa. So one Script that convert most of the big render engines to a the alternative.
And it gives much cleaner shading networks.

The screenshots in the Reply are of an old version of the script, all the advanced functionality is in the newer version.
But it was giving me an error when starting it up, and don't have the time now to check where the error was coming from.
Maybe later i can show a quick movie with all the functions that i have working now.


EXTRA:
But I think someone who actually knows some real programming :-p Wrote something that does a better job then my script.

http://www.maxtomaya.com/

I haven't had the time to try it yet, but it looks like it does everything my script does + more, like transferring VRAY lights and also Joints and Skin.
And he probably writes out the raw data from the 3DSMAX scene, in some other format then a VRScene file. So he isn't having the same problems i'm having
with the Chaos Group team not fixing those attribute values being imported correctly. :'( So you don't need to manually check the Highlight Glossiness, Reflection Glossiness Etc.
But I haven't had the time to test this MaxToMaya plugin, so maybe i'm being overly optimistic :-p

[t.petrov]

!!! The sad thing is that the guys from Chaos Group, never fixed the bug with the following values in this window not being imported correctly. So this step is still needed. you Need to manually check the values in 3DsMax and enter them manually. !!!

Do you have a link to forum topic where this has been reported?
If not can you share the exact steps needed to reproduce the problem?