The two most missing things drag down V-Ray for Modo

[Robert]

If work long term with V-Ray in Modo there are two things that will make things harder and harder to solve.
When shading V-Ray doesn't support vertex colors. Now they are essentially used on procedural work. You could simple paint something or create a cavity map, or when importing procedural stuff like trees, there are tons of vertex map channels, you simple can't use with V-Ray.
The other thing are normal maps. While Modo has zero problems having normals be support by projection maps, V-Ray can't .You may want to project a planar texture to a surface, with a normal map to give it a 3d effect, forget it with V-Ray. Thats so frustrating and there has been no step to improve that for years.
Sorry, for that rant. But by paying for V-Ray Version I thought I get the possibility of updates.

[vladimir.nedev]

The other thing are normal maps. While Modo has zero problems having normals be support by projection maps, V-Ray can't .You may want to project a planar texture to a surface, with a normal map to give it a 3d effect, forget it with V-Ray. Thats so frustrating and there has been no step to improve that for years.

Which build are you using ? I made some changes to this in the nightly builds.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Robert]

Latest build was 2020.02.17
there are more, but no changes. Will try latest next.

[vladimir.nedev]

Oh, ok, so you have the changes I think.
Can you attach a simple example scene that shows the issue ?

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Robert]

It seems to work, but less as a normal, more like a slight grey map. You see the difference in my example scene, with texture it becomes invisible. Still have to check that in my more complex example scenes.
Here the download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5j3cjo9q56...rchiv.zip?dl=0

[Robert]

[boyan]

Hey, Robert,

Thx for the post and feedback, We've added the improvement to the normal map and you can check it. There is a difference between V-Ray 3x and V-Ray Next builds and Next looks sharper; About the projection support, I think V-Ray is working correctly.

Cheers

[Robert]

I only use Vray Next here.

The sharpness factor seem to be x2. So increasing normal map factor twice does get very close. However this factor is only available in the base shader. V-Ray seems to overwrite these factor for with the top most shader in a blender shader. So it doesn't work when having multiple normal maps with different mapping. Currently there is no normal map multiply on a bitmap level.

[vladimir.nedev]

I don't understand what the issue is.

If I switch to using an UV map (the mesh seems to have one) for the texture locator of the normal map texture, results are pretty similar to using Linear/Cubic projection.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Robert]

As you see in the image compare left is UV, right is planar map. The effect is not identical. Its like with UVs the effect is twice, but it should be identical.

[vladimir.nedev]

The left one uses Cubic projection in the file you sent me.

Can't you just increase the normal map multiplier to get a similar result ?
Maybe there is something not quite right with the Planar projection derivatives, but it's certainly not entirely broken.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Robert]

Yes that's possible, but as written above, there is no way doing that with a texture or with constant, it always need a shader. There is also no way to increase the amount of normal mapping in the texture node. This all becomes a problem when blending shaders, which was the reason of my post.

[vladimir.nedev]

You should avoid blending materials using "group masks". It can lead to other issues too.

The normal map multiplier is part of the material internally, so I can't expose it on any particular texture layer.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Robert]

Yeap I know. At some point it all leads to nodal shading. Still not perfect in Modo.

[vladimir.nedev]

You can use multiple Shader items instead, it basically creates a V-Ray Blend Material.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev