Bunch of questions from me

[Pionier]

Hi all,

I will post my question about vray for modo here if you don't mind, as I was always using vray for max in each studio I have been working I will compare what I can do there to what I would like to do inside modo

- how can I render out mask for each material group/object in the scene, in modo render I just need to add alpha output inside group and this is it, in max I was always using wirecolor render output, how I can do it in vray for modo?

- lightselect pass from 3ds max is not available yet in modo, right?

- when using value textures (spec. bump. gloss, normals, disps) do I have to manually setup its gamma to "linear" like I have to do in modo render?

- vrayextratex pass from 3ds max is not available also at this moment?

- is there any way of adding this little spheres we had in 3ds max material editor for material preview ? somehowe, somewhere

- when switch do vray render, is it possible to hide all tabs related to modo renderer to clean up interface a bit? as well like override modo Render button to force it to render in vray?

- will the vray area light with directional option, and option to apply texture to light available soon?

so far that all questions, apart from that I enjoyed using vray in modo

Regards,
Peter.

[vladimir.nedev]

Hi,

- how can I render out mask for each material group/object in the scene, in modo render I just need to add alpha output inside group and this is it, in max I was always using wirecolor render output, how I can do it in vray for modo?

It's not possible currently, as explained here : http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...-Surface-ID-AA
I will be adding the missing render elements for the 3.00.07 build.
You can work around this by using MODO's renderer to generate the masks.

- lightselect pass from 3ds max is not available yet in modo, right?

No, I will see if I can add it in the next build, it might be a little more complicated than the rest.

- when using value textures (spec. bump. gloss, normals, disps) do I have to manually setup its gamma to "linear" like I have to do in modo render?

Yes, we try to follow exactly what MODO does, so it doesn't get even more confusing. Of course if it is a floating point format, MODO defaults to Linear.
And it also depends on how the image was generated/saved. It might be 8-bit displacement amount, which has the sRGB correction baked in, and you still need to reverse it.

- vrayextratex pass from 3ds max is not available also at this moment?

No, hopefully I can add it for the 3.00.07 build. The texture will probably need to be connected using the Schematic.
The V-Ray for MODO installation folder has a "docs" sub-folder, with a "render elements.txt" file. It will give you information what MODO render outputs works in
V-Ray for MODO, some of them are internally exported to the V-Ray Extra Tex render element. Maybe one of the is what you need.

- is there any way of adding this little spheres we had in 3ds max material editor for material preview ? somehowe, somewhere

Not for the moment. MODO has a good preset system (by default opens with F6), where you can save out parts of the shader-tree together with an image.
Of course modifying a material from there won't update the image. You can probably use a separate scene with a material ball and use V-Ray RT to tune the materials there, before applying them to a master scene.
There have been requests to be able to run V-Ray RT for a predefined scene instead of the current MODO one, with the currently selected material being rendered in there. But this will still show you only one material,
and not all of them. And I am not sure when we will be able to implement this.

- when switch do vray render, is it possible to hide all tabs related to modo renderer to clean up interface a bit? as well like override modo Render button to force it to render in vray?

I don't think there is, and even if we ask The Foundry to enable something like this, I don't know whether they will want to.
I and probably other people find it more convenient not to have to switch the current renderer like in Max. It can get quite annoying, especially when you have to switch between Production/Active Shade.
Other people have complained about the amount of tabs you get, especially on the "Render" item.
It is possible to remove those tabs from there and add them as a "Popover form" to the V-Ray toolbox. It is what the Octane/Maxwell plug-ins do. You still need to have the Render item selected though, for the controls to show up.
So when clicking on the button in the V-Ray Toolbox, it may have to auto-select the "Render" item in the scene for you, thus changing your selection, which might be annoying. Here is how it will look :

- will the vray area light with directional option, and option to apply texture to light available soon?

Yes, I am working on this at the moment.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Pionier]

Hi Vladimir,

thanks a lot for a decent feedback, appreciated it.

only one more question, how exactly someone can get access to nightly build and 3.00.06?

Regards,
Peter

[vmodo]

Hi Peter,
I don´t know how familiar you are with them MODO interface, but when it comes to override modo Render button to force it to render in vray there is a way to do it.
I have MDOD Renderer & V-Ray and Modo Render Window & V-Ray FB under the same buttons via a Tool-Choice Option.

[Pionier]

Hi vmodo,

cool! good to know there is an option to do so, however I'm not so familiar with customization of interface yet
but I will do some research how to do it, thanks for nice post!

[vladimir.nedev]

Hi Vladimir,

thanks a lot for a decent feedback, appreciated it.

only one more question, how exactly someone can get access to nightly build and 3.00.06?

Regards,
Peter

The 3.00.06 build will be uploaded this week or next week, you should receive an e-mail and I will start a new thread here.

As for access to the nightly builds, you need a dongle, since the nightly builds use the dongle licensing and then
you need to write an e-mail to Vlado and support @ chaosgroup.com to request access to them.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[vmodo]

Here is a small and fast tutorial for everyone who is interested:

1. Open The Form Editor from the System Menu and click “Find Form” and than click on the “Render” button in the MODO Interface.

2. In the Form Editor; select Create: “Create Subform“ and give it a name.

3. Select the created Subform and change in the “Common Properties” Style from “Default” to “Tool Choice”

4. Drop the already existing “Render - Command” into the Subform.

5. Right-click the “Render - Command” and duplicate it - Rename the Label, change the Command “render” into “vray.render”

6. Add an Icon.

[John_Do]

It's a great idea to put the V-Ray buttons next to Modo render buttons.

Modo is really powerful when it comes to customisation, it's almost fun . Here is my test, some useful shorcuts with dedicated icons :


(from left to right : Render, VFB, RT CPU Start/Stop, Vray 3dsMax help and DR on/off toggle)

EDIT : you can download the toolbar if you want here

[Pionier]

cool!
that should be the default :P

[John_Do]

Is there any way to display "V-Ray Main" Properties constantly, without have to click on the Render item in the ST ?

[vladimir.nedev]

Is there any way to display "V-Ray Main" Properties constantly, without have to click on the Render item in the ST ?

You mean display them like in the screenshot I posted ? As a pop-over form in the V-Ray Toolbox ?
One approach is to make a script that will select the Render item when you click the button in the Toolbox.

Another is to write a custom implementation of the "item.channel" command. The item.channel command works on
the currently selected items (an optional item can be specified, but I don't think there is an easy and robust way to get the Render item).
So this custom command will first find the Render item in the scene and then set channels on it. But I haven't tried this, and there might be problems with it.

If you want to try it yourself with the "item.channel" command, you need to copy-paste a command from "V-Ray Main", for example

item.channel vray_imgsmp_dmc_maxSubdivs ?

and add

item:polyRender006

Usually "polyRender006" is the item ID of the Render item, but it might not be true for all scenes. So the complete command will be

item.channel vray_imgsmp_dmc_maxSubdivs ? item:polyRender006

When you use this command in a form, the Render item does not need to be selected for it to show up.
If you are using a copy of the "V-Ray Main" form though, it has filters on the currently selected item types, so you will need a new form.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[John_Do]

I meant without having the Render item selected, but you understood the question. Currently the V-Ray settings only appear when this item is selected, like with Modo renderer. But I find that it's not practical at all, because you have always to reselect this element after doing some modifications on the scene, to modify render settings. And it's also available for the "Frame" settings.
I understand the logic of the system but every day it's painful. Click click click

Well, thank you for the explanations Vladimir, I'll try that.

[John_Do]

Oh and a little thing : could you modify the V-Ray Material to display the Material Basic tab instead of the Texture Layers one when selecting ?

[vladimir.nedev]

Oh and a little thing : could you modify the V-Ray Material to display the Material Basic tab instead of the Texture Layers one when selecting ?

What tab gets selected depends on what tab was selected when you changed the item selection. So if you already had the "Texture layers" tab selected, it will leave it there.
I see that the MODO material works as you want in this case, but it doesn't have a "Texture layers" tab at all. I will see if I can modify the config to somehow make it work
with the V-Ray tabs. Maybe I will have to remove the "Texture layers" tab and replace it with our own version with a different ordinal.

Just to be clear, this problem happens when you switch from a group mask or texture item to the V-Ray material, right ?

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[John_Do]

Just to be clear, this problem happens when you switch from a group mask or texture item to the V-Ray material, right ?

Exactly, I didn't notice that by the way.