V-Ray translation from Enscape

[ted.vitale.jdk]

Hi all,

It's been said multiple times that V-Ray supports many elements in Enscape; Lights, Materials, Enscape Assets, and Linked Assets. However, I'm still finding a lot of missing elements whenever I translate a scene (not to mention those elements don't get parsed unless I start Enscape first.). Custom linked assets are missing (see attached image) glass is still not translating at all, and while yes, the lights do get read in the transfer, they are still not editable or visible in the V-Ray light-lister and do not respond with changes made in Enscape. So at a very simplistic level these things do work, but to say they are fully supported falls well short of expectations. I'd love to share a scene for testing or further coordinate with anyone interested in exploring the shortcomings of the Enscape to V-Ray bridge in real-world workflows.

Attached is an example of a scene containing Enscape Asset Library elements, Linked SketchUp Assets, Lights (standard & IES linked), Materials, Glass etc. You can clearly see what is and is not functioning well in the translation with the side by side renderings.

Thanks!

[diana.milenova]

Thank you kindly for offering to share an example scene. We would be happy to see how the Enscape - V-Ray compatibility is used and working in an actual working project environment. If that is alright, please send the project to our 3D Support team and they will examine the showcase project.

It is absolutely correct that there are some specifics in the V-Ray - Enscape compatibility. Currently, the compatibility is from Enscape towards V-Ray and not the way around. This means that V-Ray can read Enscape materials, some assets, and lights, but Enscape does not support any assets coming from V-Ray.

Keep in mind that those are some of the first steps toward developing an ecosystem, that will improve over time. We would be glad to receive feedback from customers and examples of what can be improved. This will help us pinpoint the most important and common areas that need improvement, and we'll focus on those first.


Additionally, I will list some things that should be kept in mind:

01. Assets become visible in V-Ray after they are rendered once in Enscape. The workflow needs to be repeated with each new Enscape asset that is added to the project. There should be no difference between CPU, Cuda, or RTX. Тhis workflow may seem unnecessary and not entirely convenient, but it is needed due to some specifics related to how Enscape operates with its assets.

Enscape 3D People are unfortunately not currently supported in V-Ray.
Each asset coming from the Enscape library has a dedicated label, which helps recognize the 3D People. Unfortunately, this is not the case for Mac users which may result in some confusion. In order to assist, we offer a full list of such assets, which can be found here: Enscape Compatibility page

Also, note that handling custom assets in the future is already planned

02. If there is a need to edit Sketchup/ Enscape material with V-Ray the Edit in V-Ray option must be selected. Converting host materials to V-Ray is not reversible. Once the material is converted to V-Ray, it cannot be reversed without losing all of the associated V-Ray data. This is created in order to provide stability between Enscape and V-Ray when working with materials.

Enscape Grass and Carpet are not fully supported. Generation of grass or textile strands needs to be manually redone in V-Ray using V-Ray Fur.

03. In SketchUp there may be some differences between lighting when a project is rendered in Enscape and when rendered in V-Ray. This will be most noticeable when rendering interiors. In V-Ray, they are expected to appear darker, and can be adjusted by selecting Auto exposure or adjusting the lights.

04. Escape camera and render settings are not transferred in V-Ray. They need to be manually set.

05. Finally, it is highly recommended for users to avoid switching between Enscape and V-Ray rendering during the project development. Enscape viewport can be used consistently throughout the development process. Once the project is finalized and there is a need for a higher quality render, then the users can switch to V-Ray.

[OzBoz]

Same issue here regarding Enscape proxies not rendering unless I start Enscape first. Not a big deal once you know but seems a bit unneeded and not really efficient. I'm actually not sure if this behaviour is the same when rendering with CUDA/CPU since I use the RTX settings currently.

[diana.milenova]

Thank you kindly for offering to share an example scene. We would be happy to see how the Enscape - V-Ray compatibility is used and working in an actual working project environment. If that is alright, please send the project to our 3D Support team and they will examine the showcase project.

It is absolutely correct that there are some specifics in the V-Ray - Enscape compatibility. Currently, the compatibility is from Enscape towards V-Ray and not the way around. This means that V-Ray can read Enscape materials, some assets, and lights, but Enscape does not support any assets coming from V-Ray.

Keep in mind that those are some of the first steps toward developing an ecosystem, that will improve over time. We would be glad to receive feedback from customers and examples of what can be improved. This will help us pinpoint the most important and common areas that need improvement, and we'll focus on those first.


Additionally, I will list some things that should be kept in mind:

01. Assets become visible in V-Ray after they are rendered once in Enscape. The workflow needs to be repeated with each new Enscape asset that is added to the project. There should be no difference between CPU, Cuda, or RTX. Тhis workflow may seem unnecessary and not entirely convenient, but it is needed due to some specifics related to how Enscape operates with its assets.

Enscape 3D People are unfortunately not currently supported in V-Ray.
Each asset coming from the Enscape library has a dedicated label, which helps recognize the 3D People. Unfortunately, this is not the case for Mac users which may result in some confusion. In order to assist, we offer a full list of such assets, which can be found here: Enscape Compatibility page

Also, note that handling custom assets in the future is already planned

02. If there is a need to edit Sketchup/ Enscape material with V-Ray the Edit in V-Ray option must be selected. Converting host materials to V-Ray is not reversible. Once the material is converted to V-Ray, it cannot be reversed without losing all of the associated V-Ray data. This is created in order to provide stability between Enscape and V-Ray when working with materials.

Enscape Grass and Carpet are not fully supported. Generation of grass or textile strands needs to be manually redone in V-Ray using V-Ray Fur.

03. In SketchUp there may be some differences between lighting when a project is rendered in Enscape and when rendered in V-Ray. This will be most noticeable when rendering interiors. In V-Ray, they are expected to appear darker, and can be adjusted by selecting Auto exposure or adjusting the lights.

04. Escape camera and render settings are not transferred in V-Ray. They need to be manually set.

05. Finally, it is highly recommended for users to avoid switching between Enscape and V-Ray rendering during the project development. Enscape viewport can be used consistently throughout the development process. Once the project is finalized and there is a need for a higher quality render, then the users can switch to V-Ray.

[konstantin_chaos]

Hi Ted,

One thing I wanna add here is that most if not all of the issues you've described are caused by flaws in the file path resolution logic and not the compatibility itself.
Long story short, V-Ray is not communicating with Enscape directly when resolving the paths to external files (assets or textures).
This is done intentionally and removes the requirement of having Enscape installed and licensed in order to render the project in V-Ray.
At the same time it seems we have holes in the path resolution logic on our end.
This is something we'll try to recreate and fix.
If you can share an example model, it might also help. I'm just not sure how you usually pack and share external assets for your Enscape projects but we'll also need those...

As for the light sources:
It is possible for us to start listing the Enscape lights in the asset editor with the option to 'promote' them.
Do you think this makes sense?

Konstantin

[Julie Hsieh]

Hello, I am testing in Vantage I can see textures in the editor being loaded correctly, but several are not rendered in Vantage. The same when rendered in Vray Frame Buffer.

[Julie Hsieh]

Screen shots to show texture loading errors: In a SketchUp / Enscape project, there will usually be the default texture paths saved by SketchUP and ones that are edited in Enscape will be specific paths set by the user. I can see how this mess makes it difficult for Vray to resolve. Perhaps to use Vray in SketchUp, we will need a resource collector or mapping path dialogue like in 3Ds Max that resolves path problems? SketchUp doesn't seem to have such a tool. Maybe it exists as a plug-in/ extension but I have not looked into this.

[Julie Hsieh]

I thought about this some more and its occurred to me this is probably also related to SketchUp messing up directory paths when we use the purging function. This was resolved as the reason when I had issues with proxies rendering purple. Its difficult to avoid using SketchUp purging, so going forward, I still don't see myself using VRay as an easy solution for more refined higher fidelity visualization. I wish there was a way for VRay to retain the paths of maps without being affected by the native purge function.

[OzBoz]

Perhaps to use Vray in SketchUp, we will need a resource collector or mapping path dialogue like in 3Ds Max that resolves path problems?

There is such a tool, Extentions > V-Ray > File Path Editor. At least I think that is what you wanted. I never use the Sketchup purge option, only the one from V-Ray itself. If you use the one from Sketchup it will also delete materials needed for two-sided materials etc.