Managing textures and paths when pasting-in models

[andy_smith]

Hi there.

Scenario: I'm given a sketchup file ready to render by a friend. It contains a SKP file which has a model with assets, textures, etc. One of the assets is a coffee maker. One of the materials of the coffee maker is a bumpy, glossy plastic. This material is called "coffee maker handle" in V-Ray.

I want to open his file, CTRL-C and then go to my own SKP file of a kitchen and paste his coffee maker in and render it in my scene. I'd like to understand the process of bringing it across and what (if any) related settings files or texture files, etc are associated with this process.

Questions:
1. Are all the materials (including "coffee maker handle" contained within the SKP file, or does the SKP file just refer to them?
2. Are all the settings for the material (like Reflection IOR) stored within the SKP file, or will those be missing when I open up the V-Ray Asset Editor? If they'd be missing, where would they be found? Are they all contained within a V-Ray settings file on my friend's computer?
3. What about the bitmaps that are used for texturing, bump/normal maps etc? Are those standalone jpgs and, if so, presumably he'll need to give me those too?

Essentially, I'm trying to understand the relationship between Sketchup, V-Ray, my PC (and its folders) and the model geometry (SKP?), materials (such as coffee maker handle) and the material settings (Reflection IOR) and any related files/assets (bump map jpgs, etc)

What's a VISMAT/VRMAT and how should they be used?

Thanks,
Andy

P.S. I tried searching for the answers to the above but drew a blank.

P.P.S When I've pasted in several coffee-maker type objects, my simple kitchen scene SKP is now 225mb so it CAN'T only be containing lines and faces - it must have SOME elements of texture, etc in it?

[georgi.georgiev]

Hi andy_smith

Materials are part of the SKP file so when you copy them from one file to another, they are serialized within the file and all parameters remain intact.
Regarding textures, they are referenced to a filepath and V-Ray reads them from there. When sharing projects across different computers, it is best to use the Pack Project function (Extensions > V-Ray > Pack Project), which creates an archived copy of the project and all related assets such as (vrmesh files, HDRs, IES files, and such). On the other hand, if the computers have access to a shared drive, V-Ray will not have any trouble rendering them.

V-Ray also has an auto-resolve functionality, which searches for missing textures in the parent directory of the project. This means that if all textures used reside in the same folder as the SKP file, V-Ray will automatically reference the new filepath. Additionally, you could use the File Path Editor to archive and/or re-path texture used in a project. For more information, please visit https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...le+Path+Editor

VISMAT files are no longer supported (since version 2.x). VRMAT is the format the V-Ray Asset Editor uses to read assets' data (XML). When an asset is saved as a VRMAT file, all related textures are also packed in a Maps folder.

[andy_smith]

This was very helpful - thank you for explaining!

So if I CTRL-C an object that has a material with associated textures/maps and V-Ray material settings from a Sketchup file and CTRL-V it into a new SKP file, it'll paste in the geometry and the materials and the V-Ray settings for those materials? But the textures/maps for that material will be referencing a link/folder. So if it's pasted onto a machine that doesn't have access to that folder, the recipient won't be able to see that texture/map.

So, to get around this, you can either:
1. Send the maps to the recipient machine and use the file-path editor to reconnect V-Ray to the maps in the new machine, or
2. Pack the whole project (which might be undesirable if you're just looking to share a single small object with a few materials and maps rather than the whole project) and unpack it on the new machine, or
3. Save the materials used by the object, as VRMAT files, copy them to the new machine and then import them into V-Ray (deleting or overwriting the "broken" copies of those materials that came in when the object was pasted) and apply them to the appropriate surfaces in the object's geometry? Or
4. Place all maps/textures into the root folder of the recipient machine along with the SKP when pasting the project. That way, V-Ray will find them, even if on the original machine the maps/textures had been located across numerous sources: network drives, multiple HDDs, etc.

Is that right?

It would be very nice to be able to select an object/group/component in one SKP file and pack it up with its materials, settings and maps and unpack it into a new machine but I guess that's a tricky feature to develop! Thanks again!