Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

[mjm223]

Is it possible to apply a material to the VRay infinite plane? I tried applying a material (such as grass or asphalt) to the plane directly from SketchUp, but everytime I render I still get the generic grey-colored infinite plane.

I then tried creating a material in the VRay Material Editor and applied it to the plane, but still no change.

Could someone explain step-by-step how to apply material to the infinite plane? Or to simply change its color from something other than grey?

[thomthom]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

Normally you should always apply the materials to the faces inside groups/components.
The exception is infinite planes, you apply the material to the group.

[mjm223]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

Thomthom...you rock!

Thanks a bunch man! ;D

[Beardyfella]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

I have to admit this has always been one of my doupts about vray and say i tried the above solution with no success.

Would i simply apply the material to the newly created infinite plane?

EDIT: Actually, when i try to group the infinite plane with some other random object and apply the material to the whole deal, vray doesn't even starts to render.

[thomthom]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

What version of V-Ray do you have?

[thomthom]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

Is it possible to apply a material to the VRay infinite plane? I tried applying a material (such as grass or asphalt) to the plane directly from SketchUp, but everytime I render I still get the generic grey-colored infinite plane.

I then tried creating a material in the VRay Material Editor and applied it to the plane, but still no change.

Could someone explain step-by-step how to apply material to the infinite plane? Or to simply change its color from something other than grey?

Infinite planes don't have UV mapping - so textures won't work. Only plain colours.

[Beardyfella]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

Oh. That would explain it. My bad. :P

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

Its something that at the moment is the thorn in the Infinite Plane's side. I'm not sure how this is dealt with in VfMax, but I'd like to be able to find some sort of way to get textures on the infinite plane working. Its actually harder than it seams, since there's no vertices really to work with. But then again, it could be pretty easy as well.

Just so you know the infinite plane cannot be used with displacement either. The infinite plane is what is referred to in V-Ray as dynamic geometry, which means that its modified (or in this case created) by V-Ray at render time. Since displacement A) needs triangles to displace (which the infinite plane doesn't have) and B) is dynamic geometry itself, V-Ray can't combine the two.

[Beardyfella]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

As for the UV mapping, an idea would be to bound the texture mapping to the origin of the drawing itself. I'm not quite sure of how this would be possible if the infinite plane isn't positioned at the 0 point of some axis (maybe fetch the plane position, since it has to be one), but i guess it could be used, somehow, as a reference.

[dalomar_cg]

Re: Applying Material to VRay Infinite Plane

What would actually be easier is to use the plane that represents the infinite plane to actually set the UV space. That would allow for a fairly straightforward way of controlling its size as well as position. This also works freely with alternate orientations of the infinite plane. The only "gotcha" is that I have no idea how we'd add that UV information to the intersection with the infinite plane. That part could be easy or hard.