Editing Material Colours

[stuartmitch]

Hi,

this is my first post here so please go easy on me.

I have used many new software products over the past few years and I have to say that V-ray is the first I have come across that has me absolutely bemused! What makes that painful is the fact that it is promoted as being 'easy to use'. I am quite sure it is easy to use provided one has first spent 10 years learning it. I have read the several posts in this forum about documentation and I have to say that they all seem to be very valid. The lack of a complete manual (and one that explains why you do something rather than just telling you what to do in a given circumstance would be my major gripe).

All that said, from what I can see from my limited use of the product it seems to produce excellent results, albeit ones which, in my case, are very simple, and I am determined to work it out.

One thing you might be able to help me with is is the alteration of textures. I am, I thought quite simply, trying to darken the colour of a stucco texture I have downloaded. I change the colour in diffuse level but after previewing it, it simple returns, in the main layer, to the original colour that I was trying to change. No change is effected to the texture in the SketchUp file nor when I render.

This first image shows the colour prior to making any changes.


The next image shows the colour after making the required colour change.


The next image shows the colour in the Diffuse layer after the preview.


The final image shows what happens after I preview the change in the Main layer.


Hope this all makes sense. Can anyone please advise what I am, clearly, doing wrong?

Cheers....Scotty

[thomthom]

Re: Editing Material Colours

VfSU doesn't support materials you modify using SU's material editor. You must use an image editor and edit the actual texture.

[dkendig]

Re: Editing Material Colours

Hello, welcome to our forums. I would like to point out that we have tutorials on our site, webinars, and online training to help you get started. The little manual that we provide is supposed to be used in addition to the v-ray documentation: http://www.spot3d.com/vray/help/150SP1/ I recommend checking out our support page for v-ray for sketchup: http://software.asgvis.com/index.php...182&Itemid=480

There are many things that are missing from our manual, which we have covered on the forum. One tip I would like to suggest, is that when you have a question about v-ray for sketchup, you should search our forum. I would not recommend using the little search box at the top of the forum though. I would suggest going to google and doing your search there. Just be sure to mention v-ray for sketchup in the search keywords. Our site has been optimized for google searches, and it seems to find things in our forums a bit easier than by searching in the forum search box.

Now, on to your current question. Why isn't the texture changing colors. We don't support SketchUp's odd texture colorization feature. So if you're in the SketchUp material editor, and you edit a material, you should see a color wheel. If a texture is set for the material, you should see the path listed there below the color wheel. We only look at the chosen color OR the set texture, not both. SketchUp does some magic in the viewport that allows them to blend the texture with a given color, but they don't really pass that altered texture off to us in a predictable manner, so we don't support it. If you look in our material editor, you should see a color button and a texture map button for the diffuse color, as well as a few other parameters in our UI. The way we use these values, is we use the color that was chosen, unless there is a texture that is set, so if you set a bitmap texture for the diffuse color, we are going to ignore the color you have set for the diffuse color.

It is possible to blend a color with a texture, you just need to use the texBlend texture type. Then for one of the slots in the texBlend, you choose a texAColor, and set whatever color you would like to use. Then for the other slot, you use a texBitmap and choose the texture file you would like to use. Another way to change a texture's color, is by altering it in an image editor such as Gimp or Photoshop (gimp's free, so I kind of lean towards that one).

I hope that helps

[stuartmitch]

Re: Editing Material Colours

Guys,

thanks so much for the very prompt and very helpful responses. I will take them on board and see if I can get to grips with this great product.

Thanks again.

Cheers....Scotty