Random questions so far

[tmbarker531]

Just wanted to list out a handful of random questions we've come up with since we started using v-ray for unreal:

1. Will v-ray's light bake work when using different sublevels as lighting scenarios? We use lighting scenarios in most of our projects to cycle through options with built lighting, when I test this it looked like the lightmaps all baked normally but then it stopped and they weren't loaded into the build data and the next light scenario never started, not sure if this was an issue on our end or if it's an unsupported feature.

2. Is there a way to better control the lightmap resolution sizes of all the geometry that's imported with v-ray? I've tried tweaking the min max range thats set to 0 and 1 by default in the import dialog box but the actual range always ends up between 16 and 1024, I want the range to be 64 and 1024. (It's not that big of a deal to switch them with the bulk edit feature...but it would be nice if I could skip that step)

3. Is there any kind of reimport feature like in datasmith? It seems like it would be possible if everything is being saved out as a vrscene file...is there a way to reload that file and have it update the geometry and materials in the scene?

4. Are there any known issues with using v-ray's light bake when using source control connected to perforce?

5. Is there a way a start a v-ray bake without using your computer as the host? Unreal's swarm has a feature that allows you to turn off the host computer from computing so only the other swarm agents are working.


So far we're really happy with the quality v-ray brings to unreal! At the moment we don't have any use for rendering out raytraced images (we still just use max) or using IPR in unreal...The most useful thing by far is the material conversion and the v-ray bake!

Thanks in advance for any help

Tyler

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi, Tyler

Thank you for your feedback. We really appreciate it!

1. Will v-ray's light bake work when using different sublevels as lighting scenarios? We use lighting scenarios in most of our projects to cycle through options with built lighting, when I test this it looked like the lightmaps all baked normally but then it stopped and they weren't loaded into the build data and the next light scenario never started, not sure if this was an issue on our end or if it's an unsupported feature.

In the tests I have done V-Ray Bake does work with lighting scenarios. You just have to make sure that you have the correct lighting scenario loaded in the Levels setting.

2. Is there a way to better control the lightmap resolution sizes of all the geometry that's imported with v-ray? I've tried tweaking the min max range thats set to 0 and 1 by default in the import dialog box but the actual range always ends up between 16 and 1024, I want the range to be 64 and 1024. (It's not that big of a deal to switch them with the bulk edit feature...but it would be nice if I could skip that step)

Currently these are the only options to somewhat tweak the resolution. If you only modify the small number that should increase/decrease the minimal texture resolution. If that doesn't work than there may be a bug and we will have to investigate.

3. Is there any kind of reimport feature like in datasmith? It seems like it would be possible if everything is being saved out as a vrscene file...is there a way to reload that file and have it update the geometry and materials in the scene?

The current workflow is the following:
- delete the the assets you want to reimport both in the level and in the content browser (this is also valid for materials if you what to reimport them. If the the materials are not deleted from he content browser they will be assigned to the newly imported meshes automatically)
- import the newly created .vrscene - V-Ray will check for similar assets and will skip the ones that are already in the Content Browser and will import the new ones.

4. Are there any known issues with using v-ray's light bake when using source control connected to perforce?

We haven't really tested the Source Control functionality in Unreal so cannot say if there are imitation or not. Will have to check and inform you at a later time.

5. Is there a way a start a v-ray bake without using your computer as the host? Unreal's swarm has a feature that allows you to turn off the host computer from computing so only the other swarm agents are working.

Currently there is no such option but it is in the TO DO list and we will add it in future builds.

Best regards,
Alexander

[tmbarker531]

Hi Aleksander,

Thanks for all the info!

We did some more testing and unreal seems to crash everytime I use v-ray bake with scenes that are set up using source control, specifically using Perforce. It will go through and render our each atlas without a problem, but once it starts loading them into the scene something happens and the file crashes. One of my coworkers thinks it may be because perforce makes all the files in the project folder read only...I don't really know enough about how source control works to say, but we use source control for all our projects! The work around has just been to make a copy of the file and migrate the level and build data back into the master file once its done.

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi, Tyler

Sorry for the late response. Glad to hear you have found a workaround for the source control. We are investigating that issue and will write back as soon as we have any news on the matter.

Best regards,
Alexander