Vray Unreal demo length and....

[fixeighted]

Just a query firstly about the length/funtionality of the demo.
I need to present a test case so wanted to ask this initial question - how long is the demo and what are its limitations?

Also, I need to know if there are obvious pitfalls or limitations/unsupported features that I should be aware of; or is it as seamless as the marketing suggests?.
My project is a dense 3d model of a concert hall, both the exterior and the interior, comprising many details
and using railclone for the seating and other elements. No other plugins at this stage.
I've not used Unreal before and won't actually be handling the bigger side of the project's development, though
I do need to know the details of the pipeline to avoid nasty surprises

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi fixeighted

Thank you for your interest in the product!

how long is the demo and what are its limitations?

The trial period for all V-Ray products is 30 days from the day you activate your licenses. There isn't any difference in any way between the trial and standard version.

Also, I need to know if there are obvious pitfalls or limitations/unsupported features that I should be aware of; or is it as seamless as the marketing suggests?.

The general rule for flawless experience is to have a simple material setup - complex materials will not import as expected and the final result between the 3Ds Max and UE will be different. Also it depends on what are you aiming for to do in UE. Are planning for light baking or raytracing or both? For light baking you will have to unwrap every asset with proper UVs for the lightmaps. You can check here the quick start for preparing your 3Ds Max project for light baking: Preparing a Project for Light Baking. If you plan to use ray-tracing entirely you don't have to do the unwrapping process. If you plan to use both you will have to do the unwrapping. Since manual tweaking of materials and unwrapping is very tedious we created a simple MAX script that unwraps, bakes complex texture graphs to single textures and simplifies materials: V-Ray Material Optimizer.
You can also check out the following threads: Benefits of VRay for Unreal, 3D Workflow
Finally you can read all about the supported features for V-Ray for Unreal in the docs page here: Supported Features. If there is a feature or functionality that isn't listed it is not supported.

My project is a dense 3d model of a concert hall, both the exterior and the interior, comprising many details and using railclone for the seating and other elements. No other plugins at this stage.

Railclone and Forest pack are currently not supported on import. A workaround for the moment is to convert it to a static geometry(e.g. Editable poly) it should import just fine.


Hope this answers all your questions but if you have any additional ones don't hesitate

Best regards,
Alexander

[fixeighted]

Thanks for that Alexander.
The end use of this will be the rather new approach of live action integration, similar to what's used on The Mandalorian, though on an indie scale.
So in that case I it will be raytraced, which cuts down on the work of unwrapping, which is good.
In any case, I'll dig into those links and see what some tests can accomplish.

No doubt I will have other questions as they occur

[fixeighted]

I just found that using the optimiser script, when set to 'selected only' it does not do this but clears all the other maps from the viewport.
They cannot be reset to be viewable, as that functionality is stripped from all materials, including any newly created ones.
They do render but obviously this is not desirable behaviour and unworkable with.
The only workaround it seems is to load the scene so many times to extract exactly what I need, then load it
to reapply everything and have it show up as it should.
So it's useful for sure, but a bit broken in Max 2021.

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi fixeighted,

That is strange behaviour for the script. We will look into it and let you know for new developments. Can you please try it on an older version of Max - 2020 for example to see if replicates there as well?

Best regards,
Alexander

[fixeighted]

In Max 2020, when I try to create the optimiser as either a quad entry or a button I get firstly a 'Mouse Error' which says 'can't write mouse'.
I have never seen this error before so have no idea what it relates to. The options to proceed are yes/no - 'yes' does nothing and so 'no' is the only choice and this closes the dialogue.
This did not occur when installing to 21.

When I run it in 20 it does create a map, although it is black (the scene is lit) and also, unlike in 21, it does not open the frame buffer to show the map rendering during the process.
It still clears all the other bitmaps and breaks them, so they cannot be shown in the viewport. This is again true for any newly created materials, so no bitmaps show any more.

With the amount of objects I need to run this on it unfortunately makes it useless
Are there any other products that do this in a proper way that you know of?
Or can anyone fix this script maybe? I understand it's just a little experimental thing so no worries if not - I'll find another method.

[Alexander.Atanasov]

Hi fixeighted,

In Max 2020, when I try to create the optimiser as either a quad entry or a button I get firstly a 'Mouse Error' which says 'can't write mouse'. I have never seen this error before so have no idea what it relates to. The options to proceed are yes/no - 'yes' does nothing and so 'no' is the only choice and this closes the dialogue. This did not occur when installing to 21.

Cannot seem to reproduce it. Can you please send a video showcasing this?

When I run it in 20 it does create a map, although it is black (the scene is lit) and also, unlike in 21, it does not open the frame buffer to show the map rendering during the process.

Also cannot reproduce it. Can you send us a sample scene where it is reproducible?

It still clears all the other bitmaps and breaks them, so they cannot be shown in the viewport. This is again true for any newly created materials, so no bitmaps show any more.

After the script finishes it changes the Display to object color. Can this be what are you experiencing? To see back textures you should switch to Material and then sometimes you have to go and refresh the "Show in viewport" option for materials.
https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1sinl...H0zjpKldn0jASP

Best regards,
Alexander

[fixeighted]

Yes, it was the switch to object colour, thanks for that pointer - I never have used that particular option so would never have guessed. But anyway, why would I want that to happen without notification? Not a good idea imo.
I notice that it also saves a copy of the scene, which I do not want. This is without having set 'HOLD', which in any case is not a save as you know.

Otherwise....
It seems on reloading the file, the 'mouse error' has gone.
The reason it rendered as black I can't now reproduce but I have the bitmap, so it certainly happened
The reason it did not render at all is that the bitmap used was already simply a diffuse map, so nothing needed to be done.
Running it on a Bercon tile does as expected.
So that's all good news, as soon as I figure out why it's rendering the tile incorrectly on a very simple object, as the attached images show.

Thanks for your time in sorting it out.

EDIT: Don't worry, I sorted it out...just seems a little glitchy but I can manage.