I would love some form of default material system similar to Mental Ray materials.
It would be great to be able to create matte/shadow materials, chrome, glass and a few basics quickly.
For matte/shadows, we are adding a button to the V-Ray toolbar to turn the selected objects into shadow catchers.
We also had a preset system for the VRayMtl in a branch in the code tree done by one of our interns, unfortunately it didn’t go anywhere. It would be a good idea to finish that work, I guess.
Best regards,
Vlado
It absolutely would be.
I used Vray years ago, then switched to MR when I went solo for cost reasons, and was only able to afford vray a year or so ago… although I definitely made the right choice, I still feel there are misconceptions about Vray being “easier out of the box” than MR.
Obviously you have mostly addressed this with the presets system; however, materials remain an issue.
Even just populating the default material editor with some basic materials would help in the meantime.
Anyway, thanks for listening, I appreciate it.
Damn that would be nice!
That’s why I purchased SIGERSHADERS V-Ray Material Presets Pro | Max - Siger There is also a free one somewhere that has the basics that you are looking for.
That saves me a lot of time, thank you!
glorybound - there is no free version.
Before I purchased it I know I was using some pulldown menu material preset, which I thought was from the same developer.
When my clients ask for such a thing, I point out that they can easily save materials in Max’s Material Library system. Simply save one out called Basic Materials, and every time you make a material you think may be used on a regular (or not so regular) basis, save it into the Library. It will be right there whenever you want it in the future!
I think 'd rather have Vlado’s team spending their precious time doing stuff we cannot do!
And honestly, making your own materials is a good thing on so many levels…
Just my .02$…
-Alan
It would probably take them about ten minutes, and would save so much time.
Every time I replace or reinstall max or use different machines I don’t want to piss about with libraries.
It’s not ass effecient as you are making out; and I’m not asking for a full library - just some basic things to get cracking.
Back to that old discussion on how much an artist should be able to understand of what is going on under the hood. Personally I have no desire whatsoever to understand all the intricacies of physical material creation although I agree that it is fun, but regardless of your position on this it is ultimately a question of where you want to spend your time, setting up the picture or optimizing the settings.
There will be a day when materials become so advanced, like vrscans, that you’ll buy them instead of creating them. A decade ago I thought we would reach that point in five years or so. 
I don’t think this is about understanding anything; it’s about having a few presets loaded in for quickly roughing out shots and lighting conditions.
If I’m honest, I pretty my copy and paste decent materials and objects once I’m going - but I want to be able to start throwing basic shapes around and lighting conditions.
I want a chrome material so I can throw it on to a teapot to test my HDRIs etc.
This has nothing to do with the final project; almost every single other aspect of computing has default templates built in - the debate has been had already. Vray needs them as well.