Need help with Leaves and Vray2SidedMtl

[system]

Hi,

can someone help me with tweaking and explaning the Vray2SidedMtl for my Leaves. (A Max 2017 / 2018-File with my textures is attached)

The only Tutorial i found was this one:

3D tree material tutorial - Leaves — PETER GUTHRIE

But this didn’t helped me very well.

As a starting point I used a sample tree from Evermotion: (SAMPLE TREE)
AM176_017

Evermotion - High quality 3D Models for architecture, 3D projects and games

What I can not understand is why I have to use a Map for the Translucent slot in the Front Material. If I disconnect this Map I get a grey Back Material. But why???

Just to understand that I am on the right track: (for the vray2sidedmtl)

When a light (the Sun) hit the leave, the leave will be transparent. But in shadow areas the leaves will show the front/back Material (depending if you look from top or bottom)

Perhaps some one give me some hints.

Thanks in advance

Carsten

Leaves_Max2017.zip (8.41 MB)
Leaves_Max_2018.zip (8.41 MB)

[Art48]

That’s really cool workflow, gotta save it

[Richard7666]

@Midiaeffects

I most likely would approach this material differently. Not that your setup is wrong, even because Peter is a great artist with lots of experience, but mixing Vray2Sided with VrayMtl using translucency inside doesn’t make much sense to me. Also, as Vray2Sided is feeded with materials, this means it blends also reflection and other stuff, making things trickier than they need to be.

Although my nodetree may seem more complicated, it’s actually much more logical as everything is properly separated. I use Vray2SidedMtl solely with diffuse textures on them, no translucency or reflection whatsoever in the VrayMtl inside. This makes 2 sided work predictably, then I use a VrayBlend to add a reflection on top of the translucent Vray2SidedMtl (for the coat, I make a VrayMtl with white reflection with no fresnel, and use a Fallof in Fresnel mode as a mask). So reflection is not dimmed or mixed in the 2Sided material. Then I use a VrayBumpMtl to add bump to everything so there’s no need to instance maps between front, back and reflection layers. And the last step is the cutout, which similarly to bump, applies to everything underneath so no need to instance maps everywhere. I do that with a trick I’ve learned from Vlado sometime ago, with another VrayBlend with no base material (so it becomes non renderable), and my material is the coat, the mask of the coat is the cutout.

As I said, seems complex, but it’s actually more logical and simple to work with IMO.

But all of this would be waaaay simpler if we had translucency like in Corona or FStorm right inside VrayMtl. All of this could be done with a single VrayMtl.
A translucency similar to the one in Corona material - Requests - Chaos Forum

Regards,
-Eugenio

How’s the render speed on that?

[piotrus3333]

I remember this tutorial by Vlado helped me a lot:
http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/images/stuff/leaf\_tutorial/

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Mediaeffects:
but what do you do when adding a backside material to the leave? Youd need to ad some translucency map there as well no? To have a proper mix.