Hi guys,
I was watching through some tutorials the other day and I happened to have watched a Sketchup video.
I noticed they have a wealthy material library that comes with vray and i was wondering if i could get that same library or why the 3dsmax version doesnt come with one?
I know i can get materials from the likes of vray-materials.de etc but it would be easier if I didnt have to open up lots of different libraries all the time and having some base materials.
Thanks
Yeah, that has been requested for many years. You can invest in https://www.sigerstudio.eu
But is almost starting to get silly, Vray for Sketchup has it and Corona for Max has it. Not only would it be very convenient but perhaps it could also be a platform for sharing materials between users.
I think VRayScan might be Chaos’s solution. I stopped using vray-materials.de years ago because most of the materials were not good or missing bitmaps. If Corona has it then V-Ray now has it, however, you’ll have to buy a license.
I haven’t tried but I don’t think you can just drag in a material from the Corona library and render, I don’t think all functionality of Corona materials is supported. At least not yet.
Wasn’t that a feature of the last V-Ray update?
I just don’t think it would hurt to include some materials as standard - not to the level of vray scans but just something since vray scans isnt particularly cheap either.
I’m still starting off so vray-materials.de is ok for me to learn but i know what you mean about them not being very good, I have to make a fair amount of adjustments here and there but I haven’t come across missing bitmaps yet.
I suppose one good point to it is i’m learning how to make some stuff my self.
I agree it’s a good idea, but it’s hard to imagine it ever happening at this point. It seems like with Corona becoming part of the Chaos family that it’s almost doubled down on their differences. Corona is (in my opinion) a little more user friendly and responsive to forum posts and requests, VRay is more deep diving into new tech and less responsive particularly to UI oriented stuff (VFB2, lightmix, etc.). Not a bad thing, actually makes sense considering it’s the same owner with very similar products.
I would be happy with just populating the material editor with a bunch of basic settings, like glass, metal, matte, plastic, chrome. Not even with maps - just so you have some things to start throwing on objects as you develop a scene.
Agreed on the request / surprise/confusion on the lack here for Max users. I always assumed it was just to be nice to those third parties that sell Max material libraries. However, it does make it hard when comparing efforts between users in different departments, when our SketchUp users have a material library available at hand by default and us Max folks are making them from scratch (or at least manually building our own libraries, etc.) I still hold out hope for one day getting at least a few basic material components converted from the .vrmat files working via script: Convert VRMat xml files to 3dsMax VRayMtl materials. - General - Chaos Forum
V-Ray can team up with someone else, offer a standard library with plenty of options to upgrade to more advanced materials.
The only third party library I’m aware of is Siger, and although I’m sure these are very nice materials, they require some of Siger’s own plugins and are endless variations of a much smaller pool of base materials. No critique intended.
More than 95% of materials not requires custom plugins 
Also all metal libraries include an alternative (latest library) without plugins (compatible with V-Ray NEXT GPU). Except Pearl materials (used ThinFilm plugin - can be replaced with V-Ray OSL shader with similar parameters).
+ New materials are constantly created (currently, some are in the testing stage).
I have tried many material libraries.
I have to say that the best so far is quixel’s. Works great with 3ds max. VRay scans was a big disappointment to me. I started using it at first, but once I bought quixel I never looked back. My license of vray scans is about to run out, and I will probably not renew it. I think Vray scans is great for industrial design specific objects at the scale of a human. That’s it. Period.
In my industry I deal with a very wide array of material needs. And for the price it is not worth it at all to me, at least in its current integration.
The fact that vray does not offer a base of shaders for 3ds max, is very disappointing.
I used to use octane, which has an amazing basic material library, but has a horrendous max integration.
If we could have:
- metal
- smooth plastic
- basic skin
- basic car
- water
that would be a good start. Or even simpler, whatever Rhino users have, you would make a lot of people happy.
These take 5 minutes to set up, and 10 seconds to save to your own material library, I don’t get it. I’d rather have something I can’t make myself like a new VFB (here’s to hoping it’s coming in Update 3 hint hint).
I quite enjoy creating my own material library, however I can see the appeal of having one a legit library toolset. Collector is great to use, but that’s more for entire assets not just materials.
For me, VRayScans being locked via licensing and not really being able to use the image data outside of VRay was kind of the nail in the coffin, especially when I can get pretty good results from Substance and Megascans, FriendlyShade, Poliigon, etc, all of which can be used in any PBR platform. VRayScans are good but just not flexible enough.
@uforis agreed, exactly my experience.
I agree that it doesn’t take long but for people starting out just some basic starter materials would be very helpful, but its also just more principle of sketch up already having (in my opinion) and nicer interface but then also get a bunch of materials. I am a lot more confident making materials now but when I first started it was very confusing to me and so would take a fair while.
I have no problem doing very realistic materials and am building my own library.
but it is clumsy and it’s a lot of work.
I love working with vrscans but usable materials are limited, if you’re not working on Cars and small objects.
I would love having a large vray material library that is created by professionals, having highly realistic and accurate materials on their mind.
It would just make every day work easier and then you can always tweak the materials like you need them after all.
But having to go through a shader look development mostly all of the time is just time consuming. And having to use a plugin to organise everything is a little clumsy, as integration is not the best.
So a vray material library would be highly appreciated.
I have to say though, that e.g vfb2.0 is much higher on my wish list 