proper way to add stochastic flakes with blend

V-Ray V-Ray for Cinema 4D General
1

I would love to be able to simply add just the flakes on top of a vray material. I do this with a blend, but I don’t have a mask output from the stochastic flakes. Is there a preferred method we’re meant to layer this on top? Do i just simply use a fresnel shader to mix it? Additive mode in blend material is destructive so wouldn’t want to go that route. Be nice to have just a output port of a mask of just the flakes so I do not darken the diffuse of the base vray material at all.

Thanks!

2

Hi @chris_phillips If you want to control both Diffuse and Flakes, why not use V-Ray Car Paint 2 Material. You can learn more about it here: V-Ray for Cinema 4D

3

What if i wanted to blend it on top of a refractive material? I know carpaint 2 exists. So I would like to know how folks at chaos suggest mixing in stochastic flakes shader properly.

4

Hi @chris_phillips The workflow would be to add a reflective V-Ray Material as a base material in the V-Ray Blend Material. Then, a V-Ray Stochastic Flakes Material as a first Coat Layer. It should look like this: http://ftp.chaosgroup.com/support/screenshots/Cinema\_4D\_2024-05-14\_09-43-18.jpg

If it is something specific, could you please share with us a reference image so we can observe exactly what you are trying to achieve?

5

I think he mean that he needs only the flakes component on top of another shader

6

@sirio76 has got it. There’s a flakes.osl shader I found that works better because you can pull a mask of just the flakes and layer on top of any material. Although frustratingly doesn’t work in nodes because osl doesn’t work in nodes due to a bug. But it works with classic materials. But regardless - If the stochastic flakes exists, it seems that would be a preferred shader to use being more feature rich than the osl shader.

I assume I got my answer though - it’s not really meant to be isolated and layered on top of every kind of shader. It’s meant to be used as an element to extend a diffuse (no refraction) v-ray material.

7

Hi @chris_phillips Thank you for letting us know! You are correct that some things are meant to work in a certain way, however, we’ll always encourage the artists to experiment with V-Ray. Finding new workflows is what you do best. :slight_smile: