Still having issues with any vray material from the included library browser contains a map. I assign for instance “Steel Brushed 5cm” to an object. Then I use the eyedropper to put the material into the material editor so I can check out it’s parameters and etc.
1) The material does not have the name “Steel Brushed 5cm”. It is just a number #XXXXX. Unfortunate.
2) bigger issue. the material contains a map “assets\Metal\Brushed_03_hires_srgb.tx”. If I click on the view image button for that map Nothing Is displayed. Like the given path for the map is not recognized. The map will not open up in a pop up window so I can see what it looks like.
3) I cannot work with the .tx file format. Can’t open it in photoshop. It is common to want to make adjustments to maps. Why use such an inconvenient format?
These seem like shortcomings and problematic things that have been part of the included material library since it was added. Can these be fixed or maybe I just don’t get how to find the maps and open a .tx file?
I would also like to know more of the miracle of “tx”. Is it something that supports excellent memory support on grafic boards and CPU rendering? Is there a bidirectional converter about tx?
.tx files can be opened as tiff in photoshop.
You will lose the mipmaps, however, and will need reconversion later.
If you haven’t tried .tx before, you should *really* give it a go.
On our part, we should have pushed for this more over the years (before .tx, we used tiled, mipmapped EXRs, for the best part of a decade, now.), rather than leaving it as a semi-obscure tickbox in a right mouse click utility.
The difference with interactivity in the DCC app and memory and speed at rendertime is night and day, no less.
Read here (theory) and here (quick benchmark) as to why.
In any event, google is rife with literature about the format: don’t take my word for it.
Thank you Lele. I now understand why .tx is used. I assumed there were benefits, but did not know what they were.
Do you just rename the map to have a .tif file extension in order to open in photoshop?
Is there a reason that the Mat Editor view image button for these maps does not work? Possibly because the system does not know which resolution of the mipmap set to open?
That’s Max, i’m afraid.
Try and bring the material to the editor first, and you’ll see it works better.
That’s because materials in the editor can have any name, whereas once applied Max decides which name they should get to be unique.
Workarounds to this aren’t quite obvious, unfortunately.
2) bigger issue. the material contains a map “assets\Metal\Brushed_03_hires_srgb.tx”. If I click on the view image button for that map Nothing Is displayed. Like the given path for the map is not recognized. The map will not open up in a pop up window so I can see what it looks like.
This is because we useMax’s own methods, which don’t know what to do with a .tx file.
I’ve asked the devs if they could take a look for potentially more manageable solutions than rewriting Max’s Image I/O from scratch, but so far there were none readily available.
Do you just rename the map to have a .tif file extension in order to open in photoshop?
You can do that, or just “open as…”.
N.b. While perhaps obvious, only through either saving as tiff, or opening in max renamed as tiff extension, you’d lose the mipmaps.
If you just “open as…” to see the texture, nothing will be lost.
Also, the only “mip” ever opened on image display, normally, is the highest one, the one at native resolution.
I’m not sure, right now, as to any application which allows to see the created mips laid out in their atlases.
I’m unsure of how to “bring the material to the editor”? As far as I can tell one must first apply it to an object selected in the scene and then, use the mat editor eye dropper to pick that material. Not sure of any other way to get the materiel from the browser into the mat editor?
Nightlies access is free to all users, feel free to try one out.
The method is in place to help alleviate this issue of wild naming (no different than creating a new map or material in a long-worked-on scene. “Map #1234567” is a common unique name.), besides general QoL.
