I’m using a particle flow system that moves across a plane to generate a ship wake. I’m using distancetex to detect the particles close to the plane to drive an opacity map for the coat layer on a vrayblend shader.
The problem is that if I make changes to the particle flow system, to see any changes appear in render I need to remove that system from the Vraydistancetex list and re-add it.
I’m using Vray 3.60.04 and Max 2018 SP4
Hello,
Could you send the scene to support@chaosgroup.com just to be sure that I have understood you correctly?
Best regards,
Philip
Hi there. I’ve sent the stripped down version via wetransfer. It’s very odd. The render of the distance tex sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. I also just tested it again and the distance tex mask wasn’t lining up with the particles…the mask seems to be delayed behind the particle emission. I also have to disconnect the particle nodes in particle view for the distancetex mask to become active. Other times the distancetex mask just doesn’t seem to render.
Hi. Have you had any luck with the scene I sent ?
Hi, could you please provide us the ticket number or the e-mail you send it from.
Hi. The ticket number is: 384-964-699
Hello,
Particles loaded as distancetex objects are not supported yet. So, it has been added as a new feature request to our bug tracking system with ID: VMAX-7774.
However, there is a workaround for that. You can try using 3ds Max Mesher from compound objects menu which will convert particle systems into meshes without losing the animation sequence. Then the next step is to set
visibility of the particle meshes to 0 (from object properties menu) and add those freshly created meshes to the distancetex list.
Best regards,
Philip
ok thanks. I’ll give that a go 
Thanks. This worked well