topic Re: Help with V-ray materials? in 3ds Max Forum

Help with V-ray materials?

hawk911 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 15:28:43 GMT

Hi all. I bought a 3d vehicle model (scanline and V-ray), modified it, applied new paint color and decals to make it match my real vehicle and it turned out well.... in the scanline renderer.

But now I need to use the V-ray version of the vehicle in a v-ray scene. So I need to learn how to work with V-ray materials which is all new to me. Furthermore this also means I will have to learn the new slate material editor since the v-ray version of the vehicle was made using that. So it's a learning process on top of another learning process.

I have 3ds Max 2016 and V-ray 3.30.

I have no idea where to start. Right now I'm watching youtube videos.

Also, is the update from 3.30 to 3.6 a free update?

Re: Help with V-ray materials?

RobH2 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 17:57:04 GMT

You'll need to pay your dues and jump in and start climbing the learning curve hill like we all had to do but V-Ray gets easier as you use it. Good thing is, it's mature enough that there are 1000's of tutorials and the documentation for V-Ray V3.x at Chaos Group is as good as any you'll find. The documentation for Next is still kind of behind but you are using V3 anyway.

Having said that, for just not knowing what to do first try this, open your car model file and set your Production Renderer to V-Ray and then 'right-click' in a viewport. Choose 'V-Ray scene converter'. Then, yes, you'll need to get familiar with 'Slate', but go ahead and open 'Slate'.

With the material picker (top left of Slate window...eyedropper icon) pick the converted body of your car. The converter will have tried to do its best to convert the material to a V-Ray material. Now you can start to make some adjustments.

That should get you going.

Edit: also sign-up and participate here, download some materials and reverse engineer them. It's a great way to learn how V-Ray materials are built in Slate. https://www.vray-materials.de/

Re: Help with V-ray materials?

hawk911 — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 20:52:02 GMT

Thank you Rob very much for the help, especially considering this was dealing largely with a 3rd party plugin and thus not a straight autodesk related question.

Re: Help with V-ray materials?

RobH2 — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 21:26:32 GMT

Sure, glad to help. We all know that Max alone cannot solve our needs. We all use a lot of the same software. Reach out again if you need any more help.