V-Ray material background image wont change when using 3ds Max

[ivanovkrasimir958]

Does anyone know why the background is not working.

*Title edited for clarity

[RobH2]

You gotta give us a little more info. Your question is like, "why won't my car start." With a bit more info and someone can get you going. What's your goal, what have you tried that hasn't worked, etc. Describe the visual effect you are after so we know what it is that's not working. Stuff like that. 🙂

[ivanovkrasimir958]

I am a beginner. In the tutorials they say that when setting the material you can turn on the background to see the reflection, but for me it doesn't turn on. I tried with a regular cube, but it didn't work. The texture is applied normally. 3ds Max 3DS MAX 2023.2.2, V-Ray 6.10.08, Operating System Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise
CPU type QuadCore Intel Core i5-3470, 3600 MHz (36 x 100) Motherboard Fujitsu D3162-A1 System memory 12203 MB (DDR3 SDRAM)
BIOS type AMI (12/01/2014)
Video card NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 (2 GB)
3D-accelerator nVIDIA GeForce GT 1030
Monitor LG Full HD (Analog) (511NTNH6W759) {2015}
Disk Drive SPCC Solid State Disk (119 GB)
Disk drive TOSHIBA HDWD110 (1 TB, 7200 RPM, SATA-III)

[RobH2]

I realize when you are a beginner it can be a little confusing. You'll learn as you go how to post a question so you can get some assistance. We can't read your mind so the better the info you provide, the better someone can help you. 

I have a few more questions:

1. You say, "when setting the material you can turn on the background to see the reflection." Setting the material where? You can add or set a material to a slot in the Material Editor. You can put a material on an object. You can turn on a background in the icon for the material in the Editor and you can put a background behind your objects in the scene. Where are you trying to see a background? 

2. Can you post a scene file?

3. Can you post some screen shots and include some expanations as to what it's supposed to look like and what you are seeing. 

4. Have you searched Google and YouTube and done any basic tutorials on the feature you are trying to use. There are 1000s of them out there. 

Write back with just a bit more explanation and I'm sure there is a really quick solution. You still have not given enough info to know what background you are trying to see because backgrounds can be in several place. 

[ivanovkrasimir958]

I want to include a background in the icon for the material in the Editor.

 

[RobH2 · Accepted solution]

I think that's kind of changed from older versions of Max. You used to be able to toggle a colored background grid 'on' that would replace the background surface. I think that went away and it wasn't that useful anyway. 

The way it works now is that you see reflections in the material on the sphere. You see reflections of an environment that is invisible around the sphere. You can go to 'Options' and change that background environment as well.

If you change some settings on your wood material, you can begin to see its reflection properties. Change the 'Reflection' color to 'White' and the 'Glossiness' to '1.0' and it will be very reflective. Just know, this is just a rough preview. If you need to make fine adjustments in a material it's more precise to do it in a V-Ray IPR render view so you can see it with your scene lighting. Have that running while you adjust your material parameters. 

Seeing the reflection in the Material Editor preview window slows things down and is not that useful in reality. As you get better with Max, you'll likely not even use that, you'll just tweak 'Reflection' and 'Glossiness' on the fly and look at an IPR render to see how it's coming along. 

So, if you are trying to replace the white background in the material preview with something else, I don't think you can do that anymore. Just tweak your material and look at the reflection behavior in the sphere itself. 

I've attached an image that shows wood as flat and as reflective by changing the parameters I mentioned. 

One final pro-tip, start using the Slate Material Editor. If you really want to learn materials, it's a better place as you can see them laid out better and get a better understanding how they are wired together. It's larger than the Compact one, hence the name, but if you use Slate, your ability to understand how materials are put together and work will gather speed much faster. 

Here is a link. The user posts really good tutorials. She's a little difficult to understand sometimes, but here tutorials are very helpful.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQcCjo9_6Ss

I hope this helps. Write back if you still have questions. 

[ivanovkrasimir958]

thanks

[ivanovkrasimir958]

Sorry to bring this up again. On all other renders the background works, only on vray it doesn't. This means it has not been removed from 3ds max.

[RobH2]

It sounds like it might be a V-Ray issue. Why don't you post on their forum. Chaos Group has a great forum.