Materials not showing properly in viewport

[dlangpapR6UXD]

Hi,

I imported a file from Sketchup. The imported materials show fine in the viewport, but if I use a VRay material, it doesn't show in the same amount of detail as the ones imported from Sketchup. I have tried all the options in the "Show Materials in Viewport as" submenu and none of them have corrected the issue. As seen in the attachment, the "show shaded material in viewport" is selected. 

Also, initially I thought the materials added in 3ds Max looked good in the render, but after the render finished, it's showing some really weird texture. 

Screenshots of both viewport as render attached for reference. 

Thanks! 

[RobH2]

Have you looked in the 'Asset Tracking Toggle' (Shift-T) to see if the textures are not being found? If they are reported as missing, reconnect them. If that doesn't help, can you open your textures in Slate and do a screenshot and also show a screenshot of your V-Ray render settings?

[dlangpapR6UXD]

Thank you, I appreciate your answer.

The assets all report as OK or found. And I'm enclosing the material slate editor and render setup screenshots in two messages.

Best,

Dirk L 

[dlangpapR6UXD]

These are the rest of the screenshots.

[RobH2]

You have a lot going on in the 'Layers' of the Frame Buffer. Delete all of the effects and get back to what I attached. Save the file with a new name, close and reopen Max. Let me know what happens. 

If still funky, can you export the file as an 'Archive' and upload it for testing?

[dlangpapR6UXD]

Thanks, I tried that, still same results both in viewport and render.

I'm trying to send the archive file but can't upload as it says the limit is 71 mb. Strangely, the file has 700497 kb...

[RobH2]

Do you have google drive or dropbox? If so, PM me a link and I'll download it. 

[RobH2]

I have the files and will look to see if I can find out anything. Thanks. 

[RobH2]

It's the texture you have on your Dome light. Replace it with the one I attached and it should work. I think I'm ok to share this HDRI as it seems like everyone in the world uses it and has it.... 🙂

Your HDRI is casting a lot of blue light into the scene. You can use it as the background and you can use another one for lighting. 

[dlangpapR6UXD]

Thank you! I tried the HDRI you sent, but I'm not sure I'm being very clear in my questions. The problems are that:

1. The materials from 3ds Max don't look realistic in the viewport. 

So compare the materials that were already in the imported Sketchup file: the house, the roof, the concrete below the pool...with the material applied from 3ds Max: the concrete below the railing and the concrete blocks I put below to compare with the render. As you can see, the 3DS Max materials look blurry. The problem is I don't want to have to render every time I use a new material to see if it looks right as that takes too much time. I should be able to see it pretty clearly already in the viewport.

2. The rendered material doesn't look anything like the same material applied to a block for testing or to the material photo from Materials. The concrete material below the railing is the same as the one of the first block from the right, yet they look very different. I don't think the wavy texture that appears in that area below the railing looks like concrete at all, at least not like the material photo. 

  

Best,

Dirk L.

[RobH2]

There are a number of things that can affect the way materials look in the viewport. One is the size of the texture maps themselves. What size are yours? Also, what setting to you have for the viewport 'Texture Maps?'  Raise that and see if it helps. 

Also, the Max viewport will only look so good. Sometimes you have to find the time to render. You'll never be able to get the viewport to loo as good as a render. To speed renders up and can just region render and it's pretty fast. 

[dlangpapR6UXD]

Thank you, from what I understand you are asking, these are the settings:

Do you have a link to where I can learn more about this so that the materials look as real as possible on the viewport? And, if I understand correctly then, it would be a better idea to use a different program like Sketchup for modeling and then import to 3DS Max just for rendering as that seems to be the strong suit of the software? 

Thanks again,

Dirk L.

[RobH2]

Unless you use a program like Unreal Engine there isn't any program where the default viewport display of materials looks as good as an actual rendering. Any program that does real time ray tracing like UE will have really good viewport material displays. Max, Sketchup, Maya, and most other DCC applications do not advertise that they have viewport material displays that are as good as a rendered frame. That's why most of them have a plugin for a render engine like V-Ray, Corona, etc. If you are using Max because you don't want to render and you just want it for the viewport display, you misunderstand Max and are using it the wrong way if you want photo real output. 

Max and Sketchup both are great modelers. Max is a much more capable and powerful program and can do many, many things that Sketchup can't. While Sketchup has a unique methodology to it's modeling, there is very little that Sketchup can do that Max can't do as well. It's just approached differently and you have to find the one that suits your needs better. You can own just Max and not have Sketchup at all and visualize anything your imagination can come up with. If you just have Sketchup and not Max, you will be limiting your possibilities and potential. Sketchup is great for architecture, furniture and geometrical things. It's not the best for organic objects and it's animation and compositing features don't even come close to what Max is capable of. 

There is nothing wrong with buiding what you need in either program. But if you want the highest quality output and renders, neither of them will give you that from the viewport display no matter how much you crank up the settings. They aren't intended to do that. For that you'll need to use Unreal Engine or something like it, Unity for instance, or you'll need to get Vantage for Max. But, Vantage has some serious limitations too. 

[domo.spaji]

So you are saying that you cant see real diffuse/color texture in Max viewport !?

And in so many words!!!

[RobH2]

Yes you can. Read my post again. You just won't have as high a quality as a real render. You've always been able to see textures in the viewport. But while they are much better than they used to be, they still aren't meant for final production by screen capturing unless you are just using them for rough samples. 

[dlangpapR6UXD]

I see what you are saying and appreciate the detailed reply about 3ds vs Sketchup.

I'm certainly not expecting the 3ds Max viewport to look like the render, but I think we can both agree that the concrete material applied to the surface I pointed out doesn't look good at all and I wanted to see if I can make it look better. 

After all, this here in the screenshot is a similar concrete material and I think it can clearly be seen it's concrete and more or less how it will look without having to render. That's all I'm looking for.

Cheers,

Dirk L.

[CAMedeck · Accepted solution]

In some of the earlier screenshots, I feel like the UVW mapping on the objects is not correct.  You may need to apply a new UVW Map modifier to any objects that are not displaying the material correctly.  It appears you are using Real World Coordinates for your textures, but Sketchup objects don't use that by default.  Also, check your map sizes, the one you included in a screenshot above is tiling at 1 inch square which is pretty small.  

[casey_hawley]

Hi there.

1. The 'wavy' concrete on the block looks like a UV mapping issue.

2. For VRay, try turning "Use full resolution for viewport" on in the map settings near the bottom of the Params rollout.

Good luck!