REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

EASTERN VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND ALLIED DISCIPLINE
TACLOBAN CITY

COMP 423:
CADD FOR ARCHITECTURE

RESEARCH NO. 02

VRAY MATERIAL SETTINGS

SUBMITTED BY:
MARVIN N. GONZALES
BS ARCHITECTURE 4A

SUBMITTED TO:
AR. JULIUS TADEO, UAP
INSTRUCTOR

01 APRIL 2019
V-Ray VRscans Phoenix FD

/ V-Ray for 3ds Max Help / Materials

V-Ray Material | VRayMtl

This page provides information on the V-Ray Material.

Page Contents

Overview
Basic Parameters Rollout
Reflection
Refraction
Fog
Translucency
Self-Illumination
BRDF Rollout
Options Rollout
Maps Rollout
Notes

Overview

The VRayMtl is a very versatile

material that allows for better
physically correct illumination
(energy distribution) in the scene,
faster rendering, and more
convenient reflection and
refraction parameters. This
material can be easily set up to
simulate a huge variety of
surfaces from plastics to metals
to glass and more by adjusting a
handful of parameters.

Furthermore, with the VRayMtl

you can apply different texture
maps, control the reflections and
refractions, add bump and
displacement maps, force direct
GI calculations, and choose the
BRDF for how light interacts with
the surface material.
© Sonny Ferian

UI ||Material Editor window|| > ||V-Ray Toolbar|| > V-Ray Material

Paths: Material/Map Browser > button
 Materials > V-Ray > VRayMtl

Basic Parameters Rollout

Diffuse – Specifies the diffuse color of the material. Note the actual diffuse color of the
surface also depends on the Reflect and Refract colors. This parameter can be mapped
with a texture in the Maps rollout. See the Energy preservation parameter below.
Roughness – Used to simulate rough surfaces or surfaces covered with dust (for
example, skin, or the surface of the moon). This parameter can be mapped with a texture
in the Maps rollout. For more information, see the Roughness Parameter below.

Example: Roughness

This example demonstrates the effect of the Roughness parameter. Note how, as
the Roughness increases, the material appears more "flat" and dusty.

Roughness = 0.0 Roughness = 0.3 Ro

(regular diffuse material)

Reflection
Reflect – Specifies the amount of reflection and the reflection color. Note that the
reflection color dims the diffuse surface color based on the Energy preservation mode
option. This parameter can be mapped with a texture in the Maps rollout. For more
information, see the Reflection Color example below.
HGlossiness – Highlight glossiness. Determines the shape of the highlight on the
material. Normally this parameter is locked to the Reflection glossiness value in order
to produce physically accurate results. This parameter can be mapped with a texture in
the Maps rollout.
RGlossiness – Reflection glossiness. Controls the sharpness of reflections. A value of
1.0 means perfect mirror-like reflection; lower values produce blurry or glossy reflections.
Use the Subdivs parameter below to control the quality of glossy reflections. This
parameter can be mapped with a texture in the Maps rollout. For more information, see
the Reflection Glossiness example below.
Fresnel reflections – When enabled, the reflection strength becomes dependent on the
viewing angle of the surface. Some materials in nature (glass, etc.) reflect light in this
manner. Note that the Fresnel effect depends on the index of refraction as well.
Fresnel IOR – Specifies the IOR to use when calculating Fresnel reflections. Normally
this is locked to the Refraction IOR parameter, but it can be unlocked for finer control.
This parameter can be mapped with a texture in the Maps rollout. For more
information, see the Fresnel Option example below.
Affect channels – Allows the user to specify which channels will be affected by the
reflection of the material.
Color only – The reflection will affect only the RGB channel of the final render.
Color+alpha – The material will transmit the alpha of the reflected objects instead
of displaying an opaque alpha.
All channels – All channels and render elements will be affected by the reflections
of the material.
Subdivs – Controls the quality of glossy reflections. Lower values will render faster, but
the result will be noisier. Higher values take longer but produce smoother results. Note
that this parameter is available for changing only when Use local subdivs is enabled in
the Global DMC Settings.
Max depth – Specifies the number of times a ray can be reflected. Scenes with lots of
reflective and refractive surfaces may require higher values to look right.
Reflect on back side – When enabled, reflections will be computed for back-facing
surfaces too. Note that this affects total internal reflections too (when refractions are
computed).
Dim distance – Specifies the distance after which the reflection rays will not be traced.

Dim fall off – Specifies the fall off radius for the dim distance.

Example: Reflection Color

This example demonstrates how the Reflect color parameter controls the reflectivity of
the material. Note that this color also acts as a filter for the Diffuse color (e.g. stronger
reflections dim the diffuse component).
 Reflect = Black. Reflect = Medium Gray. Re
(0, 0, 0) (128, 128, 128) (2

Example: Fresnel Option

This example demonstrates the effect of the Fresnel reflections option. Note how the
strength of the reflection varies with the Fresnel IOR of the material. For this example,
the Reflect color is pure white (255, 255, 255).

Fresnel reflections = Enabled Fresnel reflections = Enabled Fresnel refle

Fresnel IOR = 1.3 Fresnel IOR = 2.0 Fresnel

Example: Reflection Glossiness

This example demonstrates how the RGlossiness and HGlossiness parameters

control the highlights and reflection blurriness of the material.

RGlossiness/HGlossiness = RGlossiness/HGlossiness = RGlossi

1.0 0.8
(perfect mirror reflections)
Refraction

Refract – Specifies the amount of refraction and the refraction color. Any value above
zero will enable refraction. Note that the actual refraction color depends on the Reflect
color as well. This parameter can be mapped with a texture in the Maps rollout. For
more information, see the Refraction Color example below.
Glossiness – Controls the sharpness of refractions. A value of 1.0 means perfect glass-
like refraction; lower values produce blurry or glossy refractions. Use
the Subdivs parameter below to control the quality of glossy refractions. This parameter
can be mapped with a texture in the Maps rollout. For more information, see the
Refraction Glossiness example below.
IOR – Specifies the index of refraction for the material, which describes the way light
bends when crossing the material surface. A value of 1.0 means the light will not change
direction. This parameter can be mapped with a texture in the Maps rollout. For more
information, see the Refraction IOR example below.
Abbe number – Increases or decreases the dispersion effect. Enabling this option and
lowering the value widens the dispersion and vice versa. For more information, see the
Abbe Number example below.
Affect Channels – Specifies which channels will be affected by the transparency of the
material.
Color Only – The transparency will affect only the RGB channel of the final render.
Color+alpha – The material will transmit the alpha of the refracted objects instead
of displaying an opaque alpha. Note that currently, this works only with clear (non-
glossy) refractions.
All channels – All channels and render elements will be affected by the
transparency of the material.
Subdivs – Controls the quality of glossy refractions. Lower values will render faster, but
the result will be noisier. Higher values take longer but produce smoother results. This
parameter also controls the quality of the translucent effect, if on (see below). Note that
this parameter is available for changing only when Use local subdivs is enabled in the
Global DMC Settings.
Max depth – Specifies the number of times a ray can be refracted. Scenes with lots of
refractive and reflective surfaces may require higher values to look right. For more
information, see the Refraction Depth example below.
Exit color – When enabled and a ray has reached the maximum refraction depth ( Max
depth), the ray will be terminated and the color specified here will be returned. When
disabled, the ray will not be refracted but will be continued without changes. For more
information, see the Refraction Exit Color example below.
Affect shadows – When enabled, this parameter will cause the material to cast
transparent shadows to create a simple caustic effect dependent on the refraction
color and the fog color. For accurate caustic calculations, disable this parameter and
instead enable Caustics in the GI tab. Simultaneous usage of
both Caustics and Affects Shadows can be used for artistic purposes but will not
produce a physically correct result.This only works with V-Ray shadows and lights.

Example: Refraction Color

This example demonstrates the effect of the Refract color parameter to produce glass
materials. For the images in this example, the material has a gray Diffuse color, white
Reflect color, and the Fresnel Reflections option is enabled.

Refract = Black Refract = Light Gray Re

(0, 0, 0) (192, 192, 192) (2
No refraction is produced.

Example: Refraction IOR

This example demonstrates the effect of the Refraction IOR parameter. Note how light
bends more as the IOR deviates from 1.0. When the index of refraction (IOR) is 1.0, the
render produces a transparent object. Note, however, that in the case of transparent
objects, it might be better to assign an opacity map to the material rather than use
refraction.

IOR = 0.8 IOR = 1.0 IOR = 1.3

Example: Refraction Glossiness

This example demonstrates the effect of the refraction Glossiness parameter. Note how
 lower refraction Glossiness values blur the refractions and cause the material to appear
as frosted glass.

Glossiness = 1.0 Gossiness = 0.9 Glo

Example: Refraction Depth

This example demonstrates the effect of the refraction Max depth parameter. Note how
too low of a refraction depth produces incorrect results. Also, in the last two examples,
note how areas with total internal reflection are also affected by the Reflection Max
depth.

Refraction Max depth = 1 Refraction Max depth = 2 Refraction Max dep

Reflection Max depth = 5 Reflection Max depth = 5 Reflection Max de

Example: Refraction Exit Color

This example demonstrates the effect of the refraction Exit color parameter. This is
mostly useful to show areas of deep refractions in the image, or for materials needing
higher refraction depth. Note how the red areas are reduced when the Reflection Max
depth and Refraction Max depth are increased.
 Refraction Exit color = Off Refraction Exit color = On, Red Refraction
Reflection Max depth = 5 (255, 0, 0)
Refraction Max depth = 5 Reflection Max depth = 5 Reflect
Refraction Max depth = 5 Refract

Example: Abbe Number

This example demonstrates the dispersion capabilities of the V-Ray material and the
effect of the Abbe number parameter.

Abbe Number = Disabled Abbe Numbe

Fog

Fog color – Specifies the attenuation of light as it passes through the material. This
option allows the user to simulate the fact that thick objects look less transparent than
thin objects. Note that the effect of the fog color depends on the absolute size of the
objects and is therefore scene-dependent unless the Fog system units scaling is
enabled. This parameter also determines the look of the object when using translucency.
This parameter can be mapped with a texture in the Maps rollout. It is recommended that
you use a 3D texture for the purpose. For more information, see the Fog Color
example below.

Fog multiplier – Controls the strength of the fog effect. Smaller values reduce the effect
of the fog, making the material more transparent. Larger values increase the fog effect,
making the material more opaque. In more precise terms, this is the inverse of the
distance at which a ray inside the object is attenuated with an amount equal to the Fog
color. For more information, see the Fog Multiplier example below.
Fog bias – Changes the way the fog color is applied. Negative values make the thin
parts of the objects more transparent and the thicker parts more opaque and vice-versa
(positive numbers make thinner parts more opaque and thicker parts more transparent).

Example: Fog Color

This example demonstrates the effect of the Fog color parameter. Notice how the thick
areas of the object are darker in the two images on the right because of the light
absorption of the fog.

Fog color = White Fog color = Gray Fog

(255, 255, 255) (243, 243, 243) (2
no light absorption

Example: Fog Multiplier

This example demonstrates the effect of the Fog multiplier parameter. Smaller values
cause less light absorption because of the fog; while higher values increase the
absorption effect.

Fog multiplier = 0.5 Fog multiplier = 1.0 Fog

Translucency

Translucency – Selects the algorithm for calculating translucency (also called sub-
surface scattering). Note that refraction must be enabled for this effect to be visible.
Currently, only single-bounce scattering is supported.
None – No translucency is calculated for the material;
Hard (wax) model – This model is specifically suited for hard materials like marble;
Soft (water) model – This model is mostly for compatibility with older V-Ray
versions (1.09.x);
Hybrid model – This is the most realistic sss model and is suitable for simulating
skin, milk, fruit juice and other translucent materials.
Scatter coeff – Specifies the amount of scattering inside the object. A value of
0.0 means rays will be scattered in all directions; A value of 1.0 means a ray cannot
change its direction inside the sub-surface volume.
Fwd/bck coeff – Controls the direction of scattering for a ray. A value of 0.0 means a
ray can only go forward (away from the surface, inside the object); 0.5 means that a ray
has an equal chance of going forward or backward; 1.0 means a ray will be scattered
backward (towards the surface, to the outside of the object).
Thickness – Limits the rays that will be traced below the surface. This is useful if the
whole sub-surface volume does not need to be traced.
Back-side color – Normally the color of the sub-surface scattering effect depends on
the Fog color; this parameter allows you to additionally tint the SSS effect.
Light multiplier – Specifies a multiplier that controls the strength of the translucent
effect.

Self-Illumination

Self-Illumination – Controls the emission of the surface. This parameter can be mapped
with a texture in the Maps rollout.
GI – When enabled, the self-illumination affects global illumination rays and allows the
surface to cast light on nearby objects. Note, however, that it may be more efficient to
use area lights or VRayLightMtl material for this effect.
Mult – Specifies a multiplier for the self-illumination effect. This is useful for boosting the
self-illumination values so that the surface produces stronger illumination with GI.

BRDF Rollout

BRDF parameters determine the type of the highlights and glossy reflections for the
material. The parameters have an effect only if the reflection color is different from black
and reflection glossiness is different than 1.0.

Type – Determines the type of BRDF (the shape of the highlight). For more information,
see the Type Example below.
Phong – Phong highlight/reflections. Best used for plastic surfaces: Specular
highlights have a bright center with no falloff.
Blinn – Blinn highlight/reflections. Works for most common materials: Specular
highlights have a bright center with a tight falloff.
Ward – Ward highlight/reflections. Works well for cloth materials and chalk-like
surfaces: Specular highlights have a bright center with a falloff broader than Blinn,
but tighter than Microfacet GTR (GGX).
Microfacet GTR (GGX) – GGX highlight/reflections. Best used for metallic
surfaces as well as the paint coat for cars: Specular highlights have a bright center
with a longer falloff.
Use glossiness / Use roughness – These options control how RGlossiness (reflection
glossiness) is interpreted. When Use glossiness is selected, the RGlossiness value is
used as is, and a high RGlossiness value (such as 1.0) will result in sharp reflection
highlights. When Use roughness is selected, the RGlossiness inverse value is used.
For example, if RGlossiness is set to 1.0 and Use roughness is selected, this will result
in diffuse shading. Conversely, if RGlossiness is set to 0.0 and Use roughness is
selected, this will result in sharp highlights. Note that the Roughness parameter itself
has no bearing on the results of this option.
GTR tail falloff – Controls the transition from highlighted areas to non-highlighted areas
when the BRDF type is set to Microfacet GTR (GGX).
Anisotropy – Determines the shape of the highlight. A value of 0.0 means isotropic
highlights. Negative and positive values simulate "brushed" surfaces. For more
information, see the Anisotropy example below.
Rotation – Determines the orientation of the anisotropic effect in a float value between 0
and 1 (where 0 is 0 degrees and 1 is 360 degrees).
Local axis – When enabled, the orientation of the anisotropic highlight is based on the
object's local X, Y, or Z axis.
Map channel – When enabled, the orientation of the anisotropic highlight is based on
the specified map channel.

Example: Type

The following examples demonstrate the different Types of BDRF.

 Type: Phong Type: Blinn

Best used for plastic surfaces. Multi-purpose BDRF suitable for many
common materials.

Type: Ward Type: Microfacet GTR (GGX)

Useful for cloth materials and chalk-like Best used for metallic surfaces as well
surfaces. as the paint coat for cars.

Example: Anisotropy

This example demonstrates the effect of the Anisotropy and Rotation parameters,
which determines the shape of the highlight. For the examples below the Type was set
to Microfacet GTR (GGX).

Anisotropy = 0.0, Rotation = 0.0 Anisotropy = -0.5, Rotation = 80.0

With all values set to 0 this

gives isotropic highlights

Anisotropy = -0.5, Rotation = 160.0 Anisotropy = -0.8, Rotation = 0.0

Options Rollout

Trace reflections – When disabled, reflections will not be traced even if the reflection
color is greater than black. This can be disabled to produce only highlights. Note that
when disabling this parameter the diffuse color will not be dimmed by the reflection color,
as would happen normally.
Trace refractions – When disabled, refractions will not be traced even if the refraction
color is greater than black.
Cutoff – Specifies a threshold below which reflections/refractions will not be traced. V-
Ray tries to estimate the contribution of reflections/refractions to the image, and if it is
below this threshold, these effects are not computed. Do not set this to 0.0 as it may
cause excessively long render times in some cases.
Env. priority – Determines the environment to use if a reflected or refracted ray goes
through several materials, each of which has an environment override.
Double-sided – When enabled, V-Ray will flip the normal for back-facing surfaces with
this material. Otherwise, the lighting on the outer side of the material will always be
computed. This can be used to achieve a fake translucent effect for thin objects like
paper.
Use irradiance map – When enabled, the irradiance map will be used to approximate
diffuse indirect illumination for the material. When disabled, brute force GI will be used in
which case the quality of the brute force GI is determined by the Subdivs parameter of
the Irradiance Map. This can be used for objects in the scene which have small details
and are not approximated very well by the irradiance map.
Fog system units scaling – When enabled, the fog color attenuation becomes
dependent on the current system units. For more information, see the Fog System Units
Scaling example below.
Effect ID – When enabled, specifies input values for Material ID for the override material
effect.
Glossy Fresnel – When enabled, uses glossy fresnel to interpolate glossy reflections
and refractions. It takes the Fresnel equation into account for each "microfacet" of the
glossy reflections, rather than just the angle between the viewing ray and the surface
normal. The most apparent effect is less brightening of the grazing edges as the
glossiness is decreased. With the regular Fresnel, objects with low glossiness may
appear to be unnaturally bright and "glowing" at the edges. The glossy Fresnel
calculations make this effect more natural.
Preserve energy – Determines how the diffuse, reflection, and refraction color affect
each other. V-Ray tries to keep the total amount of light reflected off a surface to be less
than or equal to the light falling on the surface (as this happens in the real life). For this
purpose, the following rule is applied: the reflection level dims the diffuse and refraction
levels (a pure white reflection will remove any diffuse and refraction effects), and the
refraction level dims the diffuse level (a pure white refraction color will remove any
diffuse effects). This parameter determines whether the dimming happens separately for
the RGB components or is based on the intensity. For more information, see the Energy
Preservation Mode example below.
RGB – Causes dimming to be performed separately on the RGB components. For
 example, a pure white diffuse color and pure red reflection color will give a surface
with cyan diffuse color (because the red component is already taken by the
reflection).
Monochrome – Causes dimming to be performed based on the intensity of the
diffuse/reflection/refraction levels.
Opacity mode – Controls how the opacity map works. For more information, see the
Opacity mode parameter example below.
Normal – The opacity map is evaluated as normal: the surface lighting is computed
and the ray is continued for the transparent effect. The opacity texture is filtered as
normal.
Clip – The surface is shaded as either fully opaque or fully transparent depending
on the value of the opacity map (i.e. without any randomness). This mode also
disables the filtering of the opacity texture. This is the fastest mode, but it might
increase flickering when rendering animations.
Stochastic – The surface is randomly shaded as either fully opaque or fully
transparent so that on average it appears to be with the correct transparency. This
mode reduces lighting calculations but might introduce some noise in areas where
the opacity map has gray-scale values. The opacity texture is still filtered as normal.

Known Issue
Currently, setting the Opacity mode to Clip also disables bump mapping within
the material. A workaround is to load the opacity map through a VRayHDRI
texture map and the bump mapping will render properly.

Example: Fog System Units Scaling

This example demonstrates the usage of the Fog system units scaling check box. The
teapot in the scene has a radius of four meters. When the Fog system units scaling is
disabled we can see through the teapot. However when we enable the Fog system
units scaling, the real size of the object is taken into consideration, and we can see that
the light is absorbed to a much greater extent.

Fog system units scaling = Off

 Example: Energy Preservation Mode

This example demonstrates how the Energy preservation mode controls the way
reflections dim the diffuse color.

Energy preservation mode Energy preservation mode

= RGB. = RGB.
Reflect = Medium Gray. Reflect= Medium Green.
(128, 128, 128) (0, 128, 0)

Energy preservation mode = Energy preservation mode =

Monochrome. Monochrome.
Reflect = Medium Gray. Reflect = Medium Green.
(128, 128, 128) (0, 128, 0)

Example: Opacity mode parameter

 Opacity mode = Normal Opacity mode =
Because the opacity texture is filtered the result is The texture is still filtered, so t
nice and smooth but very slow. render times are gre

The renders below show a blow-up of the tree to better show the effect of the different
modes. Note that in the first two renders the opacity is blurry because of the texture
filtering.

Opacity mode = Normal Opacity mode =

Because the texture is filtered, this makes the normal- The texture is still filtered, wh
sized render smoother and reduces flickering in sized render smooth, and th
animation, but the render time is very slow. better.

Maps Rollout

The settings on the Maps rollout determine the various texture maps used by the
material.
Most of the parameters on this rollout pertain directly to parameters in the VRayMtl, and
their definitions can be found in the Basic parameters and BRDF rollouts. The following
parameters might not have such obvious definitions.
Reflect – This map slot sets the degree of reflectivity for the material. This functionality
differs from the Reflection map slot for a Standard material, where a bitmap image can
be set as the environment to reflect. To set an environment image to be reflected, use
the Environment slot.
An. Rotation – The Rotation parameter in the BRDF rollout.

Translucent – Sets the degree of translucency when the Translucency option in the
BRDF rollout is set to a selection other than None.
Environment – Specifies an environment map to use for reflections instead of the
environment map for the scene. This is similar to placing a map in the Reflection slot of
a Standard 3ds Max material.

Notes

Use the VRayMtl whenever possible in your scenes. This material is specifically
optimized for V-Ray and often GI and lighting is computed much faster for V-Ray
materials than for standard 3ds Max materials. Many V-Ray features (e.g. light
cache, photon mapping, render elements ) are guaranteed to work properly only
with VRayMtl and other V-Ray compliant materials.
VRayMtl can produce reflections/refractions for matte objects – see Wrapper
Material | VRayMtlWrapper.
There's currently a known issue with setting the Opacity mode to Clip and bump
mapping not rendering properly on a material. A workaround is to load the opacity
map through a VRayHDRI texture map