material – Page 2 – Oded Maoz Erell's CG Log

V-Ray for 3ds max Wood Floor Material

Posted on October 26, 2019October 26, 2019 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
3ds max 2019 | V-Ray Next

An example of varnished wood floor material in V-Ray and 3ds max.
The material uses a VRayBlendMtl with 2 connected VRayMtl sub materials to simulate a natural wood base layer coated by a glossy varnish layer.

Explanation of the material node graph:

The wood color (Diffuse texture)
The wood black and white detail texture (used to add reflection detail)
The wood bump texture (actually the same as the reflection texture just color corrected to whiten most details except the lines separating the wood planks)
The reflection texture is color corrected to to intensify it prior to it being connected to the base wood layer material:
The reflection texture is color corrected to to decrease its intensity prior to it being connected to the varnish coat blend:
The base layer natural wood material with the Diffuse, Reflect and Bump textures connected to it:
The varnish coat material with the Bump texture connected to it:
* Note the Fresnel Reflections is turned off because the Fresnel reflection is calculated by the Falloff map (8)
The Falloff map that defines the amount with which the varnish coat material covers the base wood material,
A combination of Fresnel reflection intensity/Angle with the pre-processed reflection detail map (5):
The final VRayBlendMtl combining the base wood material with the varnish coat material using the Fresnel Falloff blend map:

Related posts:

Fresnel Reflections

Basic Cloth Material in Arnold for Maya

Posted on October 20, 2019October 21, 2019 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Maya 2018 | Arnold 5

An example of a basic traditional (not scanned) cloth material setup in Arnold 5 for Maya using an aiStandardSurface shader.

The shading network uses a classic angle dependent color blend to simulate the color of the cloth being washed out at grazing angle of view.

Explanation of the node graph:

A black and white fabric weave texture that will serve as input for multiple shading channels.
* This is actually not the best example of such a pattern, and could be replaced with a much better texture.
A remapValue node is used to set contrast to the fabric pattern (reduce contrast in this case) prior to it being multiplied with the fabric colors.
* Note that only one of the textures RGB channels is connected to the remapValue node since it’s a float (mono) processor and not RGB.

* Note that depending on the fabric texture, you may have to design different curves to achieve the right effect.
Two colors are defined with colorConstant nodes:
A deep color as the main fabric color, and a washed out color for grazing angle view (“side color”).
An aiFacingRatio node is used as an input for incident angle info.
* Note that in this case I checked the node’s invert option to make it behave more like other systems I’m used to (if you don’t use invert, the angle blend curve in 5 will be different..)
A remapValue node used to set the angle blend curve or in other words, how much does the color appears washed out per change of view angle of the cloth surface.
* The longer it take the curve to become steep from left to right, the more the main color will be dominant before the washed out color will appear.
A colorCorrect node is used in this example just as a way to convert the remapped float value back to RGB for being multiplied with the cloth colors.
* We could also connect it directly to the individual float components of the RGB colors but this way the node graph is cleaner.
A multiplyDivide node is used to multiply the processed fabric texture with the 2 fabric colors “baking” the pattern into the color.
A blendColors node is used to blend the 2 processed fabric colors together according to the processed facingRatio angle input.
The result is the final cloth color that is connected to the aiStandardSurface shader.
An aiBump2d node is used to convert the fabric pattern to normal data that will be connected to the aiStandardSurface shader to produce bumps.
An aiStandartSurface shader serving as the main shading node for this material.
* Note that under Geometry the Thin Walled option is checked so that the Subsurface layer of the shader will act as a Paper Shader rather than SSS.
* The main cloth color is connected to the SubSurface Color input.

UE4 – Bump Map

Posted on December 7, 2018November 2, 2020 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.21

To use a ‘Bump Texture’ in UE4, or in more geeky terms, derive Normal data from a supplied height map, use the NormalFromHeightMap Node.

Notes:

The height map textured is supplied via Texture Object node and not Texture Sample, and is connected to the NormalFromHeightMap‘s Height Map input.
A numeric vale is connected to the NormalFromHeightMap‘s Normal Map Intensity input to control the intensity of the resulting Normals/Bump.
UV coordinates for the bump map should be connected to the Coordinates input of the NormalFromHeightMap node.

VRayMtl’s new metallic goodness

Posted on July 21, 2018September 23, 2018 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
3ds max 2019 | V-Ray Next | V-Ray next GPU

In V-Ray Next (4) for 3ds max, a new Metalness parameter has been added to the Reflect parameters of the VRayMtl material.
This allows for easy creation of realistic metal materials and also effectively enables a PBR workflow with V-Ray.

When the Metalness parameter is set to 1.0, the material becomes completely reflective, the Diffuse color controls the general reflection color, and the Reflect color (which should generally be set to white) controls the reflection color at grazing incidence angle.

The IOR parameter still controls how fast will the main reflection color (set by the Diffuse color) blend into the Reflection color, and I don’t know whether some form of complex Fresnel has been implemented or if it’s just a dielectric simple Fresnel blended over a reflective surface.

An excellent article on the new Feature from the Chaos Group blog:
https://www.chaosgroup.com/blog/understanding-metalness

Related:

3ds max – Quickly clearing materials in multiple objects

Posted on March 19, 2018March 20, 2018 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
3ds max 2017

To move clear the material in multiple objects:

Select the objects.
In the MaxScript Mini Listener at the bottom left of the 3ds max window,
Type:
for o in $ do (o.material = undefined)
And then press Enter

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Randomize textures in V-Ray for Maya

Posted on March 14, 2018May 12, 2018 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Maya 2018 | V-Ray 3.6

Connect the different texture options as inputs to a VRayMultiSubTexNode and connect it to the wanted material input.
In the VRayMultiSubTexNode attributes, set Get ID From to Random by Render ID.
* Press add new item in the VRayMultiSubTexNode attributes to add one or more inputs to the list.

Create a richly colored metallic surface in UE4

Posted on February 8, 2018May 1, 2018 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

One of the optical properties of many metallic surfaces is changing it’s color slightly as the surface viewing angle changes.
This effect can be simply created using a Fresnel node and a color-ramp texture.

Create a metallic material (metallic value of 1.0).
Use an image editing software to create a linear color ramp texture (gradient) of the color change per viewing angle from left to right. like this example for a golden metal, and import it to your project.
Add the ramp texture to the material Blueprint, and connect it to the material Base Color Input.
Create a Fresnel node and set its Exponent value to 1.0 and its Base Reflect Fraction to a value of 0.0 so it will provide a linear angle blend value.
Connect the Fresnel node’s output to the UVs input of the ramp texture node.
* the reason the Fresnel node can be providing both the X and Y texture coordinates is that the texture’s Y dimension provides the same color for all values anyway.

Note:
When the Metallic property of an Unreal Engine material is set to 1.0, the material automatically simulates the metal’s color fading to white at parallel surface viewing angle (the sides) like it should.
So using a Color Ramp Texture like in this example creates an amplified effect.
* Simply put: You don’t have to have the Color Ramp fade to white on the right side of the texture..

UE4 – Material Fresnel Node

Posted on February 8, 2018June 30, 2020 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

The UE4 Fresnel node is actually a “Facing Ratio” node (aka Perpendicular / Parallel) with some extra control.
It basically allows controlling material effects according to the incident angle the surface is viewed at, which is a hugely important feature for designing advanced material effects.

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Exponent:
The steepness of the value / angle curve.

Base Reflect Fraction:
The value at perpendicular angle.

Normal:
An option to connect World Space surface normals input to affect the output of the Fresnel node.
* Tangent Space normals must be converted to World Space by using a Transform Vector node.

Note:
A value of 1.0 for the Exponent parameter, and a value of 0.0 for the Base Reflect Fraction will produce a linear “Facing Ratio” (“Perpendicular / Parallel”) falloff blend.

Examples of different values:

More info:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Materials/HowTo/Fresnel/

Related posts:

UE4 – Material Transform Vector Node

Posted on February 8, 2018February 8, 2018 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.18

The Transform Vector material node transform the supplied vector between different geometrical spaces according to your choice:

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Note:
This is useful in order to convert surface normals from Tangent Space to World Space to connect them as input to a Fresnel Node.

Using VRayMtlHair3 shader with nHair in Maya

Posted on February 6, 2018July 22, 2018 by Oded Maoz Erell

Software:
Maya 2018 | V-Ray 3.6

Select the nHair object.
In the Attribute Editor, in the hair system shape attributes.
Open the Attributes menu, and choose VRay > Hair Shader.
Create a VRayMtlHair3 shader.
Connect the shader to the Hair Shader slot under VRay Extra Attributes in the hair system Shape Node attributes.

Related:
V-Ray for Maya and XGen