"you need to make sure the folder where your model and vray materials are, is shared with all the other machines" thanks, thats actually very important to know... (I never bothered to check it before)

I'll try to explain clamping to get things started. Maybe others will chime in. Although since it rendered OK before, I don't know why it wouldn't be OK now. In any image, there is a range of colors from black to white. Let's say the colors go from 0 to 255, right? Well, your camera may only be able to handle a range of 240 colors, so you could set the exposure to see 0-239 or 15-255. In the latter case, if there are areas of subtle shadows, you'd lose detail because the camera can't see it. In the former case, if there are bright areas of white or almost white, all that will get washed out. In your case, this is what is happening. If you have the colors clamped, anything from 240-255 is shown as white. If you unclamp the colors, the Vray frame buffer represents 240-255 with solid colors from yellows to reds to black. If you don't want any part of your image burned, then you need to adjust your exposure like you did until there is no difference between toggling the color clamping on/off. I'm not quite sure what you mean by: @unknownuser said: ...but when I increase the exposure (at -0.27 its TOO dark), the SAME AREAS where the bad reflections appear, also appear when I turn the Clamped Colors layer/mask of the render window. Can you post some images?

Yep, it looks like your aspect ratio is off a little bit. You need to unlock and reset it to match. Sometimes if you move a toolbar or add toolbars it changes your AR and you need to reset it to the correct ratio. Also, there is a current discussion on the V4S forums discussing the resolution your are talking about. 9000 pixels seems like overkill for anything that's not going to be published.

@khashayar said: @thomthom said: Make sure you don't have faces overlapping each other. Kind of looks like z-fighting. Also, make sure your mesh normals are correct, that it's the front-side of the face that's pointing outwards. thanks thom. i know it may sound silly but i don't know where can i check the normals? Set the Style to display Default Material, and set the back-side color to a brightly coloured one so you can easily see the difference between front and back. By default it's white for front and blue/gray for back.

....its often the small things that cause the big problems

I'm betting you are using an old version of Vray, you need to explode for it to show. Upgrade to current version.

Thanks for the input. At the moment I think I've got an ok workflow going from SU to 3ds Max and using Vray there. I'm at the early stages so we'll see what snags I run into. My biggest concern is materials. If something changes and I have to swap out models, I'll have to reassociate every material on every object again. I'd thought about breaking up my whole SU model and making it all one big group before importing to Max so I'd just have to reassociate the materials on one big object but then I'll lose any benefit from instances and layers. -Brodie

Related posts on this topic: Rendering huge images with VRay 1.4 for Sketchup http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=54220&p=491374#p491374 Make a render look like in the sketchup editor http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=322&t=53980

Can you upload the models?

Try this: http://www.vray.com/vray_for_sketchup/manual/transparency_mapping_in_vray_for_sketchup.shtml It's not exactly what you need, but it takes you through the steps.

There's lots of buttons not working within VfSU. They where added by ChaosGroup core - and not the VfSU department.

make sure you don't have photon map selected as a primary rendering engine. it can render unexpectedly dark (black) results in your primary render, when it shows up fine in the secondary. if that is not the thing causing the problem... make a ticket at support at asgvis dot com.

where do you locate the alpha channel to turn on and off with vray 3 on sketchup? I try to save as a tif or png with my sky but get a transparent background - jpeg I have no problems but you don't save in jpeg if you can help it. Im pulling my hair out on this one looking for this needle

@ledisnomad said: Do you have Vray 1.49.01? If so, in the Vray Material Editor, right-click "Scene Materials" in the Materials List and choose "Sort Materials Alphabetically." yes i have vray 1.49..thanks a lot..!

@unknownuser said: Biggest drawback is that I am unable to transfer materials with copy and paste between models like I used to do with 1.48. Am I the only one with this problem? No - it's a regression bug.

Hm. I'm a bit late to reply. Anyway; you might have seen the model used on their website at material downloads > vray 1.48 only as a testscene

The latest build 1.49.01 will not let vray materials come over with a component if you copy or import the file in. So you are hosed even if you found a resource, which I have not yet found one. Flyingarchiecture.com has some good stuff, but it's modeled for Rhino w Vray, but they share the same material files and I believe he has 3DS files of his models, so you could import them into SU and reapply the materials.

Thanks for the responses. I'll take a look at those, although I'll have to wait until I'm home... mrcad.com is blocked at work.