hi all,

this isn't my work, but i think it is very worth sharing

Pixelflakes — Pixelflakes

Pixelflakes (www.pixelflakes.com)

it's not the 'how-to DIY step by step' type of tutorial, but i think that an overall dissection of a professional post-processing workflow can be very handy.

that's IMO either Ambient Occlusion in render settings or a dirt pass in the material.

and additionally maybe these tutorials http://renderstuff.com/free-rendering-cg-tutorials/ and specifically this one http://renderstuff.com/best-vray-settings-dmc-sampler-cg-tutorial/ could clear up some other stuff. (yes, it'sprimarily for 3dsmax, but it's for vray, and that has the same settings universally, so it can teach you/us something.)

if it's a texture, i'd say you'd need higher bit depth (from 8 to 16 for example).

but since it's more probably a VRay setting, i'd ask you to share the settings you use for global illumination - looks like light cache is used for the primary engine. that can cause similar 'cracks.'

otherwise i'm out of ideas for now...

hello all,

i'm working on a school project and thought i could ask some questions about problems i'm facing. images in attachments. on the 'colder' one, more blueish, the GI Saturation was 1.0 and the Light Cache Subdivision was set to 300 (the original images are rendered at 5000 x 5000 px, these are crops). on the warmer one i reduced the saturation to .25 and increased the subdivision to 1000.

in both of the images if you look at the edges where a sun-lit facade meets the ground, you'll see that that area is somehow too bright (it's a problem when it affects the shadow of the opposite building)

i would like to ask two questions:

• how is my problem called, ie. what to google solution for? (it's most probably not color bleeding... it's hard to UTFG when you don't know what you are searching for )
• and if anyone had any idea - how do i fix this?

thanks for any answer,
~Adam

EDIT: of course, the attachments x)

is it not easier to add the arrows in an image processing application (photoshop, illustrator, paint...) into a finished render?

no, that's exactly what i'm not asking (although i have been trying to resolve the issue in another thread, about this time last year.)

what i would want is this: i press the render button and if i hit Esc (which should stop the rendering process) or the render finishes, it saves the render (or whatever is in the framebuffer at the moment of cancellation) to a previously specified folder with a name for example autosave0000.png. then when i hit render again (to see how my material changed), the file saved would be autosave0001.png.

or it could use a timestamp or i don't know what.

hm, but i guess this is a work for a separate script, rather than a matter of settings in vray...

yes, the artifacts vanished when i moved the showcase plane 1mm upward. i can re-render the images later and update the files.
also i played a bit with the Falloff and Fresnel textures and it seems like Fresnel is a special type of Falloff, but with slightly different options to set; i want to elaborate these textures further and update the post later.
also, in the meantime, TexFalloff set to Angular Blend can produce 'pearlescent car paint' effects (known by many from need for speed:underground ^^) as i found out on page 60 in this pdf.

that's just a useful link i wanted to send out earlier, before i do the analysis myself. (also, there are so many versions and manuals on VRay for Sketchup that can differ only in one page, just like this pdf. at least i don't remember seeing this particular page before...)

hi,

i know that it's possible to set up VRay to autosave a render to a specified file. the problem is that it keeps overwriting the file with each new render.

is there any option in VRay (or any workaround in the form of script) to save every render with an incrementing filename? this way you could also watch the progress you are making; i think this would be a useful feature.

i know that you can check 'include frame number in filename' option, but when rendering more stills (and not an animation) the file written stays 'autosave.0000.png' and doesn't solve the issue.

thanks for any answers,
~eidam

andybot - i know it's there, and it's the artifact i was talking about in the post and yes, it's the overlapping of the VRay infinite plane with the 'showcase' plane.

hi,

it all started when i was trying to get a reasonable noise texture for grass displacement. since i was getting frustrated, i decided to render the texture in the diffuse slot, so i could see what settings affect what parts of the texture and how it actually looks like.

finally i ended up with two to three versions of every texture plugin available in vray for sketchup (except for TexSky, TexBlend and TexUVW, since i wouldn't believe that they produce any visibly comprehensible result (which is what i learned at TexDirt)).

anyway, here are the collections i rendered. as a scaling mechanism i used the 'u repeat' and 'v repeat' options in the texture dialog since i had thought that this would affect the overall scaling of the texture - unfortunately, this wasn't the case for every texture.

so if anyone knew any closer and more detailed information on how to work with these textures and how to force them to behave the way you want them to, appreciation would be in its place. i think that a comparison like this is important both for newbies and for 'old dogs' as a reference (since i haven't found anything comprehensive about vray textures).

as a reference, all (even the unpublished) images are located at this place.

first there is the reference plane. one mistake i've made is that i have on the same height level this plane and the VRay infinite plane, which in some images produced artifacts.

TexAColor texture plugin - this only creates a color. useful for later usage in other texture plugins' options. (for those very eager, here's the image.)

TexBulge texture plugin

• generates bulges. ( ) i've decided to post only the version(s) with changed UV repeat (both set to 0,02), since here the pattern is visible; all other settings are on default.

TexChecker texture plugin

• one thing important to note here is that the checker pattern also alternates the alpha values, without having to specify them in the Transparency channel. this can be useful in a TexBlend channel, when you'd want to combine two textures.

TexCloth texture plugin

• different pattern for different purposes.

TexDirt texture plugin

• explained perfectly in this user guide from the page 24. it also explains why some of the textures are not scalable by 'stretching' in UV directions - because they are procedural, so the scale has to be controlled by the parameters in the texture's settings.

TexFalloff and TexFresnel texture plugins

and from different angles

• i'm not sure how exactly are these two different (ie. what are their functions). also, the upper picture here is the falloff one, i just forgot to change the text.
• TexFresnel should return a color value between the two specified colors based on the angle of the incident and bounced-off light ray. its usage and effects is described nicely in this manual on page 29 and i also found a sketchucation thread.
  EDIT - well i need to add some info, because meanwhile i forgot how fresnel works and this guide wasn't much of a help -.-;
  anyway, the keywords found in TexFresnel settings are Perpendicular and Parallel. They mean Perpendicular (to the viewer's direction) and Parallel (to viewer's direction). in the following image the perpendicular color is white, while the parallel color is black, TexFresnel is in diffuse slot.
  

TexGranite texture plugin

• i'm not sure who and how exactly ever used this plugin. nevertheless, it's important to note that the u and v repeat values do not affect the scale of the pattern (which is really there, you just have to look closely - it's a square of 0,02m x 0,02m).

TexGrid texture plugin

• different pattern for different purposes.

TexLeather texture plugin

• different pattern for different purposes. again alternates the alpha value and is scalable by UV repeating.

TexMarble texture plugin

• marble pattern. is not affected by UV repeat values.

TexNoise texture plugin
none of the options is affected by UV repeat values.
simple noise

perlin

inflected perlin

marble + perlin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexNoise (marble + perlin) - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

TexRock texture plugin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexRock - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

• rock/noise pattern. is not affected by UV repeat values.

TexSmoke texture plugin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexSmoke - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

• smoke/noise pattern. is not affected by UV repeat values.

TexSnow texture plugin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexSnow - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

• snow/noise pattern with alternating alpha. is not affected by UV repeat values. when watching the preprocessing at the rendering time, a snow pattern appears by the samples, but in the end it [doesn't even matter] and gets lost. i would really like to know a bit more about this exotic texture.

TexSpeckle texture plugin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexSpeckle - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

• speckle/noise pattern. is not affected by UV repeat values.

TexSplat texture plugin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexSplat - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

• splat/noise pattern. is not affected by UV repeat values.

TexStucco texture plugin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexStucco - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

• presumably stucco/noise pattern. is not affected by UV repeat values. sadly, i failed to get any output from this plugin! this is very frustrating, as the potential for the architectural visualisations diminishes. if anyone knew the right way to treat this texture, i'd buy him (or her) a beer!

TexWater texture plugin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexWater - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

• is not affected by UV repeat values. in fact, it's the same case as with Stucco. also, i don't know where this weird color came from.
• update 15.5.2012:

@thomthom said:

TexWater doesn't appear to be fully implemented - it's just producing a colour that cannot be adjusted...

TexWood texture plugin
[img:1aiz7o74]http://www.gjh.sk/~ambrus/misc/sketchup/texture types/TexWood - UV repeat 0,02 - closeup.jpg[/img:1aiz7o74]

• is not affected by UV repeat values. in closeup looks interesting, i wonder what the usage might be (and how to set it up to look good).

so, that would be the end of a long post. the weird white arcs are the artifacts resulting from the intersection with the vray infinite plane.

if anyone would have any ideas as to what else could be shown in this post (knows some other weird issues), or even better, if anyone actually understands these plugins and could post a link for explanation or write a brief one himself, it would be awesome.

~eidam

edit: wow, thanks thomthom for the sticky i'll try to keep this maintained as much as possible.

hi,

thanks for all the answers. i managed to get the result i wanted using this UV Toolkit plugin.

TIG: yes, i also thought that painting the group will apply the material to both front and back faces. sadly, this wasn't the case. maybe it could have been a problem with the geometry? my model was actually first generated by script in rhinoceros, and then i exported to 3DS to import it into sketchup for VRay rendering. also, this was a group of groups inside a component, so that my have also been the issue

dsarchs: yes, i read about that, but since i do all my renderings in vray directly from sketchup...

hello all,

let's say i have a grouped object. this object has faces, which have front and back side; both of them are on default.

when i want to apply a material to this group, only the front faces get painted.

does anyone have an idea, why this might be happening? and how can i apply a material (preferably the same one) to the 'other' sides of the faces in group, without having to explode/edit the group?

thanks for any answer.

hi,

here's what i thought of:

current algorithm distributes fur to the whole face/polygon according to a function with multiple parameters, density being one of them. i would suggest something like:

request min and max density from user
request/load the density map from user (file)
stretch image on the face (300x300 px image onto a 1m x 1m face for example)
go through every pixel in image //yeah, this sucks while 1. there's no getPixelColor method in sketchup's sdk as far as i can see, and 2. this is a loop in a loop and takes ages to complete
color value divided by white (100%) is the percentage
therefore current density for this area is minDensity+percentage*(maxDensity-minDensity)

...and so on.

yes, there are probably more effective ways to do this.
no, i'm not a computer scientist.
no, i don't know ruby or sketchup's sdk.
no, i'm not sure how this should have helped you.

also a +1 from me, the struggle for the best modeling/post-pro balance is neverending

i had two windows opened at the same time - the one with 'repository' and the new project.

'repository' -> find desired material -> save material -> open project window -> load material -> catastrophe

i followed your suggestion about having two windows open at the same time, so i tried to:

open repository -> find desired material -> pack material -> close rep. -> open project window -> load material -> win

thanks for reply.

@rspierenburg said:

Does anyone else notice that DRSpawner is using massive amounts of CPU power? I have it installed on two dual-core computers and its taking up 50% of the CPU resources on each. Just wondering if this is by design or is it a bug.

i have EXACTLY this issue.

i even posted about it on the old ASGVis forum, before it got changed to chaosgroup...
(this is mine, but i can't find the asgvis forum link anymore (surprisingly))

if anyone had any idea, about what's going on, i (we) would be glad.

rspierenburg, what OS and CPU do you have? i have the same issue with a 32bit Vista with Intel C2D SL9400 and 64bit Win7 with Intel C2D E8400. or is it maybe with the installation? (1.49.01)

hello,

thanks for the plugin, grass making is now really easy (and by using component grass, it's also super fast as well!)

however, i have a question (a feature request): would it be possible to implement distributing by a B&W texture, or with an exponential fall-off (especially useful with the Valid Distance option)

thanks for answers and i wish you good luck

hello,

i've decided to play with VRay (currently 1.49.01) & SketchUp (8 Pro) once again, this time sooner than the projects are due (im studying architecture).

so, the first thing i did was to download the elephant-sized 7GB torrent of VRay materials. after very brief sorting the materials and orientation in the file structure i decided to slowly begin loading the materials into SU, try to render them and (for example) pick the best grass material for exterior archviz (ie. second level of sorting). i would then keep all the good materials in one file as a repository. then, when i would work on some project of mine, i would simply use SU as material browser, pick the best, pack/save the chosen material, load into the other scene in sketchup and produce pretty pictures.

but i found a problem.

for example, i have a grass material with 2 diffuse layers (both with texture maps, first has also a transparency texture) and one displacement map.
after packing (or saving) the material (.vismat) and loading it to the other scene, all i get is the first diffuse layer, with the first texure, and nothing else (transparency settings gone, second diffuse layer gone, displacement map gone...)

could anyone tell me, why is this happening? how can it be avoided?
what are your ways of storing materials (and their textures) ?

and the last question - why on earth does VRay not support relative texture paths?

thank you for any reactions,
~Adam

of course - 'Include Frame Number'

thank you very much, i can't believe i overlooked this option ^^

//so, for my future reference, when i have a model with set scenes and i want VRay to automatically make 1 render of each scene (ie. at architectural visualisation), i have to set up SketchUp (Object info -> Animation -> enable scene transitions (1 sec), scene delay = 0) and VRay (save file ON, filetype image, Animation ON, Include frame number, FPS 1)