VRay for 3ds Max Manual

VRayBlendMtl Material

	General
	Parameters
	Notes

Search keywords: layered material, car paint, shellac, blend, skin

General

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VRayBlendMtl can be used to layer several V-Ray compatible materials in an efficient manner. VRayBlendMtl takes full advantage of the shading pipeline of the V-Ray renderer and is typically faster than the standard Blend, Shellac and Composite materials of 3ds Max. It also keeps the physical correctness of the final material while offering similar functionality to the standard 3ds Max ones. It can be used to create complex materials like car paints, human skin (when used with VRayFastSSS as a base material) etc.

An advantage of VRayBlendMtl is that you can use the VRayMtlSelect render element to split the different sub-materials of VRayBlendMtl into different render elements.

VRayBlendMtl takes a base material and applies other materials (coatings) on top of it. This works like a stack, where each coat material blends between its own shading and that of the materials below it in the stack.

Parameters

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Base material - the base material over which other materials are layered. If this is not specified, the base material will be assumed to be a perfectly transparent material.

Coat materials - these specify materials to use as coatings.

Blend amount - this color specifies how much of the final result is contributed by the corresponding coating material, and the rest of the materials below it. If the Blend amount is white, the final result is comprised of the coat material only, and other materials below it are blocked. If the Blend amount is black, a coat material has no effect on the final result. This parameter can also be controlled by a texture map.

Additive (shellac) mode - checking this option makes VRayBlendMtl to behave like a multi-layered Shellac material. Note that this would often result in a physically incorrect material (e.g. a material that reflects more light than falls on it). It is not recommended to use this option unless you know what you are doing.

 

Notes

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• VRayBlendMtl is specifically designed for the V-Ray shading API and can only support V-Ray compatible materials (VRayMtl, VRayFastSSS etc). Additional V-Ray compatible materials can be developed with the V-Ray Shading SDK.
   
• If any of the Coat materials is a VRayMtl with Fog color different than white, it will be ignored. Fog color will be considered only for the Base material.