Material converter Vray-AR

[Hambe]

Hi.

I would like to see a Material converter were I can "convert back the Vray materials to native C4D materials. The oposite to the existing C4D-Vray converter. Maybe something for Renato, if he have the time.

///Dan

[Fluffy]

Oh yes, that would be great.
Along with the material switch, that would be a winner.

[glass.use]

well its not that really hard to do manually

[ilayShp]

It's interesting thing!
---
But before converting, i can back-up my ar-scene(s) then put it to archive(like rar or other, with recovery record)

[Hambe]

Hi Fluffy

What material switch do you mean ? I downloaded a material switch some times ago(I have forgotten the adress) but it doesn´t work with Vray materials. Do you know one that works with C4D material aswell as Vray materials ?

//Dan

[Fluffy]

well its not that really hard to do manually
Yeah, not hard but awfully long when working on huge scenes.
It's a must-have, I don't have time to waste 1 hour everytime I want to convert my scenes back to C4D (which is usually in a rush, since going back to AR means that I probably encountered a problem with Vray or something like that).
A switcher would also make Vray a better player along with FR. So that I can get my C4D materials back quickly, and render with whichever render engine I want, on the same project.

@Hambe : I am refering to another wish on the wishlist, for a material switcher specific to Vray.

[Tong]

Why don`t use 2 scenes?

Basicaly i spend 5 minutes for replace materials back with old plugin: replace material, objects etc...

or you want to convert VrayMaterials to AR? why? after converting to vray it`s realy different material, I think batch replace (back) will be effective not convert.

[afternooncoffeeboy]

@Hambe : I am refering to another wish on the wishlist, for a material switcher specific to Vray.

this would be really cool

[Fluffy]

or you want to convert VrayMaterials to AR? why?
Because, as I said above, I want to be able to use other renderers as well, or be able to use AR in case I encounter some problems, or if I need something else from it (effects, for example).
Keeping 2 scenes is not possible in real world projects, as they evolve constantly, and clients often ask for modifications when the project is near completion.

You might not have any use for this, but I would bet my pants that a lot of people would.

P.S: I want two things : a Vray to C4D Mat converter, but also a switch, which would keep linked in memory the C4D materials that were originally converted with the Vray converter.

[Walli]

this would be perfect, I wished for that feature too (only mentioned it in Fry forum so far, but for VRay I would like this functionality too).

[Tong]

Yes, but basically it not converter, it`s switch ;-)

between AR and Vray materials, with layers assign of course.

[Fluffy]

Both. Converter (AR to Vray, and Vray to AR) and a switch.
A full fledge material manager, if you prefer :)

It's a big task to tackle, and not a priority, but certainly desirable nevertheless.

[Tong]

big task
yea, maybe first lets ask about simple switch ;-) and then converter, so many thing not implemented(fur,fog,proxy etc..)

[stefan]

converting materials is not easy to make automatic, specially from vray to c4d.

as vray works in many ways the ar material cant. the ar material is too limited to make a good, usefull conversion from vraymat.

cheers
stefan

[Tong]

that`s why we ask switch

[Fluffy]

Yes, the switch is the most important. The Vray to C4D converter can wait, or even can be bypassed if it's not possible (although, would still be great to have).

[Tong]

why change Ferrari to Ford mustang ?

[Ernest Burden]

Are we stuck with this converter from C4D to vray mats? The idea about converting vray mats to C4D just makes the point of how well C4D mats work, simplistic as the system may be.

I have a lot of frustration about FinalRender2/C4D, mostly the "protection" scheme and Cebas' attitude, but I rather like how it can render a Cinema material (most, anyway) without any additional steps. Cebas keeps saying how much better it would be if we used their node tree, but even if you don't--nice results from regular C4D mats, and AR too.

Is it just a matter of time to get vray to render native C4D mats, or a matter of attitude?

[Fluffy]

It's more a matter of if it can be done, since Vray mats work a bit differently (so, obviously, converting would come at a loss, and it might prove way too much work for such a small team right now).
There are other bigger features to implement first (although, a switch in my opinion would be one of them), so it all depends on priority and feasibility.

OT: FR mats are way better than C4D's mats. Fast interpolation alone is the best damn thing that happened to blurry effects in C4D. I would love to have this in Vray. SSS is also nice and fast - also wish for a better SSS effect in Vray in the future. Fast SSS anyone? :)
This goes to say that these nice features would be great to use easily along with a classic Vray render. Just switch back to C4D mats, fire up a few FR shaders and render away the missing parts to compliment the project, thus drawing on each engine's power.

[stefan]

Hi Earnest,
the old (current) c4d materials let me do much less things as i do in vraymaterial. it is much weaker. i personally wouldt want to switch back.

the new future c4d material will be much better of course and will also complement much more the vraymaterial. they will both move very close to each other.

cheers
stefan

p.s fast sss and other vray shaders etc will also come in 1.2 vray
p.s.s. the converter is done only for transforming the c4d materials+uvws into vray materials. it is meant to be fine tuned then in vraymaterial.

[Ernest Burden]

Hi Earnest,
the old (current) c4d materials let me do much less things as i do in vraymaterial. it is much weaker. i personally wouldt want to switch back.

Well I like having both options, and the way the converter works now is a one-way street. I'm not happy about that. We should have the option to have VR4C4D fully convert materials, OR leave them as they are and convert as part of a render process. That way we could still use AR on our files as we build them.

As it is now, we cannot easily use vray for testing along the way if we're more comfortable with C4D mats, and if we convert them, we cannot use any other engine but vray after that (unless we manually replace the old mats--not a good option when you have a lot of mats that may be used all over the OM tree).

FinalRender has both--their own materials which are more powerful, AND the ability to run with C4D mats. That's how VR4C4D should behave.

And when mats are converted, why not have them convert to match the C4D mats? Many do, but not glass-like ones. They come put blackish. It requires some work to get them to be like glass. I'm still figuring that out. What was in my refection channel is now in specular2? Why?

I know after a while I'll get how to do these things, but I want to use vray for an interior arch-vis animation, and I have this nasty task of re-working many (dozens, maybe more) materials. I just don't have the time to do this, deadline looming.

[Walli]

it´s pretty clear that most of VRay material properties can´t be translated to C4D mats, that´s nothing I am looking for.

But sometimes I have a huge scene with many materials that I initially wanted to do with Fry or Vray and at a certain point I notice that I HAVE to go back to AR. And for those cases it would be nice to have a rough back conversion.
Diffuse->Color, Bump->Bump and Material Weight->Alpha. This already would be ebough in most cases.

[stefan]

ok we think about this
cheers
stefan

[GBie]

We are currently working on plugin which would allow easy material switching. This would be usefull not only for different render engines but also for other situations.

We are developing that for our internal purposes - we are not able to use vray in our workflow without it. But the plugin will probably be available for public.

[Tong]

We are developing that for our internal purposes - we are not able to use vray in our workflow without it. But the plugin will probably be available for public.
awesome!

if you need beta tester mail me: gantonr@gmail.com

:oops:

[stefan]

very interesting BGi!
let us know when you have this:-)
cheers
stefan