GETTING STARTED WITH VRAY MATERIALS – VRAY RENDERING FOR SKETCHUP

TUTORIAL

So far, when working with Vray, we’ve talked about lighting our models – now I want to give you an
introduction to working with materials in Vray.

 To start off, material editing in Vray 3.6 occurs within the asset editor, which can be found in the
Vray for SketchUp toolbar. Click on the circle with the checkerboard pattern to access the material
editor.

 When you first open up the material editor, you’re going to see a list of the materials currently
contained in the SketchUp model. Notice that this will correspond with the materials contained in the
“In Model” dropdown of your material editor in SketchUp. If you click on any of these materials, your
material preview will show you a preview of what that material is going to look like within your Vray
Rendering. In addition, you can also preview your material in different uses by clicking on the 3 dots
next to your material preview.

 If you right click on the material, there are several different options that you’re going to find useful,
including the ability to select all objects with a certain material applied to them, the ability to apply
materials to selected objects in your SketchUp scene, and more!

 The way that rendering materials in Vray works is that you apply a texture to an object in SketchUp,
then you apply different presets and settings to those materials to tell Vray how to treat those
materials when it renders them. There’s two ways to do this – you can either adjust the settings of a
SketchUp material, or you can apply a Vray material to your model. Let’s talk about adjusting our
material settings first, then we can talk about using Vray’s built in materials to create our renderings.

 Next to your material list, there’s an option for quick settings – this is a quick area where you can
apply different settings to your materials. You can also click the right arrow button to access more in-
depth settings for your materials. There are a LOT of settings that you can adjust within Vray, and
I’m not going to be able to get to all of them in this video. If there’s enough interest, I may create a
video or even a series of videos talking about each one of these presets, so leave a comment below
and let me know!

 In this case, let’s apply some colors to these spheres within SketchUp, then play around with their
settings to see what kind of results we can achieve. Notice that when I select a material with the
 SketchUp eyedropper, the material also gets selected within Vray. To start off, let’s apply a preset of
“Paint” to the first sphere within the quick settings of Vray. Notice that when we do this, our material
preview changes to show the change to the settings we just made. In this case, a paint material is
somewhat reflective, and has a glossiness to it. Notice that if we drag the slider for the reflection
glossiness, the material gives a more clear reflection. Run a quick render and you can note that this
material reflects both the sunlight around it, as well as the other spheres next to it.

 For the second material, apply a “Metal” preset to it. Note that this material has a higher glossiness,
and also a high IOR, or Index of Refraction, which describes the way that light bends along the
surface. It also has a very low diffuse color value (the actual color of the object), but a very high
reflection value (which is the color of the light being reflected).

 For the third material, apply a glass preset. Note that this preset has a series of different options
than the other materials because it actually allows light to pass through it. This preset has a series of
sliders that allow you to adjust refraction (how an object allows light to pass through), as well as the
fog color (which adjusts the color the light takes on as it passes through). You can also affect the
glossiness of the reflection, and changing the IOR affects the way that light bends as it passes
through the object.

 Finally, let’s apply a material of plastic to the last object. Note that this shares a lot of the
characteristics of the paint material, so the effect generated is very similar.

 There are a lot of things that adjust the realism of materials, including lighting, textures, other things
as well. In the next video, I want to talk a bit more about using materials with actual texture images
applied to create realistic looking textures.
Overview
The V-Ray Asset Editor comprises of four different tabs for managing V-Ray assets and settings:
the Material Editor, Light Editor, Geometry Editor, and Render Settings Tab.
 
 UI Paths:
 || V-Ray Toolbar || > Asset Editor button
 
Extensions > V-Ray > Asset Editor

V-Ray Frame Buffer

The Frame Buffer button opens up up the V-Ray Frame Buffer. For more information on V-Ray
Frame Buffer, see the Frame Buffer page.

Render Button
The Render button allows you to choose how you wish to render, Render with V-Ray, Render
with V-Ray Interactive, and Export V-Ray Scene File.
 
Material Asset Lister/Editor
The Material tab contains information and controls for all the materials in the SketchUp scene.

The default view of the Material tab provides a Material List with a search feature, a shader ball
preview, a Quick Settings tab, and a toolbar for managing the Material List. Expanding the Asset
Editor with the white arrow on the left will display a Material Library, which includes a wide
variety of material presets. Expanding the white arrow on the right of the editor will display the
Material Editor, which contains material settings and rollouts.
Right-clicking on any material slate from the Preset Material Library gives the option to apply it
directly to the currently selected object or add it to the Asset Editor's Material List. 
Right-click on any material in the Material's List for a context menu to appear. Select a material
to Use as Replacement for any other material in the scene. Then, use the Replace option over
the other material in order for this option to take effect. 
For more information on Materials, see the Materials section.
 
Light Asset Lister/Editor
The Light tab contains information and controls for all the lights in the SketchUp scene. 

The default view of the Light tab provides a Light List of all the lights currently in the scene. A V-
Ray SunLight is included by default. Expanding the Light tab with the white arrow on the right
will display the Light Editor, which displays settings for the selected light and additional rollouts.
For more information on the types of V-Ray lights and their properties, see the Lights section.
 
Geometry Asset Lister/Editor
The Geometry tab contains information about V-Ray geometry assets in the SketchUp scene.
 

The default view of the Geometry tab provides a Geometry List of V-Ray geometry assets in the
scene. Expanding the tab with the white arrow on the right will display the Geometry Editor,
which displays settings for the selected V-Ray Geometry object and additional rollouts.
Geometry items that can be edited though this tab include V-Ray Mesh Clipper, V-Ray Fur, V-
Ray Infinite Plane, and V-Ray Proxies.
For more information about V-Ray geometry objects, see the Geometry section.
 
Settings and Advanced Settings
The V-Ray Render Settings tab contains controls for the V-Ray renderer.
The default view of the Render Settings tab provides a render settings toolbar. Expanding the
tab with the white arrow on the right will display the Advanced Settings and rollouts.

VRAY MATERIAL SETTING FOR SKETCHUP

TUTORIAL STEPS:

1. Open the Example Scene

Begin by launching SketchUp. Open the project file Materials_01_Start.skp, which can be
downloaded from the Tutorial Assets section above.

 Start an Interactive render to visualize the scene with its basic gray materials.

Select the bookmarked view Cup_View.

In the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB), click the Region render button. Draw region around the cup and
saucer. This will limit interactive rendering to the specified region, allowing you to focus on adding
materials to the cup.

 
 
 Using the Preset Material Library

Open the Asset Editor, and in the Materials section, expand the Material Library by clicking the
left-facing arrow. 

 Scroll down and select the Ceramics & Porcelain category. Adding these presets to the current
scene will be as easy as dragging them from the Library into the Material List. Find
the Porcelain_B03_Green_10cm material and drag and drop it over to the Material List.

 To apply it to the cup, first select the cup geometry from the viewport. Right-click the new porcelain
material in the Material List and click Apply Material to Selection.
 
The VFB will update to show the porcelain preset applied to the cup.

 Now let’s work on the table’s material. In the VFB, draw a new Region render at the lower left side
of the VFB to focus on the table.

In the Material Library, select the Stone material category. Scroll to the top and

drag Granite_A_80cm over to the Material List.

 Select the tabletop in the viewport and apply the granite material. Check how it looks in the VFB.

We will focus on the notebook next. Define a new Region render to encompass the notebook and
then select the notebook's geometry.
 
 Go to the Paper category in the Material Library and find Paper_C04_8cm, which is a patterned
paper. Apply it to the notebook, and notice the pattern on the material is pretty large.
 

  The material name provides the correct scale of the material, which is 8cm in this case. In
the texture properties in SketchUp, enter 8 cm to match. The pattern looks more proportional
afterward.
 
 Turn off Region render and let the whole rendering resolve.
 

Now we can apply the same materials to the chairs. These are component instances, so applying
the material to one of the chairs applies it to all of them. You need to double-click on a component or
right-click and choose Edit component in order to apply materials to it.

2. Editing Existing Materials

Let's focus on the wall. Define a new region to include it, and select it in the viewport.
Go to the Bricks category in the Material Library and try out Bricks_Weathered_E02_1m.

 Set the Texture size to 80cm, but experiment for your own look if you’d like, or try out some other
materials from the libra
Turn off Region render and take a look at your render as it resolves in the VFB.

4. Creating Materials from Scratch

Let’s look at creating new materials. To get started, select the lamp mesh.
 In the Asset Editor, click the New Material icon and choose Generic.

 Apply the material to the selected desk lamp. Switch to the Lamp_View and select a Render
Region around the lamp’s head.

  Click the Diffuse color swatch and pick a dark green.

 

To make this a metallic paint, it will need colored reflections. Drag the Diffuse color swatch down to
the Reflect color swatch. Make the color a bit brighter. Make the reflections more blurry by adjusting
the Reflection Glossiness down to 0.7.
 
 
 Uncheck the Lock Fresnel IOR to Refraction IOR to allow you to manually set the Fresnel
IOR value to 1.9. This will make the reflections a bit stronger in facing angles.
 
 

 Click the Plus (+) icon to add a new Reflection layer on top of the paint.

Set the Filter color to a darker gray to reduce the strength of these additional reflections.

5. Setting Up the Production Render

Stop the Interactive render.

 To prepare the final render, go to the Render Settings in the Asset Editor.
Disable Interactive and Progressive, set your desired image Quality, and set
the Resolution to 1280x720.
 Click Render and see the render resolve. Note that the color corrections will affect the results, as
they are still enabled.

 Here is our final render:

 
Reference:
https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAYSKETCHUP/Materials+QuickStart

Republic of the Philippines

EASTERN VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Tacloban City

COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE AND ALLIED DISCIPLINES

RESEARCWORK NO. 1
In
COMP 423

(VRAY SCKETCHUP SETTING)

 Submitted by:
Mark Emmanuel D. Espera
BSAR 4A

Submitted to:
AR. Julius Tadeo, uap
Instructor