Render elements

 

General

List of supported render elements

Notes

 

General

V-Ray supports the 3ds Max Render elements interface since version 1.48. Note however, that V-Ray provides its own render elements and does not support the standard ones implemented in 3ds Max. Standard 3ds Max render elements will not work with V-Ray and vice-versa.

List of supported render elements

The following render elements are supported by V-Ray. All render elements support native V-Ray materials. Some render elements also support standard 3ds Max materials. This is noted in the table below.

 

Render element name	VRayMtl support	Std material support	Filtering control	Transparency support	Description
MultiMatte	yes	yes	no	N/A	Create selection masks based on object gbuffer ID or material ID
VRayAlpha	yes	yes	yes**	yes	Alpha transparency.
VRayAtmosphere	yes	yes	no**	yes	The atmospheric effects.
VRayBackground	yes	yes	yes**	yes	The image background.
VRayBumpNormals	yes	yes	yes	no	The normals generated by bump maps
VRayCaustics	yes	no*	yes**	yes	The caustics on the material. Only present when the Caustics option of V-Ray is enabled. This channel does not include GI caustics.
VRayDiffuseFilter	yes	yes	yes**	yes	The pure diffuse surface color. Note that this is different from the standard 3ds Max Diffuse render element, which contains the diffuse surface lighting.
VRayDRBucket	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Shows which render node rendered which bucket during distributed rendering
VRayExtraTex	N/A	N/A	no	N/A	Renders the entire scene with one texture mapped on all objects.
VRayGlobalIllumination	yes	no*	yes**	yes	The diffuse surface global illumination. Only present if Global illumination is enabled.
VRayIlluminance	yes	no	yes	no	Displays the illumination in each part of the scene in a similar way to the VRayLightMeter helper.
VRayLighting	yes	yes*	yes**	yes	The diffuse direct surface lighting.
VRayLightSelect	yes	yes	yes	yes	Allows the user to extract the contribution of a light or a set of lights to the scene to a separate render element
VRayMatteShadow	yes	yes	yes	yes	The matte shadow part of the image
VRayMtlID	yes	yes	no (always off)	no	The material ID of the object.
VRayMtlSelect	yes	no	yes	yes	This element allows you write the result of a V-Ray compatible material into a separate element. The material can be a top-level material or a sub-material of VRayMtlBlend.
VRayNormals	yes	yes	yes	no	The surface normals.
VRayObjectID	yes	yes	no (always off)	no	The object gbuffer ID (set through the node's Properties dialog).
VRayRawGlobalIllumination	yes	yes	yes**	yes	The raw diffuse global illumination (not multiplied by the diffuse surface color). Only present if Global illumination is enabled.
VRayRawLighting	yes	no	yes**	yes	The raw diffuse direct illumination before it's multiplied by the diffuse surface color.
VRayRawReflection	yes	no	yes**	yes	The pure surface reflection before it's multiplied by the reflection filter color.
VRayRawRefraction	yes	no	yes**	yes	The pure surface refraction before it's multiplied by the refraction filter color.
VRayRawShadow	yes	no	yes**	yes	The raw light that was blocked by other objects.
VRayRawTotalLighting	yes	no	yes	yes	The sum of all raw lighting - direct and inderect
VRayReflection	yes	yes	yes**	yes	The reflections on the surface.
VRayReflectionFilter	yes	no	yes**	yes	The reflection filter (the color by which the raw reflections are multiplied to give the final surface reflection). This may be considered as an alpha channel for the reflections.
VRayRefraction	yes	no	yes**	yes	The refractions on the surface.
VRayRefractionFilter	yes	no	yes**	yes	The refraction filter (the color by which the raw refractions are multiplied to give the final surface refraction). This may be considered as an alpha channel for the refractions.
VRayRenderID	yes	yes	no (always off)	no	The node render ID of the object that contributes most to the pixel value.
VRaySamplerRate	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Shows an image where the pixel brightness is directly proportional to the number of samples taken at this pixel.
VRaySamplerInfo	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Shows the amount of sampling for each pixel in the image
VRaySelfIllumination	yes	yes	yes**	yes	The self-illumination of the surface.
VRayShadow	yes	no	yes**	yes	The diffuse light that was blocked by other objects.
VRaySpecular	yes	yes	yes**	yes	The surface specular hilights.
VRaySSS2	no	no	yes	N/A	Renders just the subsurface part of the VRaySSS2 material on a separate layer
VRayTotalLighting	yes	yes	yes	yes	The total lighting in the scene - direct and indirect
VRayUnclampedColor	yes	yes	yes**	yes	The unclamped image color.
VRayVelocity	yes	yes	yes	no	The surface velocity. This channel will not be generated if 3d motion blur is enabled.
VRayWireColor	yes	yes	yes	yes	The wire color of the object as set in the 3ds Max scene. This can be used to generate masks for the objects based on their wire color.
VRayZDepth	yes	yes	yes	no	The z-depth of the surface.

 

* For Standard materials, the VRayLighting element includes the direct and indirect lighting as well as caustics, while the VRayGlobalIllumination and VRayCaustics elements are black. However for all materials, adding the VRayLighting, VRayGlobalIllumination and VRayCaustics elements always gives the total diffuse surface lighting.

 

** When an element is filtered, it will be dimmed by atmospheric effects like fog etc. However, when an element is unfiltered, it will not be affected by atmospherics.

 

Notes

• When the V-Ray VFB is enabled, all V-Ray render elements will appear switched off in the Render Elements tab inside the Render Scene dialog. This is a work-around so that 3ds Max does not create its own render elements bitmaps - this is not required as the elements are stored in the V-Ray VFB itself. If the V-Ray VFB is used, the render elements can be enabled or disabled by using their own vrayVFB parameter.
  
  
• V-Ray always antialiases with respect to the RGB color channel. Therefore other channels may appear jagged or noisy in areas where V-Ray has placed fewer samples. See the Examples section for a demonstration of this effect.
  
  
• Render elements will render in Distributed rendering mode, both in the V-Ray VFB and the 3dsmax VFB.
  
  
• Render elements require additional storage when rendering and thus increase the amount of RAM taken during the rendering. When rendering to the V-Ray VFB, you can reduce this memory by rendering directly to a .vrimg file on disk and not storing the final image in memory.
  
  
• Render elements may slow down the final image rendering a little bit, depending on the number of elements that the user has selected. They have no effect on GI/reflection etc. calculations.