Documentation
Iray for 3ds Max has several materials that are used primarily to facilitate conversion from mental ray®. These conversion materials are optimised for compatibility not speed, for faster rendering time, we recommend using Iray+ materials where possible.
This material matches the mental ray® Arch & Design material in 3ds Max, allowing simple conversion of existing scenes to Iray for 3ds Max materials. This material is energy conserving; this is described in the original Arch & Design documentation, and Iray matches this.
Conversion from mental ray® Arch & Design to this material makes some assumptions based on your chosen parameter value. See the conversion notes for details.
Group | Parameter Name | Description | Range/Input |
---|---|---|---|
Diffuse | DiffuseLevel | Defines the brightness of the diffuse color. Final level affected by Reflectivity and Transparency as this is an Energy Conserving Material. | 0.0 – 1.0 |
DiffuseRoughness | Known as Oren-Nayar diffuse: allows clay-like powder surfaces at higher values. | 0.0 – 1.0/ Map | |
DiffuseColour | The main color of the material. | RGB/Map | |
Reflection | Reflectivity | The (maximum) amount of reflectivity. Final level dependant on BRDF values. | 0.0 – 1.0 |
ReflectionGlossiness | Defines the glossiness of the surface. 1.0 results in a perfectly mirrored surface, lower values result in more diffuse reflectivity. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
ReflectionColour | The overall reflection color, usually white. | RGB/Map | |
MetalMaterial | When enabled, the color of the reflections is taken from the main diffuse color (DiffuseColour). Reflectivity sets the balance between the diffuse and glossy reflections. | On/Off | |
Refraction | Transparency | The amount of transparency; final level is dependant on BRDF values. Transparency is also affected by RefractionColour, with black being completely diffuse. | 0.0 – 1.0 |
RefractionGlossiness | Defines the sharpness of the refraction. 1.0 will result in completely clear transparency, lower numbers are more diffuse. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
RefractionColour | Can be used to create a colored glass. If the Refraction Transparancy is set to 1.0 in Iray/mental ray®, setting the transparency color to black will mean that the material reverts to its supplied diffuse color. Whereas in Iray this will result in a pure black material that ignores the diffuse colour. To mimic the mental ray® implementation, you can simply set the Refraction Transparancy to 0.0 | RGB/Map | |
RefractionIOR | The Index of Refraction of the material. | 0.0 – 50.0 | |
RefractionFalloffOn | Enables falloff for refractions, used for materials where you cannot see the transparency beyond a certain distance/color. | On/Off | |
RefractionFalloffDistance | The distance where no transparency is seen or when the falloff color is reached. | 0.0 – | |
RefractionFalloffColourOn | Enables using RefractionFalloffColor. | On/Off | |
RefractionFalloffColor | Changes the color of the refraction at the extremities or edges of the material, for example, a glass bottle may look more green at its edges than its center. | RGB/Map | |
ThinWalled | Treats surfaces as thin wafers of material, rather than the boundaries of solids. | On/Off | |
Translucency | Translucency | Enables material translucency. | On/Off |
TranslucencyWeight | Determines how much of the existing transparency is used as translucency. For example, a value of 0.3 means that 30% of the transparency will be used as translucency. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
TranslucencyColour | The color of the translucency. | RGB/Map | |
Anisotropy | Anisotropy | Controls the shape of the highlight. At 1.0, the highlight is round: there is no anisotropy. Lower values create elongated highlights and reflection effects. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map |
AnisotropyRotation | Changes the orientation of the highlight. The range 0.0–1.0 is mapped to 0–360 degrees. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
BRDF | ByIOR | When enabled, the BRDF uses the RefractionIOR value (Refraction group) to determine… | On/Off |
BRDF_0DegRefl | Reflectivity at the angle directly facing the camera or viewer. | 0.0 – 1.0 | |
BRDF_90DegRefl | Reflectivity as viewed at the 'grazing' angle or the appearance of reflectivity as it appears looking across the surface. | 0.0 – 1.0 | |
BRDF_CurveShape | Alters the falloff of the BRDF curve. | 0.01 – 25.0 |
This material matches the mental ray® Subsurface Scattering Fast Material in 3ds Max, allowing simple conversion of existing scenes to Iray for 3ds Max materials.
Group | Parameter Name | Description | Range/Input |
---|---|---|---|
Diffuse | OverallDiffuseColoration | This is the overall diffuse color. All other colors in this material are multiplied by this color to give the final result. Useful for tinting the final effect. | RGB/Map |
UnscatteredDiffuseColour | The color of the material which is not scattering light. | RGB/Map | |
UnscatteredDiffuseWeight | The contribution of the unscattered element to the overall look. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
Subsurface | FrontSubsurfaceColour | The color of the front surface scattering. | RGB/Map |
FrontSubsurfaceWeight | The contribution of the front surface scattering to the overall look. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
BackSubsurfaceColour | The color of the back surface scattering, i.e. light going through the object. | RGB/Map | |
BackSubsurfaceWeight | The contribution of the back surface scattering to the overall look. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
SubsurfaceScatterRadius | The scatter radius in the subsurface. Light will scatter this distance in the subsurface. | 0.0 – /Map | |
Specularity | SpecularColour | The color of highlights on the reflective parts of the object. | RGB/Map |
Shininess | Shininess affects the size of the specular highlights, and the amount of reflectivity visible on the object. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
Advanced | ScatterBias | Control the mix of forward and backwards scattering. A value of 0.0 gives completely uniform scattering. Positive values favor forward scattering, and negative values favor back scattering. | −1.0 – 1.0 |
IOR | Controls how much the material refracts (or distorts) the transmitted light. | 0.0 – 50.0 |
This material matches the mental ray® Car Paint material in 3ds Max, allowing simple conversion of existing scenes to Iray for 3ds Max materials.
Group | Parameter Name | Description | Range/Input |
---|---|---|---|
Diffuse | BaseColour | Sets the base color for the paint. | RGB/Map |
Roughness | Increasing the roughness gives materials a flatter, more matte appearance. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
EdgeWeight | Defines how much of the geometry is defined as Edges (glancing angles). | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
EdgeColour | The color seen at the edges&emdash;this usually is set much darker than the BaseColour. | RGB/Map | |
EdgeBias | Defines how much of the appearance is biased to the EdgeColour, i.e. the falloff rate towards the edge (color). A value of 0.0 gives no falloff. | 0.01 – 25.0/Map | |
LightFacingWeight | Defines how much of the geometry is defined as a Face (geometry facing towards a light). | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
LightFacingColour | The color seen illuminated on the object's surface. | RGB/Map | |
LightFacingBias | Defines how much of the material appearance is weighted towards the LightFacingColour. A smaller number increases the amount of LightFacingColour seen. | 0.01 – 25.0/Map | |
Reflectivity | ReflColour | The color of the reflection. | RGB/Map |
ReflEdgeWeight | The reflective strength at the edges. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
ReflFacingWeight | The reflective strength for facing geometry. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
Flakes | FlakeColour | Allows different colored flakes of paint in the appearance of your material. | RGB/Map |
FlakeWeight | Defines how much of the surface should be covered by flakes. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
FlakeScale | Controls the size of individual flakes. | 0.0 – /Map | |
FlakeDensity | Defines how close together the flakes will appear. | 0.0 – /Map | |
UnitConversion | Adjusts, FlakeScale, to control the size of individual flakes, when using non-metres units. | 0.0 – |
This material matches the mental ray® Subsurface Scattering Fast Skin material in 3ds Max, allowing simple conversion of existing scenes to Iray for 3ds Max materials.
Group | Parameter Name | Description | Range/Input |
---|---|---|---|
Diffuse | OverallDiffuseColoration | The overall coloration. This affects all skin layers. | RGB/Map |
UnscatteredDiffuseColour | The color of the material which is not scattering light, ie the very top layer of the skin. | RGB/Map | |
UnscatteredDiffuseWeight | The contribution of the unscattered element to the overall look. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
Subsurface Scattering | SubsurfaceScatterRadius | The scatter radius in the subsurface (all 3 layers). Light will scatter this distance in the subsurface. | 0.0 – /Map |
TopScatterColour | The color of the epidermal (top) skin layer. | RGB/Map | |
TopScatterWeight | The weight of the epidermal (top) skin layer, default is 0.5. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
SubdermalScatterColour | The color of the subdermal skin layer. This is the thicker 'meat' layer and is usually reddish in human skin. | RGB/Map | |
SubdermalScatterWeight | The weight of the subdermal skin layer, default is 0.5. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
BackScatterColour | The color of the back scatter layer. This is often used for 'through' skin effects like ears. | RGB/Map | |
BackScatterWeight | The weight of the back scatter layer. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
Specularity | OverallSpecularWeight | The overall weight of all the specular effects in the material. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map |
SpecularColour1 | The color of the broad, soft specularity of skin. | RGB/Map | |
SpecularWeight1 | The weight of the broad, soft specularity of skin. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | SpecularEdgeWeight1 | The additional weight at the edges of the broad, soft specularity of skin. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map |
Shininess1 | Affects the size of the broad, soft specularity of skin. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
SpecularColour2 | The color of the near-reflective specularity of the top layer oiliness and wetness of skin. | RGB/Map | |
SpecularWeight2 | The weight of the near-reflective specularity of the top layer oiliness and wetness of skin. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | SpecularEdgeWeight2 | The additional weight at the edges of the near-reflective specularity of the top layer oiliness and wetness of skin. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map |
Shininess2 | Affects the size of the near-reflective specularity of the top layer oiliness and wetness of skin. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
Reflectivity | ReflectionWeight | The weight of the reflections. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map |
ReflEdgeWeight | The weight of the reflections at the edges. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
ReflGlossiness | The glossiness of the surface. 1.0 results in a perfectly mirrored surface, lower values result in more diffuse reflectivity. | 0.0 – 1.0/Map | |
Advanced | ScatterBias | Control the mix of forward and backwards scattering. A value of 0.0 gives completely uniform scattering. Positive values favor forward scattering, and negative values favor back scattering. | −1.0 – 1.0 |
IOR | Controls how much the material refracts (or distorts) the transmitted light. | 0.0 – 50.0 |
This is a diverse, multipurpose material that is designed to mimic the features of the Autodesk Generic material.
The purpose of this conversion material is to allow accurate conversions of the whole Autodesk Material library. For example, the scene convertor works by converting an Autodesk Concrete material into an Autodesk Generic material, and in turn into an Iray+ Generic material.
Group | Parameter Name | Description | Range/Input |
---|---|---|---|
Generic | Colour | The base color of the material. | RGB/Map |
Image | Apply an image to the material, this will usually hide the color unless you omit tiling from the map. | RGB/Map | |
ImageFade | Controls the fade between the Colour and the Image parameters. | 0.0 – 100.0 | |
Glossiness | Controls the glossiness of the surface. | 0.0 – 100.0 | |
UseGlossinessMap | When enabled, the Glossiness parameter is ignored and the GlossinessMap parameter is used instead. | On/Off | |
GlossinessMap | Apply a map for the glossy pattern. Only active when UseGlossinessMap is checked. | RGB/Map | |
Highlights | Uses metallic specular highlights for the material. When switched off this uses non-metallic highlights. | On/Off | |
Reflectivity | EnableReflectivity | When enabled, the material is reflective. | On/Off |
DirectRefl | Controls the normal reflectivity. | 0.0 – 100.0 | |
UseDirectRefltMap | When enabled, the DirectRelf parameter is ignored and the DirectReflMap is used instead. | On/Off | |
DirectReflMap | Apply a map for the normal reflectivity pattern. (Ignore the numeric value field.) | Map | |
ObliqueRefl | Controls the grazing reflectivity. | 0.0 – 100.0 | |
UseObliqueRelfMap | When enabled, the ObliqueRefl parameter is ignored and the ObliqueReflMap parameter is used instead. | On/Off | |
ObliqueRelfMap | Apply a map for the grazing reflectivity pattern. (Ignore the numeric value field.) | Map | |
ByIOR | When enabled, RefractionIOR (Transparency group) is used to determine reflectivity. | On/Off | |
Transparency | EnableTransparency | When enabled, the material is transparent. | On/Off |
TransparencyAmount | Controls the overall transparency. | 0.0 – 100.0 | |
UseTransparencyImage | When enabled, the TransparencyImage parameter is used in combination with the Reflectivity. | On/Off | |
TransparencyImage | When UseTransparencyImage is enabled, this will be used. (Ignore the numeric value field.) | Map | |
TransparencyImageFade | Controls the compositing of the effect of the image map. | 0.0 – 100.0 | |
TranslucencyAmount | Controls the translucency of the material. | 0.0 – 100.0 | |
UseTranslucencyMap | When enabled, the TranslucencyMap is used instead of the TranslucencyAmount. | On/Off | |
TranslucencyMap | Apply a map for the translucency pattern. (Ignore the numeric value field.) | Map | |
RefractionIOR | The Index of Refraction of the material. Controls how much the material refracts (or distorts) the transmitted light | 0.0 – 50.0 |
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