Vue infinite materials conversion from Iray
golem841
Posts: 137
Hello,
I'm a very long user of Vue (eon software) landscaping program. Plants and terrains are infinitely better to what is available in Daz3d (or poser) and the instancing system is really great, even though the renderer is awfully slow and aging.
I'm trying to import genesis figures as "obj" files.
The material conversion from Iray to vue is still a mystery to me :
Color, Transparency, Reflection and Bump maps are relatively simple ; but, I'm trying out to understand what are equivalents to :
Displacement : Normal map ???
Highlight : specularity ??
Alpha (what's the difference with transparency ?)
Scattering : Sub surface scattering ???
And I think there are differences linked to scale : kilometers for vue and inches for Daz3d
Could somebody try to explain these points or give me a link to a tutorial ?
Many thanks in advance
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Comments
Displacement actually moves the mesh, unlike bump and normal. If Vue doesn't have that then use the Displacement map for Bump, if available. Bump and Displacement use grey-scale height maps (like terrain in Vue, as I recall), normals use the three colour components as coordinates for the line sitting at right angles to the surface. Unless Vue can go from a height map to a normal map then they are not compatible types (there are stand-alne tools tnat will turn a hieght map into a normal map, however, if there's no other option).
The native scale in DS is cm, not inches.
As for the other properties, while I could guess it would not be with any great confidence.
Thank you for your answer, do you know a stand alone tool to convert normal maps to height maps ? (not too costly, naturally)
I'll keep experimenting
Hello!
Another long time Vue User here (I started with version Vue 4 pro currently running Vue 2016 Infinite).
Most of the time I find it sufficient to just use the color, bump and transparency maps and set up the rest with Vue material settings. However, sometimes it is useful to utilize additional maps (human skin for example), in that case I use the maps as follows:
Displacement: You add them as a bump map and then check the displacement box in the bump tab (advanced material editor)
Normal maps: can be added in the bump tab (pulldown menu, switch from "along normal" to "normal map").
Specularity maps: I usually use those to drive the "Highlight global intensity"
Alpha: comparable to transparency, often used to define invisible vs. visible whereas transparency is defining a scale from 0 to 100% transparent (similar to opacity in DS). But this is not a hard rule. They are often used for the same thing.
Subsurface scattering maps can be used in the "variable depth" map of the translucency tab.
The default scale in the newer Vue versions is 1 m per Vue unit (can be set in the preferences).
Hope this helkps, feel free to ask if there is anything else.
Ciao
TD
Just found a couple of related tutorials that I made some time ago. They are done with Vue Infinite versions 8 and 10 if I recall correctly. So the interface has changed somewhat, but the workflow is still fine. Maybe they are useful to you or someone else. They are both in form of PDF files.
Ciao
TD
Golem, in case you didn't know, VUE 2016 now has GPU rendering support through the Path Tracer option in Render Options. It has issues - see here for documentation - and disables some key VUE functionality that you migth want, but it is way faster. I'm doing some experimenting with effectively multi-pass rendering to maintain some of that functionality.
GPU rendering in Vue 2016 is waaay too limited. Close to crap. It is a feasability study. Waiting for Vue 2018...
With any texture maps I have coming from other apps, I have to look at the images first in my editor (I use an old Paint Shop Pro). I try to use PNGs because they are smaller in file size (than BMP or TIF files) without losing their sharpness (like JPGs will do).
I can tell, by looking at the PNG files, what they are used for. The version of Vue I use is looking for color maps (files that have color in them, but not all purple, tan, or green colors), highlight and bump maps (grayscale images), normal maps (everything looks purple almost in them). A lot of them, Vue just can't make use of. Last I looked, Vue still could not do transparent reflections for objects, or bounce light off mirrors, and only worked with one kind of normal map (modo will convert imported normal maps to the way it likes them, Vue will not).
You will rarely use displacement settings in Vue for people, unless you want Moon craters on people's foreheads. Surrealist artists do it all the time though.
Anyway, once you know what information is in an image intexture map, you can decide if it makes sense to use in Vue. Of course, Vue is assuming the imported OBJ is UV-mapped, so it can apply the texture maps to it.
Oh, totally. Mostly just pointing out that it is there.
Vue works fine with Displacement maps...they do move the geometry if there is enough geometry. use the node editor to access, or you can just tick the little "displacement" box in Vue Materials.