Blend Material

V-Ray Blend Material can be used to layer several V-Ray-compatible materials in an efficient manner. It can be used to create complex materials like car paints, human skin (when Fast SSS2 material is used as a base material) etc.  

You can use the Material Select render element to split the different sub-materials of the Blend Material into different render elements.  

V-Ray Blend Material takes a base material and applies other materials (coatings) on top of it. This works like a stack, where each coat material blends between its own shading and that of the materials below it in the stack.

||V-Ray|| > Blend Material

||Create|| > V-Ray > Blend Material (disabled Separate menu for V-Ray materials)

Base Material – The base material, over which other materials are layered. If this is not specified, the base material is assumed to be a perfectly transparent material.

Mode – Select how the V-Ray Blend Material behaves: like a multi-layered Additive material or as Energy Conserving. Selecting the Additive Mode would often result in a physically incorrect material (e.g. a material that reflects more light than falls on it). It is not recommended to use this option, unless you know what you are doing.

Add – Adds a new coat layer.

Clear – Clears all coat layers.

Enabled – Enables the layer. When disabled, the layer is not calculated in the Blend Material during rendering.

Move Up – Moves the layer with one position up in the stack.

Move Down – Moves the layer with one position down in the stack.

Remove – Removes only the selected layer.

Material – Specifies materials to use as coatings.

Blend Amount – Specifies how much of the final result is contributed by the corresponding coating material, and the rest of the materials below it. If the Blend amount is white, the final result is comprised of the coat material only, and other materials below it are blocked. If the Blend amount is black, a coat material has no effect on the final result. This parameter can also be controlled by a texture map.

Opacity –  Defines the strength of the layer.

Transparency – Specifies how transparent the Blend Material is. Black makes the material fully opaque and white makes it fully transparent. A texture map can also be used here.

Texture – Specifies a texture file to be used for the opacity.

Mix Strength – Specifies a blend amount for the texture map.

Enable Outlines – When enabled, adds outlines to the object the material is applied to. This option is disabled by default.

Line Color – Determines the color of the outlines. A Texture can be applied.

Line Width – Determines the width of the outlines in pixels. The soft limit is 100. Click on the  arrow to expand. A Texture can be applied.

Opacity – Determines how opaque the lines are. Click on the  arrow to expand. You can attach a Texture for the opacity. The Mix Strength option determines the percentage of blending between the Opacity value and the texture.

Outer Overlap Threshold – Determines when outlines are created for overlapping parts of the object. Lower values reduce the outer overlapping lines, while higher values produce more overlapping outer lines.

Normal Threshold – Determines at what point lines are created for parts of the object with varying surface normals (for example, at the inside edges of a box). Lower values mean that only sharper normals generate an edge, while a value of 0.5 means that 90 degrees or larger angles generate internal lines. Higher values mean that smoother normals can also generate an edge. Don't set this value to pure 1.0, as this fills curved objects completely. 

Overlap Threshold – Determines when outlines are created for overlapping parts of the object. Lower values reduce the internal overlapping lines, while higher values produce more overlapping lines. Don't set this value to pure 1.0, as this fills the objects completely. 

Inner Line Control – When enabled, allows the inner line to be edited further. This option is disabled by default.

Inner Line Color – Determines the color of the inner lines. A Texture can be attached 

Inner Line Width – Determines the width of the inner lines in pixels. Click on the  arrow to expand for the Texture option, where you can attach a texture to serve as the inner line width.

MATERIAL ID

Material Id Enabled – Enables the use of Material ID.

Material ID – The color used by the Material ID render element. You can also use a shader here.

Multimatte ID – The integer ID of the material to be used by the Multi Matte render element.

ROUND EDGES

Round Edges Enabled –  Enables the round edges effect which uses bump mapping to smooth out the edges of the geometry during render time.

Radius – Specify a radius (in world units) for the round edges effect. Since the actual geometry is not being changed and only the normals of the faces are affected, large values may produce undesirable effects.

Consider Same Object Only – When enabled, the rounded corners are produced only along edges that belong to the object which has the attribute applied. When disabled, rounded corners are also produced along edges formed when the object with the attribute intersects other objects in the scene. 

Corners – Choose which edges are considered in the calculation. Possible options are:

Covex and Concave – Considers all edges. 
Convex Only – Only applies Round Edges effect to edges with convex angles. 
Concave Only – Only applies Round Edges effect to edges with concave angles. 

Override Preferences – When enabled, the parameters in this tab override the global preferences of the scene for the selected material.

Enable Preview – When disabled, the previews of the material in the Viewport and the Material Editor are disabled. The material is displayed in all black. This saves on processing power.

Enable Global Illumination – When disabled, global illumination is not calculated for the current material preview.

Quality – Determines the quality of the material previews. Higher values give more detail but slow down processing.

Editor Map Size – Determines the resolution of the material preview. If you have extra-detailed textures applied to the material, this option allows you to preview those textures in higher resolution at the preview step, without needing to render.

Default
64×64 (16 KB)
128x128 (64 KB)
256x256 (256 KB)
512x512 (1 MB)
1024x1024 (4 MB)
2048x2048 (16 MB)
4096x4096 (64 MB)