Square Enix © Goodbye Kansas

Table of Contents

This page provides a tutorial on creating a water material with VRayMtl.


Overview

This tutorial explains how to set the parameters of VRayMtl to create a material for rendering water. Before we begin, it's important to note that purified water in the physical world is colorless and almost completely reflective and refractive. As general guideline water and any water-based materials, such as milk, juice, skin, etc., need to have an index of refraction (or IOR) of 1.33.


 




Tutorial Steps


1. Create a new VRayMtl and assign it to the geometry object that will be the water.

2. Set the Reflection Color close to white (200, 200, 200) because still purified water has mirror-like reflections, but is not completely reflective.

3. You can leave the Max Depth parameter from the Reflection-advanced rollout at its default value of 8 or switch it to a higher value. The reflection max depth specifies the number of times a ray can be reflected. Since water is highly reflective, it requires values between 7 and 10 to look right. Note that if the water is inside a clear glass, the glass itself requires the same reflection max depth parameter as the one set for the water material.





4. Set the Refraction Color to white (255, 255, 255) because water is completely refractive.

5. You can leave the Max Depth parameter from the Refraction-advanced rollout at its default setting of 8 or switch it to a higher value. The refraction max depth specifies the number of times a ray can be refracted. Water requires values between 7 and 10 to look right. Note that if the water is inside a clear glass, the glass itself requires the same refraction max depth parameter as the one set for the water material.

6. Set the Refraction IOR to 1.33 - this is the general rule for water and water-based materials. There is no need to change the Reflection IOR because it is locked to the Refraction IOR by default and will internally use the same value.

7. Leave the rest of the parameters at their defaults and render the image.

You now have a material for rendering water.