V-Ray Asset Editor

||V-Ray|| > Asset Editor...

||V-Ray Toolbar|| > Asset Editor (left-click) > Shows the Asset Editor window

||V-Ray Toolbar|| > Asset Editor (right-click) > Shows the File Path Editor

Categories

Assets are grouped in Categories for ease of access and use. On top of the central Asset Editor's panel you can find the Materials, Lights, Geometry, Render Elements, and Textures categories.

You can create an asset in the respective category by Left- or Right-click if the category is empty. If there are already items in it Left-click will select the directory, while a Right-click always opens a list of available assets to choose from in order to create them. The Asset creation dropdown lists remain active when the Ctrl key is held, allowing the creation of multiple assets in quick succession.

Each Category has a Search Scene tab on the top of the list. You can search for assets from the category selected. You can select more than one category or asset at a time with Ctrl+select(Cmd+select) or Shift+select.

Buttons

At the bottom of the Asset Editor you can find some utility buttons:

From the Create Asset button () you can open a list of all V-Ray assets grouped into categories and select an item to add it to the scene. Using the Import Asset button () you can open a directory and select to import a .vrmat file into your Library. Vice versa, an already created asset can be saved with the Save Asset to File button (). Delete the selected asset(s) with the Delete Asset button (). You can select more than one asset by using the Ctrl or Shift buttons. Purge all unused items of selected asset categories with the Purge Unused Assets button ().

In the right panel of the Asset Editor reside two navigation buttons:

Select Previous Asset () traces back assets that were previously selected, while Up the Assets Hierarchy () moves the selection one level up in the hierarchy.

Preset Material Library Buttons

In V-Ray 6, the V-Ray Material Library is part of the Chaos Cosmos Browser. The Browse Materials in Cosmos button in the left panel of the V-Ray Asset Editor opens the material library.

In earlier V-Ray versions, the V-Ray Material Library is called Preset Material Library and it resides in the Asset Browser. It has some functionality buttons at the bottom of the Asset Editor.

Import Asset File () button adds a directory in which your .vrmats reside. When you load the directory, the .vrmats files will load in the Preset Material Library as separate assets.

You can change the view between a row and a column via the () button. The assets' display can be changed between a grid and a list view (). Use the zoom in/out buttons () to adjust the size of the preview swatches on the list.

Note that materials that have already been downloaded with any earlier V-Ray version remain unchanged and can still be loaded as a custom folder with V-Ray 6.

For more information about all the functionalities that the V-Ray Material Library offers, follow the link.

Preview Swatch

The Preview Swatch resides in the right panel of the Asset Editor, rendering all changes done to the currently selected asset. This is a quick preview of materials, textures, and lights. It has several controls that can be customized for your workflow.

You can enable or disable the live preview of the swatch by pressing the corresponding button (/). As the Preview Swatch is an actual render, it might require some additional computing power. The Stop live preview button comes in handy in such situations. When you stop the live preview, you have the option to Preview the asset once (). The swatch will render the current settings of the asset, but will not take into consideration any changes done to it later.

When using the live preview swatch, there are other ways to reduce resource usage – choose the resolution of the rendered swatch from 100% (1/1) (which is the best quality but is a slower render), 50%(1/2), 25%(1/4) and 12.5% (1/8) (which trades off image quality for refresh speed).

The CPU/GPU () allows you to change the render engine for the live preview.

Selecting the scene used to preview the asset () is available for materials and textures. You can choose from Generic, Fabric, Floor, Ground, Subsurface Scattering, Wall, Wall Closeup and Sphere.

Pulling the bottom line of the Preview Swatch up and down reduces or expands the swatch.

For Material assets, you can also choose among several swatch scenes. Some are more suitable than others at displaying certain material types. For example, a Brick material will be best seen in a wall preview, instead of a shader ball.

The pin () on the top left is used to preview a specific asset regardless of the currently selected one. It will display the pinned asset until unpinned.

The context menu of each Color slot provides options to Copy and Paste, as well as to Reset it back to its default value. Number slots also have a Reset option.

Asset Tagging

Custom grouping scene assets of any type is now possible in the V-Ray Assets Outliner. Tags help to organize and work more efficiently in complex projects.

Each tag can be assigned to multiple assets all at once via the context menu and one asset can be assigned multiple tags.

Tags can be assigned to assets of all categories - materials, textures, lights, etc. When a tag is assigned to assets of different types, the tag indicator will appear in each category.

Right-clicking on a tag allows its renaming or deletion. Alternatively, double-clicking a tag name allows its renaming directly.

Drag & dropping an asset over a tag assigns the tag to this asset.

Upon creation each tag is assigned a random color.

A new Tag View button, located at the top-right corner of the Asset Outliner, next to the search field, allows toggling tags visibility on or off.

Right-clicking on any asset and hovering over its "Tag" context menu entry displays a list of all available tags in the scene, as well indicators which tags are currently assigned to the asset.

Tags are considered scene-specific, meaning they are serialized in each project file and they cannot be transferred between scenes.

Saving any asset as a .vrmat does not write its tags to the file keeping it clean of any scene-specific data.

Mathematical Expressions

Entering mathematical expressions as text in the input number fields of the asset editor is also allowed. Find some useful examples below.

If a non valid mathematical expression is written in the input field, it is ignored and the value of the input remains the same.

Examples of supported operations:

Trigonometric functions are supported such as "cos", "sin", "tan" are also supported.

The following mathematical constants are supported as well.

• pi = 3.1415...
• e = 2.71...

Parenthesis are also supported which allows for complex mathematical expressions such as: (3*2)^2/4 = 9. Parenthesis are not necessary for some of the operators: e.g.

• root2 = root(2)
• ln2 = ln(2)
• sin60 = sin(60)

Color Picker

The V-Ray Color Picker can be accessed by clicking on any color slot in the Asset Editor. It is a color manager that allows numeric color value selection in Screen (sRGB) and Rendering (RGB) Color spaces, options to regulate RGB, HSV and temperature. V-Ray Color Picker automatically converts Kelvin to RGB values, as well as RGB to Kelvin whenever possible.

Left-click on the current color to save it in the palette. Alternatively, right-click on an empty slot in the palette. Right-click on a saved color in the color slot to replace it with a new one.

The V-Ray Color Picker has a Color Assistant that can be opened by clicking on the side bar at the bottom of V-Ray Color Picker window. The Color Assistant provides color palettes to pick a color from.

Left-click on a color from the Color Assistant to pick the current color. Right-click on it to use as a base for a color palette.

The following buttons are available:

The Render button allows you to choose how you wish to render, Render with V-Ray, Render with V-Ray Interactive, and Export V-Ray Scene File.