This page provides information about the Clipper in V-Ray for SketchUp.
Overview
V-Ray Clipper is a geometric primitive that can be used to clip away parts of the scene. It is a render-time effect and does not modify the actual scene geometry in any way.
UI Paths
||V-Ray Asset Editor|| > Geometries (right-click) > Clipper
||V-Ray Asset Editor|| > Create Asset (left-click) > Geometries > Clipper
||V-Ray Objects Toolbar|| > Convert to Clipper
SketchUp Menus Ribbon
||Extensions|| > V-Ray > Objects > Convert to Clipper
Creating Mesh Clipper
The Mesh Clipper can only be applied to group or component objects in SketchUp (sometimes referred to as closed geometry). After creating a Mesh Clipper object, a bounding box with a Mesh Clipper icon appears in the viewport around the selected group or component. The bounding box and icon represent the newly applied Clipper object properties.
The Clipper object can be copied between groups or components by placing them inside a new group or component. The object then receives all associated object properties.
By applying a material to the group or component, the Clipper object absorbs the applied material and use that applied material and UV Mapping for the clipped faces.
The Mesh Clipper can be enabled via the toggle under the Swatch Preview.
Parameters
Mode – Determines how to use the mesh when Mesh mode is enabled.
Subtract – Clips away anything inside the specified mesh; only renders objects and parts of objects outside of the specified mesh.
Intersect – Clips away anything that is outside the specified mesh; only renders objects and parts of objects inside the specified mesh.
Use Object Material – When enabled, the clipper uses the material of each clipped object to fill in the resulting holes. When disabled, the material applied to the clipper object itself is used.
Material – Specifies the material used by the clipper. This parameter is disabled when object material is used instead.
The input slot (
) of the Material has a context menu available when you right-click on it. You can also drag-and-drop materials into the slot.
You can Copy, Cut, Clear the selected material or Paste as Instance another material into the slot.
Options
Affect lights – When enabled, the clipper affects area light sources as well.
Camera Rays Only – When enabled, the clipper affects objects as they are directly seen by the camera, but they appear unchanged to reflection/refraction/GI rays.
Clip Light Geometry– When enabled, the clipper clips light geometry (for example a mesh light).
Notes
If a Mesh Clipper is applied to one instance of a component, it is automatically applied to all other instances as well. To apply it to a single instance of a component (out of many), first select the instance, right-click on it, choose Make Unique, and then apply the Clipper.
V-Ray Clipper works best with "closed" objects. The results on open objects (without a corresponding back face) are not well defined.
Currently the V-Ray Clipper may produce artifacts if there are overlapping triangles in the scene, regardless of whether they are part of the same object or not.
V-Ray matches a Section Plane's name only upon its creation.
When exporting a project from SketchUp to LayOut, you may want to hide the V-Ray objects (proxies, lights, fur, clipper and infinite plane) exposed in the viewport. This is possible by using the Hide V-Ray Widgets button in the V-Ray toolbar.
Special objects can be removed from geometry by double clicking on the group/component, selecting the special object's widget and then selecting the Erase option from the context menu (right-click to open the context menu).