Versions Compared

Old Version 20

changes.mady.by.user Kristin Ivanova

Saved on

compared with

New Version 21

changes.mady.by.user Kristin Ivanova

Saved on

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

This page provides information on the MDL Material.


Overview

Section
Column
width60%

The VRayMDLMtl material loads NVIDIA Material Definition Language files (.mdl) and renders them directly with V-Ray.

V-Ray supports NVIDIA Material Definition Language, version 1.7.2.

UI Text Box
typewarning

The MDL Material does not work within Distributed Rendering at this time.

The MDL Material is currently not supported by V-Ray for Maya 2024, running on macOS.

Column
width5%


Column
width35%

UI Expand
titleUI Path: ||Right-click on the geometry|| > Assign New Material...
Section
Column
width5%

Column
width300px

||Right-click on the geometry|| > Assign New Material... > VRay section > VRay Mtl MDL


Column
width5%

Column
width280px

||V-Ray Shelf|| > Right-click to Create V-Ray Materials button > VRay Mtl MDL



Column
width500px

||Hypershade|| > Window tab > Create... > VRay section > VRay Mtl MDL



Column
width5%

Column
width5%


Installed Material Library

The following MDL material files are included when installing V-Ray for Maya. They are located in Local Disk (C:) > Program Files > Chaos Group > V-Ray > Maya 20yy for x64 > vray > mdl.


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%


Aluminum Anodized


Column
width30%


Architectural


Column
width30%


Asphalt


Column
width5%


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%


Carbon composite


Column
width30%


Carpet Berber White


Column
width30%


Ceramic Tiles Small


Column
width5%


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Chrome


Column
width30%

 
Coated Flipflop Paint


Column
width30%

 
Coated Flint Glass


Column
width5%


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Colored Wax


Column
width30%

 
Concrete


Column
width30%

 
Concrete Polished


Column
width5%


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Copper


Column
width30%

 
Granite Black


Column
width30%

 
Mahogany Floorboards


Column
width5%


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Marble White


Column
width30%

 
Metal Examples


Column
width30%

 
Noise Flow Glossy


Column
width5%


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Noise Perlin Glossy


Column
width30%

 
Noise Worley Glossy


Column
width30%

 
Pattern Blended


Column
width5%


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Pattern Checker Glossy


Column
width30%

 
Porcelain


Column
width30%

 
Resin Polyurethane Matte


Column
width5%


Section
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Rubber Studded Black


Column
width30%

 
Stucco


Column
width30%

 
Walnut Semi-Gloss


Column
width5%




Basic

Section

The Basic rollout provides the attributes used to set the path to the .mdl file that you wish to load into your chosen material, and an Update button needed to refresh the other attributes available, based on the material file used.

Column
width60%


MDL file – Specifies the file path and .mdl file loaded.

Chosen material – If more than one material definition is included in the loaded .mdl file, the selected materials will be seen in the rollouts below.

MDL parameters– The Update button refreshes the additional material-specific attributes for the loaded .mdl file.

Column
width5%


Column
width33%


Parameters

Section
Column
width62%

Any additional material-specific attributes (if any) are listed in this rollout. The example below shows parameters for the Coated Flip-flop Paint material.


UI Text Box
typeinfo

 MDL material attributes that can accept Render Nodes to map color values can now use File textures as input. Note that while other texture types may also be used, only File textures are guaranteed to work properly.

Column
width5%


Column
width33%

Asphalt parameters

Advanced

Section
Column
width62%

Max Ray Depth – Specifies the maximum reflection/refraction depth for the shader.

Remap Roughness – When enabled (default), determines whether the plugin expects squared values for GGX Roughness settings.

Column
width5%


Column
width33%


System Attributes

Section
Column
width62%

Filename – Specifies the file path and .mdl file loaded.

Column
width5%


Column
width33%


Importing NVIDIA vMaterials

In order for the MDL Material to correctly import NVIDIA vMaterials, the following two paths should be set in the environment variable shown below:

VRAY_MDL_PATH_MAYA20yy_x64=%PROGRAMFILES%\Chaos Group\V-Ray\Maya 20yy for x64\mdl;%PROGRAMDATA%\NVIDIA Corporation\mdl;%USERPROFILE%\Documents\mdl

where yy is the version of Maya installed.


Example:

VRAY_MDL_PATH_MAYA2018_x64=C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\Maya 2018 for x64\mdl;%PROGRAMDATA%\NVIDIA Corporation\mdl;%USERPROFILE%\Documents\mdl


Importing MDL Files from Substance Designer 

In some cases, when using MDL files exported from Substance Designer, V-Ray may fail to load some modules. In order to load these modules, a folder needs to be set up before starting Maya, as explained below:

1.  Make a folder, for example, X:\MDL, that will act as the MDL repository. Put the MDL modules that are exported from Substance Designer into this folder.

2.  Put the textures needed by the MDL materials in the same repository in their respective subfolder (for example, X:\MDL\MDL_Plywood_02).

3.  Tell V-Ray where the MDL repository is by appending it to the VRAY_MDL_PATH_MAYA20yy_x64 environment variable.

4.  Find the folder where Substance Designer keeps its MDL modules (usually C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Substance 3D Designer\resources\view3d\iray\alg but may differ from version to version) and append its path to the same environment variable. 

In the end, the environment variable should look something like:

VRAY_MDL_PATH_MAYA2018_x64=C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\Maya 2018 for x64\mdl;C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Substance 3D Designer\resources\view3d\iray\alg;X:\MDL


Known Limitations

Fancy Bullets
typecircle
  • material_emission.mode is ignored
  • material.backface is ignored

  • df::diffuse_transmission_bsdf is not supported

  • df::backscattering_glossy_reflection_bsdf is not supported

  • df::measured_bsdf is not supported

  • From the “alternative distribution functions”, only df::microfacet_ggx_smith_bsdf is implemented

  • df::measured_edf and df::spot_edf are not supported

  • df::anisotropic_vdf is not supported

  • 3D textures are not yet supported

  • The multiscatter_tint parameter in simple_glossy_bsdf, microfacet_ggx_smith_bsdf, ward_geisler_moroder_bsdf is ignored.
  • The tint (color reflection_tint, color transmission_tint, bsdf base) modifier overload for separate tinting of the reflective and transmissive light paths is not supported.

References

Fancy Bullets
typecircle