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Overview

There are a number of different materials for use with V-Ray for SketchUp. These materials are quite versatile and each can be used in a number of ways to achieve different looks as needed from simulating simple surface properties like plastics and metals to complex uses such as translucent objects, subsurface materials, such as skin, and even light-emitting objects.

For more details on each material, please see the dedicated pages.

With V-Ray 5 permanent support for the SketchUp texture colorization functionality is added. Note that it does not affect the material preview in the Asset Editor but only the appearance of the rendered image.

||V-Ray Asset Editor|| > Materials (right-click)

||V-Ray Asset Editor|| > Create Asset (left-click)> Materials

Material's parameters and options are organized in Basic and Advanced modes. You can switch the mode from the toggle bar under the Preview Swatch or globally from the Configuration rollout of the Settings tab.

There are some context options that V-Ray materials have. Right-click on any material in the Material's list for a context menu to appear.

Search Scene – Searches the assets by name from all the categories that are selected.

Select Objects In Scene – Allows selection and multi-selection of components and groups in the viewport.

Apply to Selection – Applies material to the currently selected object.

Apply To Layer – Applies material to the currently selected layer.

Use As Replacement – Select a material to use as a replacement for any other material in the scene.

Replace All References – Replaces all references of a material with the preselected one. For example, a Generic material is used as part of Two Sided and Multi Material. Replace All References overwrite the Generic material in both Two Sided and Multi Material.

Replace In Scene – Replaces the selected material with a preselected one.

The context options of the Color Slot allow to Copy and Paste a color from one color slot to another, as well as to Reset the color selection to a default value.

MultiMtl, Blend, Bump, Outline Override, Override and TwoSided materials allow drag-and-dropping to their input slots. The input slot () of these materials also has a context menu available when you right-click on it.

You can Copy, Cut, Clear the selected material or Paste as Instance another material into the slot. 

You can reset the Input Number Slider's value to its default value by right-clicking on the slider and selecting the Reset context menu option.

Most numeric V-Ray parameters come with a slider to make fine-tuning easier. Each slider is set to a default range of recommended or commonly used values.

If a value above that range is used the slider adapts by increasing its range accordingly (2x the input value) to maintain usability.

If a value below the current slider range is used, the slider again adjusts its range by shrinking it to twice the amount of the input value.

Note that that the slider range does not indicate the parameter's total minimum and maximum input values.

The absolute minimum and maximum values of each parameter can be found by hovering over its spinbox.

An Add Attribute button is provided for some V-Ray materials.

Attributes allow you to further control the appearance of the object through the material. They are generally separated into two groups - the first group adds effects to the appearance of the object, such as bump, contours, etc. The second group affects the render properties of the object - visibility, transparency, appearance in reflection/refraction channels and more.

You can add only one attribute of a kind to the material.

The ability to add additional layers allows creation of composite materials. Each layer is an additional coat, where the topmost layer is the outermost one. Opacity texture maps can be used to control the appearance of each additional layer. The workflow is generally used for the creation of reflective materials with an extra coat of glossy finish, uneven glaze, extra flakes, or emissive elements.

V-Ray Material, part of which are the Generic and Emissive presets, have the option of stacking additional layers of settings on top of the default ones. The Add Layer button under the Preview Swatch opens a list of available layers that you can add on top of the existing preset. The top and added layers can be moved in the stack. They have a context menu, which allows duplication, renaming or deletion of the selected layer.

It is always recommended to use V-Ray materials.

V-Ray supports native SketchUp materials by internally copying their attributes and "translating" them to a V-Ray material in order to read them. That is why, although SketchUp materials by default do not have that many options, when shown in the Asset Editor - they have additional V-Ray options.

Note that this additional V-Ray data stored for each material can only be read in V-Ray, not in SketchUp itself.

Native SketchUp materials can be converted to V-Ray materials and vice versa. Use the V-Ray's menu tools to do so.

Caution is advised when converting a V-Ray material back to a SketchUp one as this is done by irreversibly stripping all of its V-Ray data.

Support for SketchUp texture colorization functionality is added. The option is always enabled. Note that it does not affect the material preview in the Asset Editor but only the appearance of the rendered image.

This feature is mainly a benefit for workflows that include SketchUp material editing only.

For advanced workflows, we recommend V-Ray Utility textures instead.