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Functionalities

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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, Geometries, and Textures categories.

If the category is empty, you can create an asset by left- or right-clicking. 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 drop-down list remains 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 or Shift+select.

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The Assets tab search function only displays top-level hierarchy assets.

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The Asset lists have some additional multi-selection functionalities:

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  • Ctrl + Left-click on deselected item - Adds to the selection;
  • Ctrl + Left-click on selected item - removes it from the selection;
  • Ctrl + A - Selects all items in the list/category;
  • Shift + Left-click - expands the range of the current selection;
  • Left-Click + Drag - Drags only the clicked item entry;
  • Shift + Del - deletes the selected asset(s) without showing a confirmation dialog;
  • Right-Click on deselected item - Shows the context menu for the item and does not change the current selection;
  • Right-Click on selected item - Shows the context menu for the item and doesn't change the selection. If multiple entries are selected the context menu will display only their common actions.
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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.

Тhe 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.

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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.

 

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Some keyboard shortcuts are available for navigation in the Asset Editor.

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For Windows:

  • Ctrl + (1/2/3/4/5/6) - Switches to the corresponding category or the settings view;
  • Ctrl + 0 - Selects all categories;
  • Alt + (1/2/3/4/5) - Adds to the active categories;
  • Ctrl + A - selects all assets in the category of the current selection;
  • Shift + Left-click - expands the range of the current selection;
  • Delete - Deletes the selected asset/s;
  • Ctrl + Left Arrow - Selects the previous asset;
  • Ctrl + Up Arrow - Selects the parent of the active asset;

  • Ctrl + ( [ or ] ) - Toggles the left or right fly-off panels;

  • Left Click + Up/Down Arrow - Increases/decreases the EV number field with 0.5.

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  • Left Click + Up/Down Arrow or Left/Right Arrow - Increases/decreases the value of any other slider1.

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Preset Library Buttons

The Preset Material Library also 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 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 in the list.

For more information about all the functionalities that the Preset Material Library offers, follow the link.

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Multi-selection of assets is possible in the Library, but you cannot drag-and-drop more than one asset at a time.

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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 and textures. 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).

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

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.

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Using the Stop Preview Swatch option releases the V-Ray Render node License, if there is no other rendering process taking place.

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V-Ray Color Picker

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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)1 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. For more information, see the V-Ray Color Picker.

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Notes

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1 - Hovering with the cursor over each color box in the Asset Editor displays a tooltip with the color value in RGB format with a range of 0 to 1 in Screen (sRGB) color space.

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