Versions Compared

Key

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

...

  • GeomStaticMesh - The basic fixed geometry descriptor that you will use in most cases. Requires vertex and normal data plus optional UVW texture mapping coordinates.
    V-Ray static meshes work with triangular geometry only, so if you have larger polygons, you will have to triangulate them. The simplest way would be the ear clipping method for convex polygons. The triangle vertex indices are specified in counter-clockwise order in the geometry arrays for V-Ray if you're looking at the front face of the triangle.
  • GeomStaticNURBS - Defines a smooth NURBS surface using control vertices and weights.
  • GeomStaticSmoothedMesh - References another mesh plugin (usually GeomStaticMesh) and generates a smooth, subdivided version.
  • GeomDisplacedMesh - References another mesh plugin (usually GeomStaticMesh) and generates a displaced version using a texture map.
  • GeomHair - References another mesh plugin (usually GeomStaticMesh) and generates hair (can be tweaked for fur, grass, shaggy rug etc.) on it. Has many parameters for the size, shape and distribution of strands. This corresponds to VRayFur in 3dsMax and Maya.
  • GeomMeshFile - Loads geometry from a file, a so-called geometry Proxy. The geometry is only loaded on-demand as a ray hits it, so in some cases such as distributed bucket rendering it may prevent unnecessary calculations and memory usage. The currently supported formats are V-Ray's .vrmesh and Alembic .abc. If you have a file in another format, i.e. .obj, you need to convert it with the ply2vrmesh tool.
  • GeomParticleSystem - Generates many (usually small) particles.

4.3. Instancing

...

Instancer and Instancer2 plugins can be used to efficiently instantiate a high number of objects in the scene from other geom source plugins. Often used for particles and vegetation.

  • Instancer => N * Node (invisible) => GeomSomething

Instncer2 is also a geometry source and can be connected to a Node plugin:

  • Node => Instancer2 => N * Node (invisible) -> GeomSomething

    and even

  • Node => Instancer2 => Nodes => Instancer2 => etc.

5. Creating materials

Exporting materials is probably the most complicated part, because it may involve complex shader networks, especially in apps with high artistic control, such as the popular DCC tools from Autodesk. Nevertheless, you can get good results even by using only a few plugins.

...