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.
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An Add Attribute button is provided for some V-Ray materials. You can select additional attributes that can add up to the appearance of the material.
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Holding down Ctrl while having the Add Attribute menu open, allows selecting multiple entries without closing the dropdown.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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Holding down Ctrl while having the Add Attribute menu open, allows selecting multiple entries without closing the dropdown.
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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.
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Holding down Ctrl while having the Add Layer menu open, allows selecting multiple entries without closing the dropdown.
