V-Ray Curvature is a texture that effectively samples the underlying mesh for curves. A region around each shaded point gets sampled with additional rays (similar to V-Ray Dirt), and all additional normals are averaged to get a "smooth" normal at the original point. This normal is used to compute the color, which depends on the Mode of the map. The parameters should be adjusted by trial and error since they generally depend on the scale used, hence the defaults might not be appropriate in some cases.
Legacy – Does not distinguish if the mesh is curving outward (convex) or inward (concave) but instead takes into account only the amount of overall curvature. Convex – Generates a grayscale based on the mesh's outward curve. Concave – Generates a grayscale based on the mesh's inward curve. Both – Generates a red-green gradient based on both the mesh's convex and concave. Red corresponds to the mesh's convex and green corresponds to the mesh's concave.
Radius – Controls the factor which determines the radius that the curvature traces. Can be used to match curvature between big and small objects.
Sample Spread – Controls the radius of the sampled region.
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Color Min – Specifies the minimum output color value for the most concave area (the dents in the mesh). Default value is 0 - completely black.
Color Max – Specifies the maximum output color value for the most convex area (the peaks in the mesh). Default value is 1 - white.
Gain – Multiplies the output values.
Lift – Uniformly lightens the output values.
Gamma – Applies gamma correction to the output values.
Pivot – Pivots the value to the gamma correction (output values equal to the pivot value are left unchanged).
Clamp – When enabled, clamps the Color Min and Color Max values in [0,1] range (negative values are output as 0 and values above 1 are being output as 1).
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Ignore Bump – When enabled, excludes Bump maps from V-Ray Curvature computations.
Subdivs – Controls the number of samples around each shaded point.
