Versions Compared

Key

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

This page provides information on the MDL Material.

Floatingpagetoc


Overview

...

Section
 The MDL Material is not supported in Maya 2015 on Mac OS X

V-Ray supports NVIDIA Material Definition Language, version 1.7.2.

Column
width50%60%

The VRayMDLMtl material loads NVIDIA Material Definition Language files (.mdl) and renders them directly with V-Ray.

 

UI Text Box
typewarning
UI Text Box
typewarning

 The MDL Material does not work within Distributed Rendering at this time.

The MDL Material is currently not supported by V-Ray for Maya 2024, running on macOS.

Column
width5%

 


Column
width35%45%

Image AddedImage Removed

UI Expand

 

UI Paths

...

titleUI Path: ||Right-click on the geometry|| > Assign New Material...
30%30%
Section
Column
width5%
 

Column
width
300px

||

Hypershade

Right-click on the geometry|| >

Create panel

Assign New Material... > VRay section > VRay Mtl MDL


Image Added

||Create Render Node window|| > VRay section > VRay Mtl MDL

 
Column
width
30%
5%

Column
width
280px

||V-Ray Shelf|| > Right-click to Create V-Ray Materials button > VRay Mtl MDL

 


Image Added


Column
width500px

||Hypershade|| > Window tab > Create... > VRay section > VRay Mtl MDL



Image Added

Column
width5%

Column
 
width

...

5%


Installed Material Library

...

The following MDL material files are included when installing V-Ray for Maya 3. 6. They are located in Local Disk (C:) > Program Files > Chaos Group > V-Ray > Maya 20yy 20xx for x64 > vray > mdl.


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Aluminum Anodized

 


Column
width30%


Architectural 


Column
width30%


Asphalt 


Column
width5%

 


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%


Carbon composite

 


Column
width30%


Carpet Berber White 


Column
width30%


Ceramic Tiles Small 


Column
width5%

 


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Chrome

 


Column
width30%

 
Coated Flipflop Paint 


Column
width30%

 
Coated Flint Glass 


Column
width5%

 


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Colored Wax

 


Column
width30%

 
Concrete 


Column
width30%

 
Concrete Polished 


Column
width5%

 


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Copper

 


Column
width30%

 
Granite Black 


Column
width30%

 
Mahogany Floorboards 


Column
width5%

 


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Marble White

 


Column
width30%

 
Metal Examples 


Column
width30%

 
Noise Flow Glossy 


Column
width5%

 


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Noise Perlin Glossy

 


Column
width30%

 
Noise Worley Glossy 


Column
width30%

 
Pattern Blended 


Column
width5%

 


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Pattern Checker Glossy

 


Column
width30%

 
Porcelain 


Column
width30%

 
Resin Polyurethane Matte 


Column
width5%

 


Section
 
Column
width5%


Column
width30%

 
Rubber Studded Black

 


Column
width30%

 
Stucco 


Column
width30%

 
Walnut Semi-Gloss

 


Column
width5%

 

 

 

...




Basic

...

Section

The Basic rollout provides the attributes used to set the path to

...

the .mdl

...

 file that you wish to load into your chosen material, and an Update button needed to refresh the other attributes available, based on the material file used.

...

Column

...

width

...

60%

 


MDL file

...

 – Specifies the file path and .mdl

...

 file loaded.

Chosen

...

material – If more than one material definition is included in the loaded .mdl

...

 file, the selected materials will be seen in the rollouts below.

MDL parameters– The Update button refreshes the additional material-specific attributes for the

...

loaded .mdl

...

 file.

Column
width5%


Column
width33%


Image Added

...

Parameters

...

Section
Column
width62%

Any additional material-specific attributes (if any) are listed in this rollout. The example below shows parameters for

...

the Coated Flip-flop Paint material

...

 

...

.

...

MDL


UI Text Box
typeinfo
 

 MDL material attributes that can accept Render Nodes to map color values can now use File textures as input. Note

: While

that while other texture types may also be used, only File textures are guaranteed to work properly.

...

Column
width5%


Column
width33%

Image Added

Asphalt parameters

Advanced

...

...

Section

...

Column

...

width

...

62%

Max Ray Depth

...

Specifies the maximum reflection/refraction depth for the shader.

Remap Roughness

...

 – When enabled (default), determines whether the plugin expects squared values for GGX Roughness settings.

...

Column
width5%


Column
width33%

Image Added

...


System Attributes

...

Section

...

Column

...

width

...

62%

Filename

...

 – Specifies the file path and .mdl

...

 file loaded.

...

Column
width5%


Column
width33%

Image Added

...


Importing NVIDIA vMaterials

...

In order for the MDL Material to correctly import NVIDIA vMaterials, the following two paths should be set in the environment variable shown below:

VRAY_MDL_PATH_MAYA20yy_x64=%PROGRAMFILES%\Chaos Group\V-Ray\Maya 20yy 20xx for x64\mdl;%PROGRAMDATA%\NVIDIA Corporation\mdl;%USERPROFILE%\Documents\mdl

where yy xx is the version of Maya installed.

 


Example:

VRAY_MDL_PATH_MAYA2018MAYA2024_x64=C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\Maya 2018 2024 for x64\mdl;%PROGRAMDATA%\NVIDIA Corporation\mdl;%USERPROFILE%\Documents\mdl

...


Importing MDL Files from Substance Designer Designer

...

In some cases, when using MDL files exported from Substance Designer, V-Ray may fail to load some modules. In order to load these modules, a folder needs to be set up before starting Maya, as expalined explained below:

1.  Make a folder, for example, X:\MDL, that will act as the MDL repository. Put the MDL modules that are exported from Substance Designer into this folder.

...

3.  Tell V-Ray where the MDL repository is by appending it to the VRAY_MDL_PATH_MAYA20yyMAYA20xx_x64 environment variable.

4.  Find the folder where Substance Designer keeps its MDL modules (usually C:\Program Files\AllegorithmicAdobe\Adobe Substance 3D Designer 5\resources\view3d\iray\alg but may differ from version to version) and append its path to the same environment variable. 

...

VRAY_MDL_PATH_MAYA2018_x64=C:\Program Files\Chaos Group\V-Ray\Maya 2018 for x64\mdl;C:\Program Files\AllegorithmicAdobe\Adobe Substance 3D Designer 5\resources\view3d\iray\alg;X:\MDL


Known Limitations

...

Fancy Bullets
typecircle
  • material_emission.mode is ignored
  • material.backface is ignored
  • df::diffuse_transmission_bsdf is not supported

  • df::backscattering_glossy_reflection_bsdf is not supported

  • df::measured_bsdf is not supported

  • From the “alternative distribution functions”, only df::microfacet_ggx_smith_bsdf is implemented

  • df::measured_edf and df::spot_edf are not supported

  • df::anisotropic_vdf is not supported

  • 3D textures are not yet supported

  • The multiscatter_tint parameter in simple_glossy_bsdf, microfacet_ggx_smith_bsdf, ward_geisler_moroder_bsdf is ignored.
  • The tint (color reflection_tint, color transmission_tint, bsdf base) modifier overload for separate tinting of the reflective and transmissive light paths is not supported.

References

...

Fancy Bullets
typecircle

 

...