This page provides information on the Car Paint Flakes 2 Material.
Overview
VRayFlakesMtl2 is a material that simulates the metallic flakes found in car paints. It is a complex material generated by the mixing of several textures and can be used in blend materials to add metallic flakes to other shaders. The VRayFlakesMtl2 uses GGX distribution which makes it faster and more memory efficient.
Flake Layer Parameters
Flake color – Specifies the color or map of the metal flakes.
Flake random color – Sets colors from the specified map to the flakes in a random pattern. Only the u-axis of the map is sampled for colors (the bottom part of an image).
Flake orientation – Specifies the orientation value or map of the metal flakes. The orientation of the flakes is relative to the surface normal. When this value is 0.0, all flakes are perfectly aligned with the surface. When set to 1.0, the flakes are rotated completely randomly with respect to the normal. Values above 0.5 are not recommended as they can produce artifacts.
Flakes orientation tail – Controls the transition from highlighted areas to non-highlighted areas.
Flake glossiness – Specifies the reflection glossiness value of the flakes.
Flake density – Specifies the density (number of flakes) for a certain area. Lower values produce less flakes, and higher values produce more flakes. When set to 0.0, this produces a material without flakes.
Flake uv map scale – Scales the entire flake structure, when the Flake mapping type is set to Explicit UVW channel.
Flake triplanar map scale – Scales the entire flake structure, when the Flake mapping type is set to Triplanar from Object XYZ.
Flake size – Specifies the size of the flakes relative to the distance between them. Higher values produce bigger flakes, and lower values produce smaller flakes.
Flake seed – Specifies the random seed for the flakes. Changing this produces different flake patterns.
Flake map size – Internally the material creates several bitmaps to store the generated flakes. This parameter determines the size of the bitmaps. Lower values reduce RAM usage, but may produce noticeable tiling in the flake structure. Higher values require more RAM, but tiling is reduced.
Flake mapping type – Specifies the method for mapping the flakes.
Explicit UVW channel – The flakes are mapped using the specified UV channel.
Triplanar from Object XYZ – The material automatically computes mapping coordinates in object space based on the surface normals.
Flake map channel – Specifies the mapping channel for the flakes when the Flake mapping type is set to Explicit UVW channel.
Example: Flake Random Color
This example shows the Flake Random Color parameter used with a Gradient Ramp map with six randomly set colors. Flake Orientation is set to 0.5; Flake Size is set to 0.6; Flake Scale is set to 0.3; Flake Color is set to white (255,255,255).
Example: Flake Orientation
For this example, Flake Size is set to 0.6 and Flake Density is set to 3; Flake Scale is set to 0.3 and Flake Orientation Tail is set to 2.
Flake Orientation = 0
Flake Orientation = 0.3
Flake Orientation = 0.5
Flake Orientation = 0.8
Flake Orientation = 1
Example: Flake Density
For this example, Flake Size is set to 0.2; Flake Scale is set to 0.5 cm; Flake Orientation is set to 0.2 and Flake Orientation Tail is set to 2.
Flake Density = 0.5
Flake Density = 1
Flake Density = 3
Flake Density = 5
Flake Density = 7
Example: Flake Scale
For this example Flake Size is set to 0.2; Flake Orientation is set to 0.2; Flake Density is set to 7 and Flake Orientation Tail is set to 2.
Flake Scale = 0.1
Flake Scale = 0.25
Flake Scale = 0.5
Flake Scale = 0.7
Flake Scale = 1
Flake Scale = 2
Example: Flake Size
For this example Flake Scale is set to 0.3; Flake Density is set to 1; Flake Orientation is set to 0.3 and Flake Orientation Tail is set to 2.
Flake Size = 0.1
Flake Size = 0.25
Flake Size = 0.5
Flake Size = 0.75
Flake Size = 1
Options
Trace reflections – When disabled, reflections are not traced (they only produce specular highlights).
Max reflection depth – Allows you to control the maximum number of times a ray is going to be reflected by the material.
Double sided – When enabled, the material is double-sided.
Cutoff threshold – Specifies the cutoff threshold for the reflections of the different layers. This parameter is not available when the renderer is set to GPU.
Environment priority – Specifies the environment priority for the Environment override texture for this material. See the VRayMtl material for more information on this parameter.
Maps
This rollout provides additional control to the different texture maps for the various parameters of the material. Also, an environment override map can be set here.
Environment override – Specifies a map for environment override.
