This page provides information on the Occlusion or Dirt Map.
Overview
VRayDirt is a texture map that can be used to simulate a variety of effects: for example, dirt around the crevices of an object, or to produce an ambient occlusion pass.
Dirt Properties
Unoccluded Color – Specifies the color that will be returned by the texture for unoccluded areas. You can also use a texture map for this parameter.
Occluded Color – Specifies the color that will be returned by the texture for occluded areas. You can also use a texture map for this parameter.
Radius – Determines the amount of area (in scene units) where the VRayDirt effect is produced. You can also use a texture to control the radius. The texture intensity is multiplied by the radius to calculate the final radius at a given surface point. If the texture is white at a given surface point, the full radius value is used. If the texture is black, a radius of 0.0 is used.
Distribution – Forces the rays to gather closer to the surface normal. The effect is that the dirt area is being narrowed closer to the contact edges. For ambient occlusion, set this parameter to 1.0 to get distribution similar to the ambient lighting on a diffuse surface.
Falloff – Controls the speed of the transition between occluded and unoccluded areas.
Subdivs – Controls the number of samples that V-Ray takes to calculate the dirt effect. Lower values render faster but produce a more noisy result. Low Noise threshold values in the Image Sampler clean the result further.
Bias X, Y, Z – These parameters bias the normals to the (X, Y, Z) axes, so that the dirt effect is forced to those directions. Consider that these parameter can also take negative values for inverting the direction of the effect.
Ignore for GI – When enabled, the dirt effect is ignored in GI calculations.
Consider Same Object Only – When enabled, the dirt affects only the objects themselves, without including contact surfaces and edges. If off, the entire scene geometry is participating for the final result.
Invert Normal –
Affect Alpha –
Double Sided – When enabled, rays will be traced both in the direction of the normal and in the opposite direction. This creates an effect where both crevices and edges are occluded.
Work with Transparency – When enabled, VRayDirt takes into account the opacity of the occluding objects. This can be used, for example, if you want to calculate ambient occlusion from opacity-mapped trees etc. When disabled (by default), occluding objects are always assumed to be opaque. Note that working with correct opacity is slower, since, in that case, VRayDirt must examine and evaluate the material on the occluding objects.
Ignore Self Occlusion –
Mode – Specifies the mode in which the dirt map is going to be calculated.
Ambient occlusion – Normal ambient occlusion is calculated.
Reflection occlusion (Phong, Blinn, Ward) – Reflection occlusion is used. The difference between ambient and reflection occlusion is basically in the direction in which rays are traced. With ambient occlusion rays are traced in all directions uniformly while with reflection occlusion the direction depends on the viewing direction (just as when calculating reflections) and the spread of the rays depends on the Reflection glossiness and BRDF type used.
Inner occlusion – Allows the user to invert the effect with respect to surface normals - e.g. instead of crevices, open corners are shaded with the occluded color. This mode changes the direction of tracing the rays. When this mode is selected, the rays are traced inside the surface, otherwise, they are traced outside the surface.
Ambient + inner occlusion – A combination of Ambient occlusion and Inner occlusion modes used for enhanced weathering effect.
Environment Occlusion – When enabled, VRayDirt includes environment contribution to the shading of unoccluded areas.
Affect Reflection Elements – When enabled, the ambient reflection affects the reflection render elements. This can be used to create reflection mask.
Glossiness – Controls the spread of the rays traced for Reflection Occlusion. A value of 1 means that just a single ray is traced (just like when tracing clear reflections), smaller values cause multiple rays to be traced in the approximate reflection direction.
Exclude – Allows you to disable the calculation of the VRayDirt map for specific objects. Excluded object will not be shaded by the VRayDirt map.
As Inclusive List –
Use Texture for Excluded –
Result Affect – Specifies a list of objects which affect the calculation of the VRayDirt map. Excluded objects are considered "invisible" for the calculations of the VRayDirt map.
As Inclusive List –
Subdivs as Samples –
Screen Space Radius –
Streaks Ambient – Draws streaks across dirt effect respective to ambient occlusion.
Streaks Inner – Draws streaks across dirt effect respective to inner occlusion.
StreaksSize – Controls the thickness of all streaks.