This page provides details on the Asset Editor in V-Ray for Revit.
Overview
The V-Ray Asset Editor is the place to create, edit, save and manage assets and adjust their settings. These include materials, geometry, and textures.
.vismat files created with earlier versions of V-Ray are no longer supported. You can read a .vismat file containing materials in V-Ray but you can no longer save an asset in a .vismat format. Assets are saved in .vrmat files only.
UI Paths
||Revit Ribbon|| > V-Ray tab > Assets panel > Asset Editor
Functionalities
Assets are grouped in Categories for ease of access and use. The Materials, Geometries, and Textures categories are located at the top of the central Asset Editor panel. If the category is empty, create assets by left- or right-clicking. If there are already created items in it, left-click selects the directory, while a right-click opens a list of assets available for creation. The Asset creation dropdown list remains active when the Ctrl key is held, allowing the creation of multiple assets as well. Each Category has a Search Scene tab on the top of the list, which allows searching for assets in the selected category. Select more than one category or asset at a time with Ctrl+select or Shift+select.
The Assets tab search function only displays top-level hierarchy assets.
The Asset lists have some additional multiple selection functionalities:
Ctrl + Left-click on deselected item – Adds to the selection;
Ctrl + Left-click on selected item – Removes it from the selection;
Ctrl + A – Selects all items in the list/category;
Shift + Left-click – Expands the range of the current selection;
Left-click + Drag – Drags only the selected item entry;
Shift + Del – Deletes the selected asset(s) without showing a confirmation dialog;
Right-click on deselected item – Shows the context menu for the item and does not change the current selection;
Right-click on selected item – Shows the context menu for the item and doesn't change the selection. If multiple entries are selected the context menu will display only their common actions.
Most numeric V-Ray parameters come with a slider for easier adjustment. Each slider is set to a default range of recommended or commonly used values. If a value above or below that range is used the slider adapts by increasing or decreasing its range accordingly (2x the input value) to maintain usability.
Тhe 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.
Buttons
See the utility buttons at the bottom of the Asset Editor from left to right.
– Create Asset – Opens a list of all V-Ray assets grouped into categories. Use it to add available assets to your project.
– Import Assets File – Opens a directory with .vrmat files to import into your Library.
– Save Asset To File – Saves an already created asset to a preferred directory.
– Delete Asset – Deletes preselected asset(s). Select more than one asset by using the Ctrl or Shift buttons.
– Purge Unused Assets – Purges all unused items from the selected asset categories.
There are two navigation buttons in the right Asset Editor panel part.
– Previous Asset – Traces back assets that were previously selected.
– Up the Assets Hierarchy – Moves the selection one level up in the hierarchy.
Some keyboard shortcuts are available for navigation in the Asset Editor.
For Windows:
Ctrl + (1/2/3/4/5/6) – Switches to the corresponding category or the settings view;
Ctrl + 0 – Selects all categories;
Alt + (1/2/3/4/5) – Adds to the active categories;
Ctrl + A – Selects all assets in the category of the current selection;
Shift + Left-click – Expands the range of the current selection;
Delete – Deletes the selected asset/s;
Ctrl + Left Arrow – Selects the previous asset;
Ctrl + Up Arrow – Selects the parent of the active asset;
Ctrl + ( [ or ] ) – Toggles the left or right fly-off panels;
Left-click + Up/Down Arrow - Increases/decreases the EV number field with 0.5.
Left-click + Up/Down Arrow or Left/Right Arrow - Increases/decreases the value of any other slider1.
Preset Library Buttons
The Preset Material Library also has some functionality buttons at the bottom of the Asset Editor.
– Adds a directory in which your .vrmats reside. When a directory is loaded, the .vrmats files load in the Preset Material Library as separate assets.
– Changes the view between row and a column.
– Changes the asset display from list to grid.
/
– Zooms material buttons in and out to adjust the size of the preview swatches in the list.
For more information about all the functionalities that the Preset Material Library offers, follow the link.
Multiple selection of assets is possible in the Library, but you cannot drag-and-drop more than one asset at a time.
Preview Swatch
The Preview Swatch is located in the right panel of the Asset Editor, rendering all changes done to the currently selected asset. This is a quick preview of materials and textures. It contains several customizable controls.
/
– Enables or disables the live preview of the swatch. As the Preview Swatch is an actual render, it might require some additional computing power. The Stop live preview button comes in handy in such situations.
– Shows a preview of the asset when the live preview is stopped. The swatch renders the current settings of the asset, but does not take into consideration any changes done to it later.
/
/
/
– Changes the resolution of the preview swatch. When using the live preview swatch, there are other ways to reduce resource usage – choose the resolution of the rendered swatch from 100% (1/1) (which is the best quality, but is a slower render), 50%(1/2), 25%(1/4) and 12.5% (1/8) (which trades off image quality for refresh speed).
/
– Changes the render engine for the live preview.
– Shows a dropdown menu to select the scene used to preview the asset. Some swatch scenes are more suitable for displaying certain materials than others. For example, a Brick material will be best seen in a wall preview, instead of a shader ball. Select from Generic, Fabric, Floor, Ground, Subsurface Scattering, Wall or Wall Closeup for all materials and from 2D, 3D, Environment, Falloff or Dirt for all textures.
– Pins the selected asset in the preview. It displays the pinned asset until unpinned.
Pulling the bottom line of the Preview Swatch up and down reduces or expands the swatch.
Using the Stop Preview Swatch option releases the V-Ray Render node License, if there is no other rendering process taking place.
V-Ray Color Picker
The V-Ray Color Picker is accessed by selecting any color slot in the Asset Editor. It is a color manager that allows numeric color value selection in Screen (sRGB)1 and Rendering (RGB) Color spaces, options to regulate RGB, HSV and temperature. V-Ray Color Picker automatically converts Kelvin to RGB values, as well as RGB to Kelvin whenever possible.
Left-click on the current color to save it in the palette. Alternatively, right-click on an empty slot in the palette. Right-click on a saved color in the color slot to replace it with a new one.
The V-Ray Color Picker has a Color Assistant opened by clicking on the side bar at the bottom of V-Ray Color Picker window. The Color Assistant provides color palettes to pick a color from.
Left-click on a color from the Color Assistant to pick the current color. Right-click on it to use as a base for a color palette. For more information, see the V-Ray Color Picker.
Notes
1 - Hovering with the cursor over each color box in the Asset Editor displays a tooltip with the color value in RGB format with a range of 0 to 1 in Screen (sRGB) color space.
2 - 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.
3 - Тhe 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.