V-Ray Enmesh

Enmesh is a tool that uses geometry as a texture to “coat” objects. It can tile and repeat geometry infinitely, bend it over a desired surface or cut it according to the surface’s limits. It can randomize rotation and offset. This helps producing non repeating geometric patterns.

It works similarly to a texture, so UVs and their scale and tiling should be used accordingly to achieve the desired effect.

Enmesh can be used to create patterned fabrics, woven, knitted materials and chain mail. It can also be used to scatter grass, pebble patches, stone tiles and many more.

At the moment Enmesh can be assigned to only one mesh which is used as a base for the tiling (let's call it a source mesh). Its UV tiles should be done properly as they are used as basis for the tiling of the reference geometry.

V-Ray Еnmesh is currently available only for CPU rendering.

Select the meshes you want to turn into reference geometry. Then, select the source geometry.

Create V-Ray Enmesh from the shelf button or from V-Ray menu > V-Ray Enmesh.

The reference geometry is connected to a set called VRayEnmeshRefs, so it is visible in the Connection Editor or by using the arrow next to the Objects parameter in the Enmesh node’s Attributes.

The source geometry is connected to another set called VRayEnmeshSources which you can view and edit from the Connection Editor or by using the arrow next to the Source Mesh. Note that only one mesh can be used as a source. If you try to connect more than one, the effect is applied only on the originally selected one. The source geometry is initially hidden in the render. That can be adjusted later.

A gizmo is created in the center of the scene. Move it to the reference mesh and scale it accordingly using either the crop box parameters or by manually scaling it. The tiling and randomization parameters can be adjusted further for various effects.

Create V-Ray Enmesh and assign the reference object using the Relationship Manager

Create V-Ray Enmesh from selection

Materials with patterned texture can be used in one of two ways:

Apply the material to your source mesh. The texture is applied “over” the geometry and it sits on top like a projection.

One way is to enable Use mesh UVW Mapping. This way V-Ray Enmesh uses the reference mesh UVW for shading instead of the source UVW.

Another way is to enable Use mesh IDs. This option uses Mesh IDs for shading the patterned surface, if a VRayMultiSubTex is used.

Source Mesh – Shows the set containing the mesh used as a source.

Crop Box X/Y/Z – Sets the gizmo size along the X/Y/Z axis.

Tiling U/V – Sets a pattern tiling in UVW space. Use these parameters accordingly to your UVs size.

Height % – Sets the VRayEnmesh height based on the Crop Box Size Z value. 100% means it uses original crop box height.

Height Offset % – Sets the VRayEnmesh geometry offset along the surface normals based on the Crop Box Z size.

Use Mesh UVW Mapping – Uses the source mesh UVW for shading instead of the Surface UVW. This option is disabled by default.

Use Mesh IDs – Uses Mesh IDs for shading the patterned surface if a VRayMultiSubTex or MultiSubObject are used.

Rotation – Sets a pattern rotation in UVW space.

Offset U/V – Sets a pattern offset in UVW space.

Random Offset U/V – Uses the static UVW offset as base and adds it when calculating the randomization effect.

Use Random Rotation Steps – Makes Random Rotation parameter be based on 360/X, where X is steps count. For example, if Random Rotation is set to 4, the pattern mesh is randomly rotated on a 90 degrees step (360/4) with a 30 degrees offset - 30, 120, 210, 300, 390 (30).

Map Channel – Uses the set map channel for the surface geometry.

Objects – Shows the set containing the objects used as reference meshes.