This page provides information about the Car Paint 2 Material in V-Ray for 3ds Max.

 

Overview

VRayCarPaintMtl2 is a material that simulates a metallic car paint. It is a complex material with three layers: a base diffuse layer, a flake layer, and clear coat layer. The material allows the adjustment of each of these layers separately. The new VRayCarPaintMtl2 uses GGX BRDF type and offers base glossiness tail falloff option.

 


 

Base layer

Base color – Specifies the diffuse color or map for the base layer.

Base reflection – Specifies a reflectivity value or map for the base layer. The reflection color itself is the same as the Base color. 

Base glossiness – Specifies a reflection glossiness value or map for the base layer. Higher values such as the default make the highlights sharper, while lower values make the transition more subtle.

Base glossiness tail – Controls the transition from highlighted areas to non-highlighted areas. Higher values such as the default make the highlight transition sharper and lower values make the glossiness tail more diffuse.

Base trace reflections – When disabled, the base layer only produces specular highlights, but no (glossy) reflections.

 

Flake Layer

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 set to 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.

Flake 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. Set this to 0.0 to produce 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 – 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.

Flake trace reflections – When disabled, the flakes only produce specular highlights, but no actual reflections are traced.

 

 

Example: Flake Random Color

 

This example shows the Flake Random Color parameter used with a Gradient Ramp map with five randomly set colors and Interpolation set to Solid. Flake Density is set to 7; Flake Size is set to 0.5; Flake Scale is set to 0.5; Flake Color is set to white (255,255,255).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example: Flake Orientation

 

This example shows the Flake Orientation parameter. Note how lower values produce flakes more aligned with the surface normal, so that light is reflected more uniformly. Higher values produce more random flakes leading to more variation in the flake illumination. For this example, Flake Scale is set to 0,3cm, Flake Size to 0.5, Flake Density to 3 and Flake Orientation Tail is set to 2.

 

Flake Orientation = 0

Flake Orientation = 0.05

Flake Orientation = 0.1

Flake Orientation = 0.3

Flake Orientation = 0.5

Flake Orientation = 1

 

 

Example: Flake Density


This example shows the effect of the Flake density parameter. Note how larger values produce more flakes, but do not change the flake size. For this example, Flake Scale is set to 0.3cm, Flake Size is set to 0.4 and Flake Orientation is set to 0.1.

 

Flake Density = 0.5

Flake Density = 1

Flake Density = 3

Flake Density = 5

Flake Density = 7

 


Example: Flake Scale


This example shows the effect of the Flake scale parameter. Note how lower values scale the entire flake structure. For this example, Flake Density is set to 6, Flake Size is set to 0.2 and Flake Orientation is set to 0.1.

 

Flake Scale = 0.1

Flake Scale = 0.25

Flake Scale = 0.5

Flake Scale = 0.75

Flake Scale = 1

Flake Scale = 1.5

Flake Scale = 2

 

 

Example: Flake Size

 

 

This example shows the effect of the Flake size parameter. Note how larger values make the individual flakes larger, but do not change their count. For this example, Flake Density is set to 3.0, Flake Orientation is set to 0.1 and Flake Scale is set to 1, the default value.

 

Flake Size = 0.1

Flake Size = 0.25

Flake Size = 0.5

Flake Size = 0.75

 

Coat Layer

Coat color – Specifies the color or map of the coat layer.

Coat amount – Specifies the thickness amount of the coat layer. A value of 0 does not add a coat layer, while higher values blend the coat gradually.

Coat ior – Specifies the Index of Refraction for the coat layer.

Coat glossiness – Specifies the glossiness value or map of the coat reflections.

Coat trace reflections – When disabled, the clear coat only produces specular highlights, but no actual reflections.

 

Options

Trace reflections – When disabled, reflections from the different layers 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.

Environment priority – Specifies the environment priority for the Environment override texture for this material. See the Setting Different Environment Priorities to Environment Maps tutorial for more information.

 

Maps

This rollout provides additional control to the different texture maps for the various parameters of the material. Some maps are only exposed here and are not accessible from the parameters section.

Base bump – Specifies the bump map for the base layer.

Coat bump – Specifies the bump map for the coat layer.

Environment override – Specifies a map for environment override. 

Displacement – Specifies a map for displacement.