Custom TK_ Properties

3D
1

I am using 3DS Max and would like to set up a TK_ property to control the Fresnel IOR of a Vray material.

Is it possible to use a VrayUserScalar node named TK_Fresnel-IOR to set the value?

Or is there a better way to input an integer into the Fresnel IOR map slot?

Thanks!

2

Yup, that will do it.

1 Like
3

@AndreiSE , Is it acceptable to use the same TK_ prefix named node on multiple materials?
For example Material #1 has a node named “TK_Fresnel-IOR” and Material #2 also has a node named “TK_Fresnel-IOR”

Or should they be unique to their corresponding materials?
For example, “TK_Fresnel-IOR_MAT-001” and “TK_Fresnel-IOR_MAT-002”

Thanks.

4

It could be the same. It doesn’t matter inside ThreeKit, as they would be uniquely identified anyway with a separate id when we build the final vrscene.

1 Like
5

Thanks again @AndreiSE
I am currently experiencing an issue within Vray (3ds Max) where the custom “TK_node_names” are not retained when the MAX file is saved.

When the file is re-opened, the VrayUserScalar and VrayUserColor nodes are re-named with generic map names. For example Map #187, Map #188, etc.

I’ve tested this in both Vray 5 & 6 and Max 2023 & 2024.

Do you have any idea why this may be happening? Does Maya have this issue?

I posted the issue on the Chaos forum to see if they might be able to help.

Thanks

6

This is strange. I just tested it myself in 3dsmax and I get the same behavior as you do. Maya retains the node names correctly after saving and reopening the file. Perhaps there is an option in the 3dsmax preferences to retain the names… not sure. I’m glad to hear you posted this question in the Chaos Group forums.

1 Like
7

Thankfully, the Attribute Name property on the vrayUser nodes is correctly retained after reopening the file in 3dsmax. This means we could adjust the ThreeKit importer to look at that property first, and if it contains a value starting with TK_, then we will take that as the node name and expose it.
I will bring this up internally to see if we can prioritize that, as it wouldn’t take much work.
I would of course prefer that this gets fixed at the 3dsmax level, but I’m not sure if it’s an Autodesk issue or a ChaosGroup issue.

8

I noticed on the Chaos Group forums that they responded to your post and fixed the issue in the latest version of Vray 6. That’s great news.