Transferring Materials and Scenes Between Different Platforms

Updated July 30, 2024 08:45

This article provides information about the transfer of materials and scenes between different V-Ray integrations.

Overview

Working on a project sometimes requires the transfer of assets, materials, or even whole scenes from one 3D application to another. A common question among users is how exactly to do this. This article covers several methods, each with its own benefits and downsides, suitable for a variety of scenarios.

In this article you will find answers to the following questions:

How to transfer materials from one host platform to another?
How to transfer scenes from one host platform to another?
How can artists that work on different host platforms work on the same project?

Transferring Materials

Using Chaos Scans

Chaos Scans are physically accurate scanned materials developed by Chaos Group, which can be rendered in any V-Ray integration. Since they are delivered as a separate file format, these shaders produce identical results in all supported platforms without any additional tweaking.

To download Chaos Scans materials, open the Chaos Scans Library.

Advantages: The final rendering result of the VRScan material is the same across all supported host platforms.

Disadvantages: The Chaos Scans Library provides more than 1000 materials; however, there is still a small chance to not find the materials you are looking for.

For more information regarding Chaos Scans, see Chaos Scans Documentation and Chaos Scans Key Features page.

To learn how to load, apply, and render Chaos Scans on the different host platforms, visit the corresponding pages:

3DsMax / SketchUp / Maya / Rhino / Revit / Modo

Using VRayScene Files

The scene shaders can be transferred across applications by exporting a .vrscene file and importing it to another 3D platform.

Below are the steps on how to transfer a V-Ray material from 3ds Max to Maya.

Write down or remember the name of the material you want to transfer. Note that you can transfer more than one material at a time.
Open the V-Ray tab and choose .vrscene exporter. For the V-Ray 5 and older versions, Right-click anywhere in the viewport and press .vrscene exporter.
Set an Export path and press Export.
In Maya, assign a VRMat material to an object and load the .vrscene into the Material file.
From the Material list, choose which material to assign to your object.

To learn how to export a .vrscene file, refer to our online documentation for the respective platform:
3ds Max / Sketchup / Rhino / Maya / Revit / Unreal / Cinema 4D / Modo / Nuke / Houdini / Blender

To learn how to import V-Ray material from a .vrscene file, refer to out online documentation for the respective platform:
3ds Max / Sketchup / Rhino / Maya / Revit / Unreal / Modo / Nuke / Houdini / Blender

Advantages: The final rendering result of the materials is the same across all supported host platforms.

Disadvantages: Transferred materials cannot be further modified in the host platform they are transferred to. If such modifications are necessary, they have to be done in the initial host platform.

Using VRmat Material

VRmat material (.vrmat) is an external V-Ray Material file format, which can be exported from SketchUp, Rhino, and Revit, and imported to any host platform. It can be used for transferring materials across applications. To transfer shaders, do the following:

In SketchUp/Rhino/Revit, open the V-Ray Assets Editor.
Select material from your project, then right-click on the material, select Save as, and save you material as a .vrmat file.
To load the .vrmat file into your project click on the Import Asset File in the V-Ray Assets Editor.

For more information on how to import .vrmat files in other 3D platforms, refer to our online documentation.

3ds Max
- To import the .vrmat material in 3ds Max, assign a VRayVRmatMtl material to your object, and then load the .vrmat file into it.

Maya

To import the .vrmat material in 3ds Max, assign a VRayVRmatMtl material to your object, and then load the .vrmat file into it.

Advantages: Imported VRmat materials are editable in SketchUp, Rhino, and Revit, and allow further adjustments after importing them into your scene.

Disadvantages: In other host applications, such as 3ds Max and Maya, VRmat materials are read-only and do not allow further adjustments.

Using OSL and GLSL Materials

(for 3Ds Max and Maya)

You can write your own materials using the OSL language. In theory, any shader should be usable in any renderer (which supports osl) on any platform. The VRayOSLMtl material can be used to load OSL shader code files (.osl) or OSL object code files (.oso) for rendering directly with V-Ray. Due to the format, transferring is not necessary. Such files are rendered in Maya and 3ds Max identically.

To load OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) shaders and render them directly with V-Ray, use the VRayGLSLMtl.

More information regarding OSL and GLSL shaders, can be found here:

For 3dsMax: OSL Support, VRayOSLMtl, VRayGLSLMtl

For Maya: VRayMtlOSL, VRayMtlGLSL

Advantages: You can write a custom shader for your project and use it across platforms.
Disadvantages: Currently these shaders are supported only in 3ds Max and Maya.

Transfering VRayScenes Between Different Host Applications

VRayScene file format (.vrscene) is the native V-Ray format that contains information for the entire scene. This includes materials, geometry, textures, lights, etc. Cameras are currently not included.

The .vrscene file can be exported from any V-Ray integration and imported to any other V-Ray integration. The final rendering result is the same across all host platforms. This useful functionality saves time when a transfer to another host application is needed. It also allows multiple users collaboration when working on a single project.

To export a .vrscene file, refer to the V-Ray Scene Exporter page for each platform:
3ds Max / Sketchup / Rhino / Maya / Revit / Unreal / Cinema 4D / Modo / Nuke / Houdini / Blender

To import a .vrscene file, refer to the .vrscene import method page for each platform:
3ds Max / Sketchup / Rhino / Maya / Revit / Unreal / Modo / Nuke / Houdini / Blender

Below is an example of how to export a vrscene file from SketchUp and load it in 3ds Max. The example shows how to transfer a whole scene along with the lighting setup.

Note: After importing the file into 3dsMax you cannot edit the geometries, but you can override
the different attributes in the vrscene, such as materials and lights.

Example: How to Transfer a Scene from SketchUp to 3ds Max/Maya

The following example shows how to transfer scenes from SketchUp to 3dsMax and Maya using the VRayScene file.

Project files:

Download Scene Files

Scene transfer workflow:

In SketchUp, open Transfer_materials.skp project. To export the whole scene, open the Asset Editor, left-click on the arrow in the lower-left corner of the render button, and press the Export V-Ray Scene File button. Save the vrscene file.
In 3ds Max, from the Create panel go to Geometry > VRay category and press VRayScene.
While the VRayScene node is selected, browse for the .vrscene file. Note that you can also load a V-Ray Scene by dragging and dropping a .vrscene file directly in the viewport.
Set your camera and render.

Advantages: Using V-Ray scene files can be helpful when you want to transfer entire, renderable scenes along with their assets (geometry, shaders, and lights) from one 3D application to another. It is possible to override certain aspects, such as shaders.

Disadvantages: Further adjustments to your scene geometries are not possible.

Additional information on how to transfer scenes between applications and how to adjust different attributes, such as materials, after you import the file, you can find in the blog post How to Move V-Ray Scenes Between Applications.