henryeastman

Thanks for your helpful reply. So what you're saying is the V-Ray sky in Max's environment map slot does not contribute any lighting or reflections, it's only a background. But an HDRI in the same slot will contribute to lighting and reflections?

Please work through my (perhaps twisted) logic and tell me where I'm going wrong. Using an HDRI in a dome light is the preferred workflow. This HDRI should be low-res and blurred to help render times and produce nice soft shadows. A high-res, non-blurred version of the HDRI can be used as an environment background and for reflections. In which case you should put it in Max's standard 'Environment Map' slot. However won't this also affect the lighting and mess with your dome light HDRI? If you didn't want the background to affect the lighting you would use V-Ray's environment overrides, by putting in your blurred HDRI into the GI environment slot. But now your using the non-preferred workflow of setting up an HDRI. Also when would you want to override reflection and refraction? If using a V-Ray sun should you use an HDRI and V-Ray sky map (which helps the V-Ray sun) in tandem? So basically it would mean the world to me if someone could be by night in shining armour and clear up all this confusion for me! Thank you!

Thank you for your informative reply. I always thought V-Ray was physically based long before Unreal etc. Has unreal just taken it further with the metallic/roughness work flow? I understand that V-Ray is more spec/gloss. If you created a specular and glossiness map in substance, are these directly related to reflection and reflection glossiness respectively within V-Ray?

Haha, let's all laugh at the noob! But seriously, thanks for your reply. So what you're saying is that designer is basically a map creator. So however great looking you make your material look inside of substance, you will still have to do work on it inside of max to make it look tip top for V-Ray.

All I want to know is which work flow is better for architecture and interior design, substance designer or material creation natively in max. Thanks

In terms of quality, will you get better results with 3ds Max V-Ray using substance designer materials through a V-Ray material or the various maps within 3ds Max and a V-ray material. Thanks in advance.