Shadow Matte with V-Ray

Posted on 12/01/2007 by Spot

Ever wondered how to create a proper ‘Shadow Matte’ material when working with the V-Ray rendering system in 3ds Max? There’s a simple, straight-forward solution:

  1. First, launch the Material Editor (M), select a material slot and click on the “Get Material” icon.
  2. Choose VRayMtlWrapper, change ‘Base material’ to ‘Standard’, enable ‘Matte surface’, change ‘Alpha contribution to’ -1.0.
  3. Then enable ‘Shadows’ and double check if ‘Affect alpha’ is off.

3ds Max 2011 introduced the Slate Material editor which offers a slightly different workflow:

  1. First, launch the Slate Material Editor (M), right-click on View1 and choose Materials > V-Ray … > VRayMtlWrapper.
  2. Double-click this newly generated material to edit its settings: change ‘Base material’ to ‘Standard’, enable ‘Matte surface’, change ‘Alpha contribution to’ -1.0.
  3. Then enable ‘Shadows’ and double check if ‘Affect alpha’ is off.

With these settings you have exactly the same material behaviour as the well known standard ‘Matte Shadow’ material provided by 3ds Max – but now for V-Ray and not just for the default scanline renderer. You can also turn off all additional surface properties when you don’t need caustics or GI.

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14 Responses to Shadow Matte with V-Ray

  1. avshash says:
    02/08/2009 at 11:08 am

    Mate, you saved my a**s ! thanks for this :)
    A

  2. raqwinter says:
    19/05/2010 at 8:54 am

    thank you!

  3. Parag says:
    18/08/2010 at 9:15 am

    thanx alot dude .. u really saved my much timeeeeee

  4. Safeer Sidheek says:
    03/09/2010 at 10:13 am

    EXCELLENT..! , please one more note on you tutorial, "tick on shadows".
    Thank you very much dude.!!

  5. bertl says:
    19/09/2010 at 19:33 pm

    saved my day, thank you !

  6. Abhijeet says:
    08/12/2010 at 9:49 am

    Thank you so much ……..

  7. patrik says:
    30/12/2010 at 0:03 am

    Awesome, works with vrayshadows, while a standard matte/shadows material will only take shadow maps.

    THANKS!

  8. shorty says:
    19/01/2011 at 0:28 am

    Thanks a lot man.. But what about the reflection.. If you want the reflection on the floor.. What to do then ?

  9. Matee says:
    15/02/2011 at 9:00 am

    I dont know why but it does not work for vray rt

  10. guest says:
    18/05/2011 at 15:31 pm

    thanks for the little tutorial! anyways, the 3d object still soes not reflect its own shadow. and in case I want a reflection of my 3d object on the floor I am in trouble, too… any suggestions?

  11. rog! says:
    18/05/2011 at 17:41 pm

    Because this tutorial is not working. Use a wrapper with a matte /Shadow to reflect Shadows as well!

  12. Mridul says:
    19/08/2011 at 11:42 am

    Thanks a lot. Great Tips

  13. alex says:
    08/10/2011 at 2:12 am

    i love u man!!! u saved me a lot of trouble!!

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