Looking for a better (and hopefully faster) way to convert non-Iray vehicles to Iray

Blind Owl

I've acquired quite few non-Iray vehicles, both here and elsewhere, and managed to convert several so they look pretty good in Iray. Paint, chrome, and window and mirror glass are usually no problem, but I tend to have a tough time with tires, headlight reflectors (behind the glass), instrument and interior lights, and especially taillights, running lights & turn signals. Applying a coloured glass shader to a full-width taillight array, or an emergency vehicle's light bar, usually ends up looking pretty crappy.

No doubt my troubles are due to ignorance, because I've seen some gorgeous conversions by other DAZ users. So I'm wondering what the best method is, and if there's a tutorial thread somewhere that can put me on the road to better conversions. Faster would be nice because I have a ton more to do, and I'd like to improve the ones I've already done.

As always, any tips and/or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

chris-2599934

I don't think there's any one technique that will help convert all vehicles.

Whenever I have to do this, I start by doing the standard Iray Uber base shader, then try to fix the things that don't work (which will differ from item to item).

Other than glass and mirrors, I tend not to use generic shaders if I can avoid it, preferring to stick with the image maps that came with the product wherever possible, even if it means using those image maps in additional places to where they were intended - particularly the diffuse map.

For example, if you have a metallic surface like a chrome bumper or grille, apply the diffuse image map to the metallic flakes color, and set metallic flakes to 100%.

Attached is a WIP where I've only really swapped the glass for an iray shader and used the above trick on the metal. The car is a made-for-poser job from rendo, the taxi sign is one of Maclean's morphing primitives with an iray decal applied.

 

Blind Owl

chris-2599934 said:

For example, if you have a metallic surface like a chrome bumper or grille, apply the diffuse image map to the metallic flakes color, and set metallic flakes to 100%.

Attached is a WIP where I've only really swapped the glass for an iray shader and used the above trick on the metal. The car is a made-for-poser job from rendo, the taxi sign is one of Maclean's morphing primitives with an iray decal applied.

Diffuse to metallic flakes, huh? I'll certainly give that a try on my own WIP conversion. Thanks for the tip!

Cool use of the morphing primitive, btw.