Best practice for using 3Delight-only objects in iray scene?

mx90209

If you're using a 3Delight-only object in an iray scene, the object seems to render exactly the same whether or not you convert it to Iray (by choosing the Iray default shader), but I'm thinking there might be a best practice or some reason why you should do the one thing or the other?

Leana

DS does "on the fly" conversion of 3DL standard materials to Iray uber base when you render, so the result is indeed the same as if you just apply Iray base shader.

Applying the base shader is really required only if you plan to adjust the materials. If you don't plan to adjust the materials then the only thing you will gain from applying iray base shader is that DS won't take the time needed for automatic conversion when you start your render.

Odaa

If the object is optimized for poser rather than 3DL, go to the surfaces tab and switch the lighting model from "plastic" to "metallic" (it's one of the first surface options you see on a non-Iray object). Then apply the Iray base conversion shader. 

If you're not liking the look of an item with 3DL settings converted to Iray, consider replacing glass and metal surfaces with the closest equivalent shaders, and raising the bump levels on other surfaces, and using the "leather" shader on wood and weathered metal (Control+Click to get a popup on menu, and select the option to retain the existing textures). In the latter case, you will want to reset the diffuse color from brown to near-white or whatever it was before applying the leather option, and to raise the bump levels.

Oso3D

I usually multiply bump levels by about 5, after a conversion.

I also prefer to convert to save the (admittedly tiny) time to convert on the fly, and so I can then adjust sometimes hilarious bad autoconvert settings (like incredibly glossy stuff).