Overview

VRayClipper is a geometric primitive that can be used to clip away parts of the scene with a simple plane. It is a render-time effect and does not modify the actual scene geometry in any way.

Image courtesy of Brendan McCaffrey, © DK Books

UI Paths

||Create menu|| > V-Ray > V-Ray Clipper

||Create panel|| > Geometry > V-Ray Category > VRayClipper button

Parameters

Enabled – Turns the clipper effect on and off.

Affect lights – When enabled, the clipper will affect area lighting as well.

Camera rays only – The clipper will affect objects as they are directly seen by the camera, but they will appear unchanged to reflection/refraction/GI rays.

Clip lights geometry – Enables or disables the clipping of lights geometry (for example a mesh light).

Use object material – When enabled, the clipper will use the material of each clipped object to fill in the resulting holes. When this is off, the material applied to the clipper object itself will be used.

Set material ID – When enabled, the user can specify a face material ID for the clipper object. You can then use this ID inside a Multi/Sub-object material to specify a different filler material for different objects.

Material ID – Specifies the face material ID for the clipped surfaces when Set material ID is enabled.

Icon text – Shows/hides the V-Ray clipper icon text from the viewports.

Mesh mode - Enables the clipper to clip against an arbitrary mesh object rather than an infinite plane.

Operation - Determines how to use the mesh when Mesh mode is enabled:

Intersection - Clips away anything that is outside the specified mesh; only renders objects and parts of objects inside the specified mesh;
Subtraction - Clips away anything inside the specified mesh; only renders objects and parts of objects outside of the specified mesh.

Replace mesh with clipper – Specifies what to do with the mesh that is picked through the Pick mesh button. When enabled, the mesh is moved as a sub-object under the VRayClipper object and the clipper takes the place of the mesh. If disabled, the clipper just references the picked mesh.

Pick mesh – Allows the user to pick a mesh object against which to clip when Mesh mode is enabled. This button is only active in the Modify tab of the 3ds Max Command Panel, and not in its Create tab.

Exclude – Opens an include/exclude list that allows the user to select which scene objects will be clipped.

Notes

• VRayClipper works best with "closed" objects that have a corresponding back face. The results on open objects (without a corresponding back face) are not well defined.

• Currently the VRayClipper may produce artifacts if there are overlapping triangles in the scene, regardless of whether they are part of the same object or not.

• Note that Set material ID must be used for Multi/Sub-object, it will not act like Mtl ID in MultiMatteElement.