How To Hook Up V-Ray to MASH’s Color Node

Maya’s MASH has a Color node that can customize the display of a MASH network’s Color Per Vertex information in the viewport. Being that the color node uses CVP data, it might not be obvious how to get the nodes effects rendering with various render engines. The Mainframe team have demonstrated with both Arnold and Mental Ray, But what about V-Ray?

If you are wanting to set up V-Ray Materials with the Maya MASH color node, you can watch this quick overview by Chris Hardcastle. Although the technique is relatively simple and quick, it is not immediately obvious. You need to use the V-Ray User Color utility node to translate viewport color per vertex info to a render with V-Ray. Easy!

Check out the same process for Arnold Materials, as well as Mental Ray Materials too.

3D Generalist Jason Nuttall commented with a great suggestion for extending that workflow a bit with V-Ray Material Overrides: “Hi Guys, Cheers for that. Something that might help the workflow is a Vray material override – this allows you to have one material for the viewport and an override for rendering.”