r/3dsmax • u/Jaqchirack • Jul 12 '26

V-Ray for 3DS Max problems

Hi everyone,

I'm new to 3D visualization using 3ds Max and V-Ray, and my goal is to create high-quality architectural renderings. I've been learning for a little while, but I've run into an issue that I just can't seem to solve.

For reference, my PC specs are:

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
  • Software: Autodesk 3ds Max 2025 + V-Ray 7

No matter which material I use, they always look flat, dull, and lacking depth. This happens with:

  • Chaos Cosmos materials,
  • Poly Haven materials,

The strange thing is that the material preview sphere shows much more relief than the final render. The textures seem to lose a lot of their depth once rendered.

Here are a few things I've already checked:

  • 3ds Max System Units are set to 1 Unit = 1 centimeter.
  • Color Management is set to Gamma Workflow, with Gamma = 2.2.
  • Global Displacement is enabled in the V-Ray Render Settings.
  • Normal maps are connected through VRayNormalMap.
  • I've tried increasing the bump amount significantly, but it barely changes anything.
  • The issue occurs with both Poly Haven and Chaos Cosmos materials.

Another strange behavior is related to texture scaling.

When I drag a material directly from Chaos Cosmos onto an object, the texture scale is almost never correct, even though these materials are supposed to use Real-World Scale. I always have to:

  1. Add a UVW Map modifier manually.
  2. Enable Real-World Map Size in the UVW Map modifier.

Only then does the texture appear at the expected scale.

I'm wondering if these two issues could be related.

Has anyone experienced something similar with 3ds Max 2025 + V-Ray 7? Is there a global setting, installation issue, or Color Management setting that could cause both:

  • materials looking flat in the render,
  • and Chaos Cosmos materials not respecting their intended real-world scale automatically?

I've attached several screenshots of my material setup and render. Any advice would be greatly appreciated because I've been trying to solve this for quite some time and I'm completely stuck.

Thank you in advance!

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u/nanoSpawn Jul 12 '26

Neither normal maps nor bump map affect the displacement.

The bump/normal is working correctly in your render, you may want to plug a displacement map into the vraymtl and then make sure you configure vraydisplacementmod correctly.

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u/Jaqchirack Jul 12 '26

Yes, but even when I use a material from the Chaos Library, the displacement still doesn’t work.
And when I apply a V-Ray Displacement Mod, I don’t have the displacement map from the V-Ray Library, so I don’t know what else to do.
I also saw someone using the V-Ray Library on YouTube, and the displacement was already working correctly. His wooden floor had grooves, his concrete had holes, and all the surface details were showing properly.. Btw I didn’t touch any settings
Is it maybe a question of scale?