Autodesk: mental ray_Errors when using opacity bitmaps on complex hair surfaces

- Hy Friends Make 3D Site,This Article Title is , check it out.

Autodesk: mental ray_Errors when using opacity bitmaps on complex hair surfaces
Autodesk: mental ray_Errors when using opacity bitmaps on complex hair surfaces

Max 2010 & mental ray seem to have problems reading complex opacity bitmaps (i.e. hair/fur)accurately. The Max scene in question has the fur object in the foreground (i.e. mesh with complex opacity maps), a wall behind,and the environment outside.

Also note that the FG (i.e. final gather) was already saved and frozen while the back wall was visible to the camera.



Once the wall was made not visible to the camera, Max/mental ray weren’t able to read the hair opacity accurately due to the environment map (i.e. mr Physical Sky).





After having tried every possible avenue (i.e. assigning the matte/shadow/reflection (mi) shader to wall, make the wall not to cast shadows etc...) nothing seemed to have worked; apart from assigning the "environment/background switcher(mi") parameters shader to the wall(i.e. not visible to the camera).

To apply it, simply load the mental ray shader first,as explained in the "Mental ray_Using ambient occlusion (AO)as a separate pass" tutorial below.

1-Once loaded, click on its surface toggle and choose the "environment/background switcher (mi") shader from the "material/map browser" dialog list.




2-Next, open the "environment and effects" dialog box; drag and drop the environment map toggle content (i.e. mr physical sky) onto the environment/background switcher background toggle. Choose the copy instance method, to close the dialog.











Note that, mental ray doesn’t read properly the alpha channels generated from standard material shaders; therefore opacity bitmaps are required to be applied to the cutout toggle of the arch & design shader.




Rendered alpha channel generated by the cutout toggle



I hope you have found this post useful.

Ta

Jamie

My 3D Portfolio:



More tips and Tricks:

Post-production techniques

Tips & tricks for architectural Visualisation: Part 1

Essential tips & tricks for VRay & mental ray

Photorealistic Rendering

Creating Customised IES lights

Realistic materials

Creating a velvet/suede material 

FoxRenderfarm

www.arroway-textures.com 

Renderpeople

epictor.com

Autodesk: mental ray_Light lister

- Hy Friends Make 3D Site,This Article Title is , check it out.

Autodesk: mental ray_Light lister
Autodesk: mental ray_Light lister

The Light lister tool is quite powerful to control and change numerous light settings in the Max scene.



The light lister is mostly used to:

a)-Select and/or change specific light settings in the Max scene.

b)-Identify and delete incompatible/undesired lights in the scene. It is worth clicking the refresh button every time a light is deleted.

If you have a long list of lights but, you just want to see the selected ones displayed, simply enable the, selected lights function.



Instanced lights are often displayed in sets. To select the entire set, simply click on its respective button to the left of the light name.

From each set there is dropdown list with all instanced lights. To view them, simply click on the relevant set.

Most light names, intensity colours, values, tick boxes etc are changeable; even when frozen in the scene.

I hope you have found this article somehow useful!

My 3D Portfolio:



More tips and Tricks:

Post-production techniques

Tips & tricks for architectural Visualisation: Part 1

Essential tips & tricks for VRay & mental ray

Photorealistic Rendering

Creating Customised IES lights

Realistic materials

Creating a velvet/suede material 

FoxRenderfarm

www.arroway-textures.com 

Renderpeople

epictor.com

.

3d: mental ray_Using ambient occlusion (AO) as a separate pass

- Hy Friends Make 3D Site,This Article Title is , check it out.

3d: mental ray_Using ambient occlusion (AO) as a separate pass
3d: mental ray_Using ambient occlusion (AO) as a separate pass

In the latest book, we had covered in detail the usage of ambient occlusion and its settings directly from Max however; we didn’t cover its usage as a post effect in Photoshop or another 2d application:

First open the "material editor" dialog, followed by selecting an empty slot and clicking on its main shader toggle.

Once the mental ray parameters are loaded, click on its surface toggle and choose the "ambient/reflective occlusion (3dsmax)" shader , from the material/map browser dialog. Set its parameters as explained in the book; or alternatively use other values that you may be accustomed to.





Next, open the "light lister" dialog, and turn off the lights in the scene. Note that, this action was taken mainly to ensure that only the “connecting shadows” were apparent on the render and to also avoid other types of light artifacts.

The next step is to prevent the appearance of environment artifacts in the render whilst using the AO shader.
Open the "environment effects" dialog.
Change the background colour to white.
Uncheck the "use map" function and disable the "exposure controls".
Whilst the material editor is still opened, also open the "render set up" dialog and expand the "processing" tab.
Match your image sampling(i.e. 1/16 pixels) quality and the render output size with your final render (i.e. 3000x1662).
Next, drag and drop the "ambient/reflective occlusion (3dsmax)" shader from the material editor onto the material override toggle.
Choose the instance method an ok to close the dialog, followed by rendering the scene. The material override is covered in detail in our latest book.







Once your AO had been rendered and saved, open it in Photoshop with your base render. Place the AO pass layer on top of the base render layer, and use the multiply filter, or another blending filter from the list, that you may find better suited. Also, you may want to use the, add layer mask tool, on the AO pass layer, to control its appearance. Note that this Photoshop tool is also covered in detail in our latest book.

Note:For specific scenes where one may require using opacity maps;masks;etc;it is recomended to use different AO settings on specific objects manually, as opposed to globally(i.e. material override toggle).





The image below is another example of a rendered image; with the AO pass overlaid in Photoshop. I hope you like it.
Note: I had used extensively the "speckle" procedural map from Max, in the "bright" toggle of the "ambient/Reflective Occlusion..." shader parameters.
Furthermore,the "speckle" procedural map was used in conjunction with a variety of settings and/or dirt textures on individual objects.



I hope you have found this post useful.

Ta

Jamie

My 3D Portfolio:



More tips and Tricks:

Post-production techniques

Tips & tricks for architectural Visualisation: Part 1

Essential tips & tricks for VRay & mental ray

Photorealistic Rendering

Creating Customised IES lights

Realistic materials

Creating a velvet/suede material 

FoxRenderfarm

www.arroway-textures.com 

Renderpeople

epictor.com

.

Rendering: “flickering” highlight artifacts

- Hy Friends Make 3D Site,This Article Title is , check it out.

Rendering: “flickering” highlight artifacts
Rendering: “flickering” highlight artifacts

At times one may encounter artifacts with the glossy highlights (i.e. “flickering” highlights).

There are a number of reasons for this to happen:

1-The fast glossy interpolation settings are too low: to correct this, simply change the interpolation grid density to 1(same as rendering) or higher (i.e. 2 (double).

2- Bump and/or displacement values are ridiculously high: to correct this, simply decrease the values.

3-The physical light intensity values are ridiculously high.

4-An object with an artifact in the scene is being reflected.





One general approach to correct this “flickering” glossy artifact is to select the material/s of the object/s on material editor, and check/enable their "highlights+FG only" function, under the "reflection" group, of the main material parameters. Note that, this function will disable the reflections however, it will retain the glossiness.
Users often resort to this technique to avoid spending too much time searching for the rogue object/s in the scene.



Finally,more often than not it's attributed to one common mistake: the luminance of some glowed object/s in the scene are set to "unitless", under "self illumination (glow)parameters". To correct this, simply change it to "physical units: (cd/m2)" instead; and increase its default value,if necessary.




I hope you have found this post useful.

Ta

Jamie


My 3D Portfolio:


New Book: 3D Photorealistic Rendering: Interiors & Exteriors with V-Ray and 3ds Max


More tips and Tricks:

Post-production techniques

Tips & tricks for architectural Visualisation: Part 1

Essential tips & tricks for VRay & mental ray

Photorealistic Rendering

Creating Customised IES lights

Realistic materials

Creating a velvet/suede material 

FoxRenderfarm

www.arroway-textures.com 

Renderpeople

epictor.com

Rendering: mental ray_Relative Intensity of Highlights

- Hy Friends Make 3D Site,This Article Title is , check it out.

Rendering: mental ray_Relative Intensity of Highlights
Rendering: mental ray_Relative Intensity of Highlights

Often, just leaving mental ray and its shaders to work out the highlights isn’t enough.
There is a function named relative intensity of highlights. It is very useful to “boost up” highlights that are not very apparent on the surface. It can be found on the advanced rendering options parameters, under the advanced reflectivity options group.

For the above image I had increased its values to about 30 however, depending on the specific scene one may be required to increase or decrease these values.By the way, this chrome material was applied to all the metal frames by the door entrance and windows.


Note: These values only affect objects that already have some sort of shine on them and somewhat being affected the by light.


Moreover, the visible area lights cause no highlights function could also be unchecked to further increase the highlights however, it is not always required.





I hopw you have found this post useful.

Ta

Jamie

My 3D Portfolio:


New Book: 3D Photorealistic Rendering: Interiors & Exteriors with V-Ray and 3ds Max



More tips and Tricks:

Post-production techniques

Tips & tricks for architectural Visualisation: Part 1

Essential tips & tricks for VRay & mental ray

Photorealistic Rendering

Creating Customised IES lights

Realistic materials

Creating a velvet/suede material 

FoxRenderfarm

www.arroway-textures.com 

Renderpeople

epictor.com

Rendering: mental ray_Adding glow to the window glass

- Hy Friends Make 3D Site,This Article Title is , check it out.

Rendering: mental ray_Adding glow to the window glass
Rendering: mental ray_Adding glow to the window glass

The above image was produced whilst at GMJ Design Ltd


In our latest book, we have covered a number of ways of emulating light without the need of creating a physical light.
Production companies often adopt similar methods to reduce the rendering times and retain the overall quality.
It is worth pointing out that the usage of Ambient Occlusion(i.e. AO) as a separate pass or/and directly from Max is utterly imperative for the final shot.


The following exercise will take you through another unique methodology of achieving similar results with reduced rendering times:

Another quick way of emulating “glow”/"light" on windows, is to in fact enable the glow function on the glass panes themselves.

To do this, simply go to the main material parameters, under the "refraction" group.

1-Reduce the transparency to about 0.9 to prevent the surface from being fully transparent.

2-To add a bit of blur to the transparency, decrease the glossiness to about 0.78. Note that, these values may vary depending on one’s camera angle...and the level of transparency/blurriness intended.

3-Next,change the colour swatch from white to a warm yellow.
Also, the "fast (interpolate)" function, can be enabled for quick and fast results, as the glossiness and its samples can often slow down the renders.However,it may create artifacts.

4-Pan down to the "self illumination (glow)" parameters and enable the "self illumination (glow)" function.

5-Under the "luminance" group, change it from "unitless" to "physical units: cd/m2)". Also, pick and choose any relevant bitmap (i.e. photo) that has a prominent light source.


Note: The "unitless" function often creates artifacts on glossy reflections, therefore, to be avoided at all costs.


Depending on time in hand, one can set the glow to generate light, or not, through the FG, by checking the "illuminates the scene (when using fg)" function.
...and... “...let there be light...”!!!

The final rendered image below was achieved using this technique. I hope you like it.






I hope you have found this post interesting.

Ta

Jamie

My 3D Portfolio:


New Book: 3D Photorealistic Rendering: Interiors & Exteriors with V-Ray and 3ds Max



More tips and Tricks:

Post-production techniques

Tips & tricks for architectural Visualisation: Part 1

Essential tips & tricks for VRay & mental ray

Photorealistic Rendering

Creating Customised IES lights

Realistic materials

Creating a velvet/suede material 

FoxRenderfarm

www.arroway-textures.com 

Renderpeople

epictor.com

Design interior: mental ray_office project

- Hy Friends Make 3D Site,This Article Title is , check it out.

Design interior: mental ray_office project
Design interior: mental ray_office project

Hi All,

The above image is part of a project I have finished recently. It was quite challenging in a sense that the client was very particular about the direction they wanted to take with regards to lighting,colours,depth,etc. I would normally use warm photometric lights however,in this particular project the client opted for white photometric lights instead (i.e. D65 illuminant...white) in order to help preserve the original colours of all other objects in the Max scene.

In addition, I have used similar techniques to the ones used in the chapter 06 of my latest book.Which essentially consists in starting out with a fairly dark scene even when the daylight system is already applied;followed by gradually adding artificial photometric lights and test rendering until satisfied with the overall lighting.

Often, one can easily lose control of the depth in the scene when adding numerous artificial lights and exposure controls.

The ceiling imperfections were achieved by using the mental ray's "Utility Bump Combiner(adsk)" shader in conjunction with cellular and noise procedural materials applied to its multiple toggles(i.e. Utility Bump Combiner adsk).

The render came straight from 3Ds Max using mental ray,no post effects were needed. The total amount of images delivered for this project was 6. I hope you like the final result.

It is also worth mentioning that, I am in no way discouraging users to use Photoshop and other post effects applications however,one should always try to take advantage of Max's full potential.

Cheers,

Jamie

My 3D Portfolio:


New Book: 3D Photorealistic Rendering: Interiors & Exteriors with V-Ray and 3ds Max



More tips and Tricks:

Post-production techniques

Tips & tricks for architectural Visualisation: Part 1

Essential tips & tricks for VRay & mental ray

Photorealistic Rendering

Creating Customised IES lights

Realistic materials

Creating a velvet/suede material 

FoxRenderfarm

www.arroway-textures.com 

Renderpeople

epictor.com

.