Mental Ray - Shaders

[JeffPatton]

I added a quick video to the first post that shows how to open a .mat file. Here's an additional link:

jeffpatton.net/cg-post/matlib.avi

You'll need the techsmith codec in order to view the video. If you don't know where to get the techsmith codec, or what the techsmith codec is, just run a google search for something like this: (download techsmith codec)

[Wilk0]

Thanks a lot! I don't think I would've figured that one out for a while. :) Should toss that onto the first page if ya havn't.

By the way chamelion paint on cars is the kind of paint that changes colors depending on the angle your looking at it, I'm not sure if yours does in max but it doesn't really seem to. I think you are thinking of pearlescent (not sure if thats spelled right) paint, which is really shiny and flaky, thats what it looks like to me. :)

[JeffPatton]

Should toss that onto the first page if ya havn't.

"I added a quick video to the first post that shows how to open a .mat file. Here's an additional link:"
As I stated in my original post, I did infact add it to the first page and just posted a link here for convinience.


By the way chamelion paint on cars is the kind of paint that changes colors depending on the angle your looking at it, I'm not sure if yours does in max but it doesn't really seem to. I think you are thinking of pearlescent (not sure if thats spelled right) paint, which is really shiny and flaky, thats what it looks like to me. :)

Hmm, I'm pretty certain I had that setup to change from green to blue/purple depending on the lighting conditions (so I called it chamelion). Maybe it doesn't behave the same way due to the newer versions of MR or the environment/lighting I created that material in are different from what you're using. I think I used a falloff map to control that color shift effect, so play around with that setting to adjust the effect.

Jeff

[Wilk0]

Alright, sorry I misread that. Anyways, thanks for the cool materials.

Was messing around with the carbon fiber and metals on a guitar model I had made.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/5543/guitar9qu.jpg

I did also manage to get the chamelion paint to work by messing with the falloffs. :)

[JasonCamp]

hey all heres an update ,im useing a photometric spot with a little yellow, 2 skylights one for the gradent blue sky the other for lightness and yellow from the sun, shadow maps...

also i found out that mr area shadows do not work on photometric lights but they do work nice on a mr light, and you even get soft shadows with ray traceing, but the killer is , its not photometric BLAH!

i think i can do a little more yellow from the spotlight but if i change the filter color i tend to lose the intenceness, also it seams nomater how high i set the gi samples and final gather , i still dont get a raybounce from the floor, any ideas? i know when i put the spotlight up to 255/255/255 (white) i get more of a brighter area of where it might be a raybounce and i havent renderd with super high settings with it on white yet, but then i dont get that good yellow sunlight with it on white, the 2nd skylight was to add to the yellow it helped a small bit , in jeff's glare scene he has a normal spot light at a multiple of 3 white and 1500gi samples and i think 1000fg and he gets a great raybounce , im wondering if i should try a standard spot, but that would kill my current lume goodness... any thoughts ?
ohh also pay no attention to the area where the ground falls off the face of the earth, thats out of camera range, just trying to show the yellowish falloff
btw wilko nice guitar

[Wilk0]

Thanks for the praise. Here's an updated pic if ya care, using the car paints, chrome and black paint.

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/7811/guitar8de.jpg

Anyways, I would recommend saving a backup of your current scene and trying standard spot lights, although I have no idea how to solve the actual problem. :P

[blacknight]

hello again guys i been away for some time been very bussy lately. and i got a little question i havent been able to figure out just yet.. i`n doing some underwater scenes for my reel. and i want to do some heavy postproduction, so i using the submerge shader to give some depth sence. and i also want to use volumetric light the thing is i dont know whow to use both at the same time. the other thing is. how can i get everything into passes, how do i get the submerge stuff into a pass. and the volumetric ¿?. any light you could guys trought at me. i been looking for some info on how to program shader to make some pass shaders but no look soo far and, i cant say i look much either :(. well thx for any info you could guys tell me

[Bao2]

(Edited: This scene don't works in Max8)

In Jeff Patton Post 169 on Page 12, there is a link to a Volume Caustics. I think that
theme was not well developped. Here is my contribution.

In the max file (Max 7.5) you can uncheck the Diffuse Noise Map in "Caja" Material
to increment render speed.
Render the Frame #0 if you want the light to the Sphere. Render Frame #25 if
you don't want that ray.
Use material Esfera2 (I think you must retouch it something) for a better
glass material but very large render time.

[blacknight]

bao2, was that an anwaser for me. couse i know of partivolume thats what i use for volumetrics. the thing is how to use 2 volume shader at the same time. partivolume + submerge or any other, and hot to get that in individual passes for later compositing

[digtlpete]

Has anyone had any luck using the edge shadow lume. I can't seem to get it to do anyting. I did a seach on it in this thread and I did'nt see anyting, so sorry in advace if this topic has already been discussed.

Thanks,
Brian

[JasonCamp]

hey , im not sure at all but i think it was a shader for toon stuff check your help file "F1" and do lume tools it should be in there with at least a discription... id do it but im not on the 3ds machine right now ..

also in further developments - i figured out my raybounce problem uh im a moron lol RAY DEPTH it controls ray depth! doh ! in the render setings i bumped it up a bit under refractions, and in the gi side i bumped it to like 18 whew keeping the sum at default and the same with reflections ... i only have 1 reflection and its only set at like 7 so its not even very much.. now in the far building the concrete (soon to be) block on the left is now illuminated more from the suns bounce on the ground also my fiberglass panels are pushing more sss gi now , and it only takes 4x longer to render ugh.. oh well for now ill keep it low to test but final render time ill push it back lol.. also it throws off your sss caustics so be careful to not get the wrong idea

[JasonCamp]

ohh awesome man i tried that myself ill deffinatly have to take a look to see how you did that
thanks so much

[JasonCamp]

ah it didnt open , what version of max are you useing ?

[-Vormav-]

Has anyone had any luck using the edge shadow lume. I can't seem to get it to do anyting. I did a seach on it in this thread and I did'nt see anyting, so sorry in advace if this topic has already been discussed.

Thanks,
Brian
Where you might be getting mixed up with this is with the object that you need to apply it to. It's a common mixup, but you need to make sure that you apply the shader to the object that is casting shadows in your scene, not the objects that are receiving them.
Beyond that, the shader may just not behave the way you'd expect it to. For example, 'blur' doesn't really give you soft edges, because the blur takes place on the inside of the shadow profile. To really see any results with this, you should toggle the "noise influence" option, and play around with the noise.
Also, this shader won't affect self-shadowing with objects.

[Bao2]

ah it didnt open , what version of max are you useing ?

Max 7.5 (I edited the post above to aclare that)
It's a pity Max don't save in older versions. I suppose you have 6.0

[JasonCamp]

yea still using good ol' 6 and all the bugs that follow lol

[digtlpete]

-Vormav-
Thanks man, I'll give it a try. If this is the case it kind of sucks because I have objects casting shadows on surfaces that are bumpy and smooth. Thanks for the reply.

-Brian

[Shortricci]

I've been following this thread now for quite some time, and it just gets better and better.

I've been looking around the thread for a few hours but couldn't find any materials that are similar to the following MP3 player.

http://www.everythingusb.com/images/list/sonynwhd5.jpg

As you can see it's silver, and from my limited knowledge of MR, it look's as if would have a bit of noise added. If anyone has made a material that would work for me, or knows of one which has been created and could point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful. Thank you for your time. Also, keep up the continuously amazing work seen on this board. :thumbsup:

[micco]

I've been following this thread now for quite some time, and it just gets better and better.

I've been looking around the thread for a few hours but couldn't find any materials that are similar to the following MP3 player.

As you can see it's silver, and from my limited knowledge of MR, it look's as if would have a bit of noise added. If anyone has made a material that would work for me, or knows of one which has been created and could point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful. Thank you for your time. Also, keep up the continuously amazing work seen on this board. :thumbsup:
You can use Metal(lume) shader in MR Surface slot or in Standard materials Diffuse slot and check the blur reflection.

[JasonCamp]

well after beating myself to a purple and blue hue i finnaly got my final gather and gi and caustics to coeinside with my sss fiberglass in a maner that i can live with ..

one of the biggest struggles was that i would get the gi perfict but the sss would suck or caustics or something .. and then i would get the the other way around if i changed it , then i got a ok result and the building with the fiberglass in it would be dark as hell but the caustics would be fine and the gi was ok just not in that building ...

i realised that no other light except the photometric ones were going to do gi sss and caustics so i changed back to a point photometric (because the spot would fall off abruptly , or compleatly blast my caustics out of the water)

then i realised that how i said before that trace depth was helping was accually not as i had hoped , and found out that when you turn final gather off you cant tell how the material is gonna look when you turn it back on again... so i had to start all over again when i turned on final gather again to see that the trace depth now jacked up my sss materials

then i re-thought my mateial and noticed that i was scattering way to much volume in it , because i was attempting to make a translucent sss material, and that was it .. also my dgs material needed to be tweeked.. then when i renderd it apparently fixed it , and only took 15 min's with 250 fg on wich was a lot faster... but then there was the fact that there was no gi geting into the coverd fiberglass building ... i looked at my light and noticed that it was starting before the buildings and the falloff was half way in the middle of the screen... so i thought well i guess i could copy the light take off the shadows and then move it over to where its falling off and reduce the cd' level to take up the gap.. and wala! there goes gi into the building and everything looks ok... the pic i post is bad quality but it looks better, now i have a small delema with the road inbetween the two buildings ,,, its washed out and is overbright.. i think just a bit to much light thats easy to fix lol ! anyways if theres any advice please i need all i can get...

also i thought my hometown college offered an animation cource , and now that im out of the military i was hoping to attend... i guess they dont even know what a wacom tablet is though and they are confused as to what 3d animation means... so i guess i have to look else where .. i want to get into either video game modeling or textureing but im open.. i was intrested in architechtual viz too but rather do art for games or other any suggestions ?

[psv]

=HELLION=, please stay on topic , this thread is about mental ray shaders....if you want advices about your cg education and so on there are plenty of other threads here on CG talk or elswhere...
your pic, is not bad but not good either...if you wan`t to have a career in arch viz, you should be more focused on that...try to replicate a famous building, that specific light, etc...
nothing personal, but your posts are so long...and unfocused...

best regards Sorin

[thgstanton]

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone here had made a decent procedural concrete shader? I need to cover some really huge areas with concrete and can't use maps.

Thanks.

[JasonCamp]

accually i thought the topic was mental ray shaders in my message, the light is mental ray shading as far as caustics and gi and my primary focus was the mr material of the fiberglass_sss ,my wip is not good at all ,thats why i was hoping somebody would give me crits or advise me on a better seting(s)
and i have been looking but as far as cg education threads i havnt seen any , if anybody sees one please tell me.. i figured at least id ask so maybe somebody could direct me

and well if you dont like how long my post is do as the others do and dont read them

[rocknroland]

hi, i was trying to make a cool carpet shader for an interior szene - but everything i did wasnt really good (blinn shader / bump)

any ideas??
thx

[JasonCamp]

hello , id use mr displacement, after tweeking setings for it in the render dialog .. its really detailed the lower that number goes the more detail it shows er i forget what the number is called ... theres 2 of them , i think its like max displace edge or something i can remember ..should be default of 2 .. dont set it to low or you have to wait for ever .. then just drop a grayscale [white being high parts low being black] tga of the carpet you want in the displace for mr and you will get some good carpet..

[PyroNeko]

anyone here know how to recreate http://www.richardrosenman.com/gallery/abs_venus2.jpg with a mr shader

[francescaluce]

actually the best one for this kind of close
surfaces with finalgather is still diffusion by
theBigMuh.




ciao
francesca

[Bao2]

anyone here know how to recreate with a mr shader


View the image attached and download the Max 7.5 file (Max 7 also can open it I think).

Substitute the box with a sculpture (in Max CD3/Tutorials/Lights/shadows.max you have
what I used, but that model is inclinated to the front and you must verticalize it for
better results (near to the lights)

In Samples per pixel set minimum - maximum to 1/4 - 4 for quicker render.

[Bao2]

In Jeff's Post 1122 Page 75, and also in Post 1866 Page 125
there are some, in my oppinion, unsatisfactory radial anisotropy.

I think that theme was not finished. Here is my contribution in
radial anisotropy.

The max file (Max 7.5) needs Jeff's Apt-probe.hdr (you have it in first page
of this thread) so copy it to the same directory or search for it in the material
editor, in the "Environment2" material.

Watch carefully the geometry of the "Disco" objects because in the geometry
is the trick: is no a completely flat surface, there is a little bitty offset in the
axis vertices.
The mapping is cylindrical (with caps unchecked of course to have the axis).
The surface have some "brushed grainy" for better look.

[JasonCamp]

that looks good

[sampson]

hi there... does the dirtmap shader work with max 7.5 ...if so please could some one remind me where to put the files,

many thanks.

C.

[rocknroland]

hello , id use mr displacement, after tweeking setings for it in the render dialog .. its really detailed the lower that number goes the more detail it shows er i forget what the number is called ... theres 2 of them , i think its like max displace edge or something i can remember ..should be default of 2 .. dont set it to low or you have to wait for ever .. then just drop a grayscale [white being high parts low being black] tga of the carpet you want in the displace for mr and you will get some good carpet..
thx hellion - i will give that a try

[Bao2]

hi there... does the dirtmap shader work with max 7.5 ...if so please could some one remind me where to put the files,
many thanks.
C.

Yes, it does.
In first post of this thread Jeff wrote an index and there you can find the posts
for Dirtmap (files, instructions and all).

But well here is the location each file must go:
Max/mentalray/shaders_autoload/include/Dirtmap.mi
Max/mentalray/shaders_autoload/shaders/Dirtmap.dll

Mental Ray have its own dirtmap shader: "Ambient/Reflective Occlusion (base)".
Is a little slower but with more options so I think you can take a look at it.

[sampson]

..thanks Bao :thumbsup:

will look further in to the ambient/Reflective Occlusion (base) aswell.

[JHaywood]

I posted a video tutorial in the Tutorials section on how to quickly set up a GI lighting solution using vertex colors and Glow. Thought some of you might find it useful.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=268694

[Dodgeas3d]

Hey all!

Nice thread on mr.

Ive passed this thread but didnt find any blury transparency used with mr.
Ive tryed mr glass shader, i loaded to to raytrace mat's transparency slot, i found blury transparency check box and params, even if i set spread to 30 and samples to 10 , the glass mat didnt work, it just gets noisy.

Next blury transparency doesnt appear on the back side of object... maybe im doing something backwards?
http://img24.imagevenue.com/loc45/th_a6f_glossy.jpg (http://img24.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc45&image=a6f_glossy.jpg)

Any sugestions on blury transparency?
http://209.172.55.14/loc110/th_cf6_mat.jpg (http://209.172.55.14/img.php?loc=loc110&image=cf6_mat.jpg)
Thanks.

[micco]

Hey all!
Nice thread on mr.

Ive passed this thread but didnt find any blury transparency used with mr.
Ive tryed mr glass shader, i loaded to to raytrace mat's transparency slot, i found blury transparency check box and params, even if i set spread to 30 and samples to 10 , the glass mat didnt work, it just gets noisy.

Next blury transparency doesnt appear on the back side of object... maybe im doing something backwards?

Any sugestions on blury transparency?

Thanks.
Try to put the glass shader in to MentalRay materials Surface slot.

[steven xu]

hi,everyone~

i meet a problem,when i rendering this sence,How to improve the brightness of the straw in bottle~

this is the last pic i rendered~........http://bbs.chinavfx.net/attachments/200508/22101426-001.jpg

[DaveKW]

Does antbody have an idea whatt settings for deriver/reflection utility could have been used for this material? I've looked through the earlier posts for some settings, but don't get anywhere near as good as this.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=1889371&postcount=1874

[steven xu]

Does antbody have an idea whatt settings for deriver/reflection utility could have been used for this material? I've looked through the earlier posts for some settings, but don't get anywhere near as good as this.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=1889371&postcount=1874

I don't know jeff's way but
i often used Metal(lumi)+blur+HDRI map to simulate this,the HDR map is the oldest RF map in Max ,U can find it in max maps

[JasonCamp]

what material is it ?
i suggest turn up the defuse brightness a glossy map or maybe unlock the ambient channel and turn it up,, or apply a brighter map... if none of that works it could be the caustic lighting or gi needs to be boosted (photons)

[JeffPatton]

Bao - Nice work on the anisotropic shader.

Steven Xu - Looks like the straw material is a bit too transparent (thus maybe making it too dark in the water). Though, I'm not sure what materials you used for the water & straw. Could be either of those (or both).

Snakeye - I don't have that file any longer (or shader for that matter). And I can't remember the settings, but I do remember a problem with the coordinates of the anistropic effect. I think you'd probably be better off working from the file Bao posted here:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2551379&postcount=2530

Hellion - How'd you make out with that green fiberglass material?

[sadghost]

hello jeff .. is there an E.T.A on that dvd :)

[steven xu]

Bao - Nice work on the anisotropic shader.

Steven Xu - Looks like the straw material is a bit too transparent (thus maybe making it too dark in the water). Though, I'm not sure what materials you used for the water & straw. Could be either of those (or both).

Snakeye - I don't have that file any longer (or shader for that matter). And I can't remember the settings, but I do remember a problem with the coordinates of the anistropic effect. I think you'd probably be better off working from the file Bao posted here:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2551379&postcount=2530

Hellion - How'd you make out with that green fiberglass material?

I used the max materials +95% transparent and added self irradiance 35%......
the water mat i use the glass(lumi)...

[saraw]

hi this might have been mentioned previously however i am having difficultly installing the dirtmap shader into max 7! I have placed the.mi and .dll files in the correct paths but still no luck, can anyone help please?

thanks

[DaveKW]

Where have you installed them? I put mine into the standard, 3rd party AND autoload folders, just to be on the safe side with no problems. If all else fails, check out Jeff's link to the MR files. (Hope you don't mind Jeff)

http://www.pixelperfectgraphics.biz/cg_files/mray-files.zip

I unzipped them to all 3 folders (standard, 3rd party, autoload). I'd advise making a backup of your existing mental ray folder first :thumbsup: Hope this helps. Also check out this post for a bit of a walkthrough:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=1225216&postcount=885

[sampson]

saraw... i asked this question just recently.In the mental ray folder/shaders_autoload The .dll goes in the shaders & the .mi goes in the include. should work then.

[DaveKW]

OK, does anyone know how to achieve this rubbery white material?

http://www.virgin.net/movies/wallpapers/images/irobot_1280.jpg

I'm thinking SSS to get some nice diffusion around the nose area, but also blurred reflections AND transparency?!?!?!?! In places it also looks a lot like frosted plastic. ANY help would be greatly appreciated :)

[Bao2]

How to improve the brightness of the straw in bottle


You need increase the Energy of the light. You can do globally in:
Rendering / Render / Caustics and Global Illumination / Light Properties group
/ Global Energy Multiplier

or locally in the/each light affecting the straw in:
Your Light / Mental Ray indirect Illumination group / Global Multipliers / Energy

If you dont want increase energy in existing lights, then create a new light only
affecting the straw to increase his lighting.

Also you can use the Wet/Dry material
to create a new material for the submerged straw.

[Bao2]

OK, does anyone know how to achieve this rubbery white material?
I'm thinking SSS to get some nice diffusion around the nose area, but also blurred reflections AND transparency?!?!?!?! In places it also looks a lot like frosted plastic.


The transparency is working only in shadowed parts. So in Opacity Slot place a Falloff map with Shadow/Light instead Perpendicular/Parallel.

[saraw]

Cool!

Its all working now, thanks everyone for the quick reply

[DaveKW]

Been experimenting quite a lot with this one! I've been looking at the Glass (Lume) shader simply because of the blurred transparent effects u can get. This material is going to be a tough one - i need translucency (SSS maybe?), blurred transparency, crisp reflections, blurred reflections and probably a truck load of other properties that the material in that picture has! I'm up for the challenge though!! :)

[DaveKW]

Ok this is my first reasonable attempt. Glass (lume) shader with blurry transparency and crisp relections.

http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/4968/reflectivefrosting9yt.th.jpg (http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=reflectivefrosting9yt.jpg)

EDIT: Next time i'll just update my last post eh? Ooops :)
EDIT2: Might as well update this post as it's still the last one! :) FINALLY got deriver/ reflection utility working to get anisotropic reflections. I'm guessing it's an old subject in this thread, but it's been playing on my mind for what seems like an eternity. Here's a pic of what i've got.

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/3298/brushedmetal9nm.th.jpg (http://img85.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brushedmetal9nm.jpg)

I'll see about uploading the scene if i can, or failing that, post some screen caps of the settings. :)

EDIT3: Hope this works! Never uploaded files other than pics before. :eek: Here's a link to the scene.

http://savefile.com/files.php?fid=4715325

[JasonCamp]

heh been busy as possable lately guys sorry heh ive been busy with my scene and right now im uvw maping a plant i modeled ... omg is this a pain in the arse now i know why everybody uses cardboard cutouts lol , accually i took some pictures of a plant modeled it and then i am painting the textures of it on the uvw and the painting is whats taking so long ... and its lookin sooo good , never uvw maped a detailed object let alone a organic one

steven xu: id use the same material and then add a parti volume; in the volume slot shader to close in the rest of the whiteness i guess ..also a glossy map and a specular as well would help define the areas where you want it to be more bright on the surface , it just needs a little more .. make sure you have enuff caustic photons too ,

jeff: fibers looking good accually ive got a render on low settings wich doesnt do it justice but heres a go anyway... ill probably have a good shot with better render settings here when im done pulling my hair out with the uvw maping and texturing the plant im doing heh

[Cryptite]

Anyone know how to apply glare to specific objects in your scene rather than as a whole. I see the option for it on the glare mat, but how to use it, I have no clue... Thanks.

[steven xu]

Anyone know how to apply glare to specific objects in your scene rather than as a whole. I see the option for it on the glare mat, but how to use it, I have no clue... Thanks.
glare shader only used in camera,U will find it on camera button,if U use max6,you must edit the lumi.mi file in mentalray catalog and edit it with notebook,del the hidden above the glare command line,good luck,BTW:glare shader is a effect to improve the high light effect only

[steven xu]

steven xu: id use the same material and then add a parti volume; in the volume slot shader to close in the rest of the whiteness i guess ..also a glossy map and a specular as well would help define the areas where you want it to be more bright on the surface , it just needs a little more .. make sure you have enuff caustic photons too ,


hellion,thanks a lot:)))
i saw your pic later,perfect~if U improve the background SKY and some some shadow under the chair ,it will looks better:)

[Brix]

Snakeye raised this topic, so i may as well put a little light on this.

After some researching, reading docs and such lame stuff i came to a conclusion, that Deriver shader is not quite what you expect it to be. It is not making anisotropic reflections. I renderend your scene without it, just with the refutility in the reflection slot, and the output is identical.
Actually, the Deriver shader doc says, that this shader just makes uv coords for an anisotropic shader to work. So, if you use it, you can put to the passtrough slot any material with anisotropy, not only RefUtility, as it was stated sometime ago here.
After some more research on live specimen i've noticed that Deriver shader does not work in max - i'd put it in every possible combination.
I'm little surprised that you guys overlooked it (or i didn't read that particular post - in that case, correct me).

The plugin was made for XSI - i don't know this software, but i can only assume, that making aniso material is more complicated there, requires some coords to make, that Deriver makes on-the-fly.

But Snakeye somehow made aniso reflections - thanks to ReflectionUtility shader.

It's a bit late (7am and i didn't slept a bit this night), so i may be mumbling. If so, please correct me.
Otherwise i hope this nightly research will somehow help you. :)

[dave-3d]

Hi Guys,

I've started to have a play with the metal (Lume) shader and downloaded Jeff's example file (thanks Jeff), and had a look through this thread for examples.

In Jeff's file he uses the reflect slot for the metal (Lume), yet on page 42 of this thread he uses the diffuse slot - ? (Must say I am having NO luck with the diffuse slot method).

The wheels displayed on page 42 are obviously reflecting something but appear to use a grey background.

It appears that this shader will only reflect the global map - is it not possible to get it to reflect a seperate map ??

Any tips ??

Thanks,

Dave.

[-Vormav-]

So as I was working on writing a shader last night, I accidently ended up with this (see attached image).

Apparently, it's easy to create a shader that let's you use whatever scene object you want in the preview slots. In this case, it's rendering the teapot with its applied material in that leftmost slot. The preview window automatically updates as you move or rotate the object in the scene. Kinda neat, although a little slow. Might make testing shaders easier than constantly rendering out single production frames, in some cases.
I may upload a shader for this later on. :hmm:

[DaveKW]

Hey Dave, you need to put an environment map in the environment slot under the Mental Ray connections tab in the materials window. Hope this helps :)

http://img304.imageshack.us/img304/9885/environmentmap2tn.gif (http://imageshack.us)

[dave-3d]

Thanks a lot, Snakeye ! :thumbsup:

And thanks for those clear pics showing me how to do it. Should really have noticed that myself.

I'm still tentatively dipping my toe into the MR panels .. that is a GREAT help.

I'm just started to tweak the textures on some of my alloy wheels - just had a first stab with the metal shader :

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/multimedia/alloy_001.jpg

EDIT : Realised that the Metal (Lume) shader should go in the Diffuse Colour slot (not the raytrace slot as in example file) - as Jeff pointed out, that way it gets effected by shadows and specularity - updated image above.

Dave

[DaveKW]

No problem! I'm just glad i can give something back to you guys. This thread has given me so much help. I'm starting to get emotional! :eek:

David

[psv]

So as I was working on writing a shader last night, I accidently ended up with this (see attached image).

Apparently, it's easy to create a shader that let's you use whatever scene object you want in the preview slots. In this case, it's rendering the teapot with its applied material in that leftmost slot. The preview window automatically updates as you move or rotate the object in the scene. Kinda neat, although a little slow. Might make testing shaders easier than constantly rendering out single production frames, in some cases.
I may upload a shader for this later on. :hmm:

that`s cool vormav....please share it.......:thumbsup:

[-Vormav-]

Okay, here it is. Apply the geometry_preview shader as a surface shader for a mental ray material. Then apply whatever material you want to the objects you add to the list, and they'll render out in the preview slot of the geometry_preview shader. One catch though; you have to move your objects towards the world center to see them, since the material previews are based on the world center.

[psv]

thank you sir!

[naik]

hey vormav,


i have installed it and applied the previewer to the surface slot, but then?

Then apply whatever material you want to the objects you add to the list

Can you give a short example?

thx buddy...

[-Vormav-]

Here you go.

[naik]

thx vormav, hehe


but i think i have misunderstood you and your shader..
In your example you have then assigned a standard map
to the teapot...? But ehh..

Sorry for my question - i still dont see the feature with that shader?
(i got up for 30 mins ago ... so forgive me ...:) )


regards

[-Vormav-]

There isn't much of a point to it, just something I accidently stumbled upon when writing another shader.
However, if someone really really wanted to work with Max's material editor, and have teapots (or whatever else) instead of cubes or boxes for their material slots, they could (it can be more convenient than rendering out individual frames all the time). And in some cases, this can be nice (let's say you're trying to nail down the look of an anisotropic highlight just perfectly for a certain object - the sphere preview wont do you much good in that case).
But for the most part, it's pointless. Well, apart from the hours of fun that you can have with putting fancy new objects in the material slots. :D

Just think of it more as a toy than a shader. :wip:

[naik]

Ohh damnnn!!! hahah Vormav !!

sorry mate my failure...i was always looking in the viewport and thought
"hee? nothin changes? , actually i thought with this shader i can see the changes directly in the viewport...haha"

But after your post i recognized that there is a Teapot and not a sphere in the viewport, hahaha!!!
Actually thats really handy buddy :)

Yesterday i mad some glass objects and had to render it in order to see my anisotropic specs on it, exactly what you said...very cool

:thumbsup: Thx for sharing buddy !!

just something I accidently stumbled upon

I hope these accidents will happen again in the future....:twisted:

hehe...

Keep it up!

[JasonCamp]

hey all...
steve , hows it going ? thanks on the crit... the shadows are like that because i renderd with only 75 fg i think hehe so i could get a preview, it takes like 60 mins on 500 fg now that i added those lights in other building
and not in that picture.. and what is a problem now is that building with the fiberglass has little global illumination so i , took my secondary, sun supporting light and turned it from a point to a spot and pushed it back and targeted that building , it multiplyed my caustic / gi light from my fiberglass wich i didnt need but it looks ok i guess, i needed more whiteness so the 4 days of texturing and uvw maping will be worth while on my photinia plant i did ...
also while doing that , i was modeling the leafes on the plant i thought well theres going to be a lot of geometry in these leaves to copy , so ill probably alpha map the leafe portion and model the stem,to cut back, and that worked great , bend mod and i was set, and i was hoping to do a mental ray material with the surface of translucency lume for the leafe portion but heh cant do alpha channels with a mr surface "doh", i wonder if i can make a 2 sided plane have a volume in it lol, maybe the fog option in a raytrace mat will work , but that useually make it just look "tinted" also the sky is just a temp gradent blue color i made a hdr from , i still havent desided on how to fill the void , with clouds or other buildings i think heh..
dave3d: nice tire , esp like the roter and the reflection in the that area

[JasonCamp]

well i just learned a lesson in mental ray and ,,, large texture files ... and lots of geometry, i guess mental ray does not like my 65 * 4 meg texture map for my photinia plant i did... i say 65meg * 4 because i did a defuse / specular / glossy / bump and there all 65 megs eh not to mention my 10meg *4 leafe thats copied at lease 150 times for all the differnt leaves on it ... UHGH i hate the fatal memory error ...
some of my uvw unwraps have a huge gap from top to bottom thats just wasted space . thats takeing up a lot of megs in resulution... i dont know how to get around that though...
out of all the stuff i researched , hiding it is the only thing that worked lol .. i guess ill just do a closeup shot of it and it will be hidden in the other renders ... and to think i was going to copy and paste a bunch of them lol ...

[-Vormav-]

Hey. Posted a "hard light(blending)" shader in another thread, and thought I'd go ahead and post it here as well. *cuts and pastes*

There's still a few problems with it: For one, I haven't been able to get an object include/exclude list working yet(maybe later?). But also, the 'use environment' toggle quickly becomes meaningless in certain models with inverted normals on their backsides (such as spheres) if you add any illumination models via material to shader (Material to shader automatically reads the environment color if the normals are pointed away). You can get around that by making your illumination model two-sided (if you unlock all of the basic illumination models in the base.mi file, these are already assumed to be two-sided), but that doesn't give quite the same effect as a one-sided material. I'll look into that problem later, but for now I'm not entirely sure how to fix it, without resorting to a multi-pass technique. Considering that, and the lack of object include/exclude controls, compositing is still usually going to be your best bet for something like this (and really, we're talking about a very, very simple compositing job).
But if you're just using constant colors (procedural maps, bitmaps - you could bake the illumination into your objects before applying this shader, etc.), or just simple objects like planes as your 'top layer' object (note: the object that the shader is applied to is considered top layer), then it should work perfectly. And from the tests I've done so far, it does seem to immitate Photoshop's hard light layering mode pretty accurately. Well, unless that's changed since I last tested it.
If you do get any sort of artifacting with the shader (this version of it shouldn't have any problems with that...), change the 'raytrace acceleration' type (rendering->renderer menu) to 'grid.' And if there's still more, turn off the scanline option (only Ray Trace should be selected). But if you don't get any artifacting, don't bother messing with those controls!

[dave-3d]

Hi =HELLION=

I'm suprised you need such large maps.

If the plant will only be on a shelf in the background ? Why not play around with the Blur and Blur offset values for your Bitmaps (which I'm sure can be made smaller) ? You can then get them nice and crisp - I had the same problem with a horrible smearing effect because MR doesn't do Fitering (Pyramidal, Summed area etc.,) - you have to adjust the Blur.

Just an idea. Means you could control the effect a little without having to use such large bitmaps - 65Mbs !! ;) that's one detailed leaf !

Dave

[naik]

I agree with dave_3d

65meg file???! Damn... Im sure you can crank it down without any
quality lost...


I had the same problem with a horrible smearing effect because MR doesn't do Fitering (Pyramidal, Summed area etc.,)


Hey Dave, are you sure about that?
What about using a standard material, then assigning one filter and then using the MR connection function.
Another workound would be turning on supersampling...
Perhaps an option...

NAIK

[JasonCamp]

:scream:
well you guys were right i could tone it down a bit... i noticed how the boards had so much of an open area in the unwrap so i croped all 40+ of the tgas 'whew wich were 6megs , now 1 meg- then reunwraped and replaced with use custom map size off ...

oh yea and somehow one of them the bmp and opacity slots got swaped ehh lol i had a transparent board , acuually the leafes are 10 megs and the unwrap of the branches and plant itself is the 65 meg one ... with 4 differnt 65megers for bump gloss and spec , uhg those ones i filled the entire unwrap space so i cant crop it ... ill have to do as dave suggested , because unless i focus right on the damn root itself i dont see a bit of that 4 days i painted for ,..:bounce:
and theres probably a few more outragious textures i have to scale down ,,

i did however get my ambient lighting set i think... im damn picky lol, so now i have a photometric point for a sun at high elevation - little white little yellow 1mill pluss on cd / a photometric spot on the other side with 100% white filter less cd like 300k no shaddows / and the skylight wich is at 1.5 i think and a gradent blue thats a hdr with a little brighter for more output, then the others for the light, should have a render of the photina later today to show what a 260meg plantlooks like lmao- unless its in major closeup ... just like a 1 meg one lol

[JasonCamp]

:eek: droped the 4096*4096 to 1000*1000 tga now its 3 megs not 65 whoa and it didnt look a bit differnt... well at 640x480 scanline lol accually its easy to just scale down the res on the pics that have all the space in the uv map taken up because you dont have to re unwrap them thank god ,.. now its rendering like normal again

* edit
and a WHOLE lot fast lol

[psv]

[QUOTE=-Vormav-]Hey. Posted a "hard light(blending)" shader in another thread, and thought I'd go ahead and post it here as well. *cuts and pastes*

Thank you Vormav for sharing that shader, anf for the interest in developing mental ray shaders for max,in the end there is somebody with the will and khnowledge to do it~i mean SHADERS, guys, and not bitmap sizes or fg settings~
for the others here please keep it on topic,,,,or start a new specific thread in the main...

thanks again Vormav:thumbsup:

[JasonCamp]

im sorry psv if theres no bullshitting thread for me to talk in

[psv]

hey buddy, don`t take it to hard...:)

if you need help with your scene just ask... it`s disturbing sometimes for me to read offtopic things...
keep it here if you like it and if it does help you

cheers Sorin

[steven xu]

hellion~all of us want to test your scene~:)share it and we discuess together?maybe can find more and learn much ~

[JasonCamp]

psv: i know i get off topic sometimes heh, i do tend to take this thread as general mental ray .. its just that everything i do affects the shader at some point ..

steve : man heh the max file is almost 30 megs now let alone the 100+ megs of textures the best i can do is post a screen shot

[psv]

Hellion , it is so hard to tweak lighting for a big scene like yours , and with such varied light , maybe you should try something smaller , a portion of it...:) 30megs,,that`s huge FOR A TEST SCENE when you need fast feedback for every small changes you make, and 100megs texture ....wow....your screen shot looks good,,but i think you take it the hard way >all in the same time , a verry complex scene , lighting for it .....did you try to use a simple lambert in overrride material in rendering panel....just for the light setup.


and yes everything you do affects those shaders at some point ,
but those shaders are just simple C++ code lines......
your goal should be to use those shaders for rendering your scene ,,,faster, or who knows how....

you see now i`m off topic myself....

sorin

[rizob]

hey -Vormav-


just thought of alittle something after reading hellions post about his large texture files +bump+spec etc..... since your writing shaders i wanted to see what you thought or how tough it would be to program...

working in the games industry we all mostly use dds's...for our game engine the coders wrote code to use the alpha channels of maps for spec, glow...anything using a greayscale image.
i was wondering if you could get some mr shaders that do this....each one would have to be specific to its proberties...ex..a metal shader that uses a diffuse (spec sits in the alpha of the diffuse) and bump (diffusion,,or falloff effect sits in the alpha of the bump...

so unless were using the alpha for an opacity mask the space is being wasted and could help reduce the number of maps and their sized....what ya think..jhusta thought
robb

[-Vormav-]

If I'm understanding you correctly, I believe implementing something like that would be pretty trivial (unless you're specifically talking about using DDS files through MR?).
If you really just wanted to cut down on the number of files, then you could easily have any channel of a bitmap go to whatever parameter you want. Red could represent specular level, blue could be your bump map and green could be a reflection map (technically speaking, if you split things up in this manner, you would limit the range of values that your bitmaps could represent. But this would still produce the same range of values that render elements would output for you).
But if you needed something like render elements to be able to render to the appropriate channels for something like this...that would take a bit more work.

[rizob]

thanks for the relpy
sorry, wrote that just as i ws leaving work so it wasnt written well.....i just ment using the alpha channel of a file for another purpose....dds's are not necessary...

i was thinking you would have to write a shader to be specific for each variation...ie. you would have to write a shader where the spec channel sits in the alpha of the color map, or where the self illumination sits in the alpha of the color map...
.....otherwise max would not know how to use the alpha in the correct way.
and depending on your bit depth of the image you wouldnt be restricted to a number of values. is this making sense?...if not ill make a visual diagram.. but let me know what your thoughts are.

[naik]

Hi guys, as known that many shaders are hidden in MR cause of the fact that they were in test-phase, my question is about the Glare shader.

In my view it works very good and the results are awesome with the right setting.

But there is one option still a bit confusing
-Specific objects/ Object Labels -

It gives you the option to limit the glare effect on certain objects.

Here a excerpt from the Lume manual
"Region


By default, all of the image is affected. Enabling Specific Objects causes the effect to apply to only those pixels whose tag matches the values in the Object Labels list.

The label image and any user defined frame buffers of type TAG are used by the selection process."



Okay but in the Object Label List you just can give numbers...

But there must be a way to tell MR which object belongs to a certain number...I hope you all get the idea what i mean.



I have read a text in the Internet that this function is not working,

but i hardly belive that...





Any ideas?



regards...



NAIK

[-Vormav-]

Hi guys, as known that many shaders are hidden in MR cause of the fact that they were in test-phase, my question is about the Glare shader.

In my view it works very good and the results are awesome with the right setting.

But there is one option still a bit confusing
-Specific objects/ Object Labels -

It gives you the option to limit the glare effect on certain objects.

Here a excerpt from the Lume manual
"Region


By default, all of the image is affected. Enabling Specific Objects causes the effect to apply to only those pixels whose tag matches the values in the Object Labels list.

The label image and any user defined frame buffers of type TAG are used by the selection process."



Okay but in the Object Label List you just can give numbers...

But there must be a way to tell MR which object belongs to a certain number...I hope you all get the idea what i mean.



I have read a text in the Internet that this function is not working,

but i hardly belive that...





Any ideas?



regards...



NAIK

Lume tools weren't coded for Max. They're asking for an object 'label', which is something that is set internally by MR - Max has no way of knowing the appropriate label, so it can't set that automatically. (Max usually gets around this by having you give instances of the geometry - not integers - and then looking up the labels later). Unfortunately, you can't really fix that unless you have access to the source code.
I would've thought that you could print the label value out and then input it manually to get around that, but for some reason the label value seems to change from render to render (well, it usually stays the same - it was changing about 10% of the time when I was trying this).
So yeah, you're pretty much stuck with compositing for now, if you need to isolate the glare.

i was thinking you would have to write a shader to be specific for each variation...ie. you would have to write a shader where the spec channel sits in the alpha of the color map, or where the self illumination sits in the alpha of the color map...
If you were to do it so that the alpha channel was automatically used, and for every variation, then that would certainly require a bit more work.
The easy way would be to have the user define where each color channel goes. You could have a simple shader that would read a color (including the alpha), and then the user could decide which of the channels - r, g,b or a - the shader should use. That way, you could use your alpha channel - or your other channels - for whatever you wanted. It'd just require the user to go through one extra step (although a simple one).

[naik]

Lume tools weren't coded for Max. They're asking for an object 'label', which is something that is set internally by MR - Max has no way of knowing the appropriate label, so it can't set that automatically. (Max usually gets around this by having you give instances of the geometry - not integers - and then looking up the labels later). Unfortunately, you can't really fix that unless you have access to the source code.
I would've thought that you could print the label value out and then input it manually to get around that, but for some reason the label value seems to change from render to render (well, it usually stays the same - it was changing about 10% of the time when I was trying this).
So yeah, you're pretty much stuck with compositing for now, if you need to isolate the glare.

Yes thats right, they were purchased by Mental Images 1998, but nevertheless, why is that mentioned in the manual... you know what i mean - thats really confusing and in my view unprofessional.

I have also talked with some guys from the LAmrUG "Club" ,
they also know no solution for that, but maybe i can do more research on that.

BTW, many guys are asking, why are some shaders hidden,
now you know one good reason for that....


NAIK

[bgawboy]

Just wanted to clarify something. Labels are assigned by the app using mental ray, and are not used internally by mental ray for anything except writing a label framebuffer, if the application enables it. Shaders can use these labels and Lume's inclusion/exclusion lists are good examples of use.

Also note that there are object labels and instance labels. (An instance is a transformed object.) The object labels may be arbitrary , but not so the instance labels....

Here's an interesting thing I just found out after a bit of doc reading and experimentation. In the Object Properties dialog, the G-Buffer Object Channel number of an instance translates to the instance label, if it is non-zero. So if I set it to 3, and output an mi file, I see a 'tag 3' on the instace of that object. (In .mi scene description language, labels are indicated with a tag statement.) That could be very useful.

Maybe the Lume shader will check the instance label as well.

[JasonCamp]

naik/ well i had a fit with glare , i got the streaks to work at least lol , it doesnt wash out the picture as bad if you set it to low levels ... this was with 3 on i think and a streak size of 12
i think if you want a target that spacificly has a glare on it ,, a specular highlight only on that object , and as long as the rest of the lighting in your render doesnt go over the '1' value it determins where you get a glare ... i think that you can see this on the right side of the far rightsphere of glass in the picture, its almost reaching the same light level where the other objects are at but its not '1' so the glare didnt show as much ... or then again maybe its just didnt feal like puting a glare there,,, lol


psv/bah your right , ... oh

".....did you try to use a simple lambert in overrride material in rendering panel....just for the light setup. "

i dont have that in my rendering pannel , arnt the materials "standard" lambert materials tho ? i think maya has that option tho dont know havnt used it
i did scale all the textures down though and that did fix it . and heh i couldnt tell

[-Vormav-]

Maybe the Lume shader will check the instance label as well.
Nope...Though it is interesting to see that Max actually sets those tags correctly. In that case, maybe it'd be possible to setup a phenomenon of the glare shader to match the instance tag with the object tag (by comparing the names - max outputs the object/instance names in a pretty obvious format)? Might work...:shrug:

[psv]

hellion

` `dont have that in my rendering pannel , arnt the materials "standard" lambert materials tho ? i think maya has that option tho dont know havnt used it``

you don`t have it because it has to be unhidden , it is the mental ray own lambert material, for the procedure search this thread , at some page there is a full explanation...

it`s name is "mib_illum_lambert" ...

sorin

[naik]

Here's an interesting thing I just found out after a bit of doc reading and experimentation. In the Object Properties dialog, the G-Buffer Object Channel number of an instance translates to the instance label, if it is non-zero. So if I set it to 3, and output an mi file, I see a 'tag 3' on the instace of that object. (In .mi scene description language, labels are indicated with a tag statement.) That could be very useful.


okay thats fine but, i tried some things and im now sure that this function will no work properly unless anybody is doing some "script" "shader" coding, right?

So if thats the case, then why didnt they mention that in the manual?
Are they nuts? I mean they could have take that out of it perhaps...

@Hellion - the streaks function sounds cool, but whenever i try it out - without an streak image max crashes.....

[JasonCamp]

psv: oh yea i did have that unhidden a long time ago now that i think about it, but i sence formatted and reunlocked the shaders ,, ill have to go find that one and try it

naik: if you want i can email you the max file and glarestreak tif , i had it on deetees server a long time ago when it was up but his server has been down for a long time
ohhh btw if you see it render 100% and it stops its not crashing at all.. glare takes a LONG processing time after the rendering is done,,, it takes forever ... and the higher you set the number too the longer it takes , useually 2, 3, and 4 do the job... just have to wait for it . also the file size on your grayscale tif makes a differnce, the one im useing is 300k and its 640*480 res. it takes like almost a minute just to do the glare after its 100% renderd

[naik]

naik: if you want i can email you the max file and glarestreak tif , i had it on deetees server a long time ago when it was up but his server has been down for a long time
ohhh btw if you see it render 100% and it stops its not crashing at all.. glare takes a LONG processing time after the rendering is done,,, it takes forever ... and the higher you set the number too the longer it takes , useually 2, 3, and 4 do the job... just have to wait for it . also the file size on your grayscale tif makes a differnce, the one im useing is 300k and its 640*480 res. it takes like almost a minute just to do the glare after its 100% renderd

HAHAHA!!! When i meant Max crashes, than belive me - Max totally shuts down and closes the window - im sure thats a crash:)
I know definately that the glare takes after the rendering a long time if you have cranked up the quality, as you mentioned.

But can you test it for me perhaps.
Try or set the streaks option but dont set a bitmap for the streak and let him render and see what happens.
When i do so - he crashes...
I was sure that then he gonna set some default gray streak as an effect.

Anyways, thanks for your offering

[abyjoe]

where can i get the skin shader...??? and some information on how to use it with different settings...???

or is the shader built in max 7 already...???

[saiko]

where can i get the skin shader...??? and some information on how to use it with different settings...???

or is the shader built in max 7 already...???

what do u Mean ?!

[JasonCamp]

i think i remember that now , its been a long time sence i messed with it, the docs say you can do multi hue'd glare streaks too ... i still dont know how they did it .. unless they have seperate mappings in the streak file for it .. dunno but the picture i seen looks good with the prism color streaks... if you want my max file or just the streak file let me know , and anybody else also

[4 low]

I've been folowing this thread for a very long time now, and can attribue most of what I know of MR to this thread. There's been some great materials made that have been a huge help to me, and now I have come to a point where I don't know what to do.

Has anyone attempted to make any sort of procedural stone texture? I know Randall attempted procedural stone with his stone tiles, but I'm looking for more of a stone wall type texture.

This is as far as I've gotten. There needs to be more variation in the color of the stones, and I do not know how to achieve this. What I've got isn't bad, it's just not quite what I'm looking for. If anyone has and suggestions on what to try, I'd definitely appreciate it. Thanks.

Here's a stone structure with my material applied:
http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/7818/cgtalkstonetest036bs.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Here's an example of what I'd like to achieve in the end. It doesn't need to be exactly like this example, it just needs to be closer than what I currently have. I know it's not going to be easy to make the actual stones appear a different color, and it may not be possible without texture maps, but I'm more looking for more variation in the colors, and if some of the color bleeds off onto surrounding stones, that's ok too. I just don't know how to get more variation.
http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/2381/cgtalkstonesample010gy.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Attached is the material used if anyone wants to mess with it. I'm using max 7. Thanks again.

[JeffPatton]

Have you considered using the Darktree/Simbiont shaders for rocks? They are all 100% procedural and work with Mental Ray. Here's a page of sample mats that shows some rock wall textures similar to what you're after:
http://www.darksim.com/Repository/tx_Building/
And of course the Simbiont DL page:
http://www.darksim.com/html/body_download_simbiont2.html

EDIT...as I was putting the links up, I noticed they have removed the Mental Ray plugin! Ummm, so I'm not sure what's up with that.

[4 low]

Have you considered using the Darktree/Simbiont shaders for rocks? They are all 100% procedural and work with Mental Ray. Here's a page of sample mats that shows some rock wall textures similar to what you're after:
http://www.darksim.com/Repository/tx_Building/
And of course the Simbiont DL page:
http://www.darksim.com/html/body_download_simbiont2.html

EDIT...as I was putting the links up, I noticed they have removed the Mental Ray plugin! Ummm, so I'm not sure what's up with that.


That was a quick reply. Thanks :D

I haven't messed with any simbiont textures in quite a long time. I wasn't sure if they would work with MR, and I've read in the past that people were having problems with simbiont textures with MR.

I'll look into it... thanks again. :D

[JasonCamp]

i dont know , i always like the texture way, procedural looks fake to me, but maybe if you compositied a few of those cellular maps on top of eachother with different opasity settings and a few noise ones for hue variations , it would be one of those if the cellular color lands in the right spot things though heh, if your covering a large wall i would just say texture it and scale the picture down a bit and toss in a few copies, join them together with painting them in and the clone stamp tool, then take out the seams, to make it tile, useually you have to go back in and change one of the bricks that sticks out like a soar thumb but it looks real like this one , only the real tga size im useing is 1000x1000 and the one i posted for file size reasons is 256x256

[Smauge]

Hi, sorry if this was here once but i dont have time to list all 170 pages...heres is problem:
When i load the Mat.Library it says Missing Dlls - mentalray.dlz - mental ray Renderer (discreet)...i have it turned on and i can render with it normally...i dont understand it when it says that mentalray.dlz is missing and when i look into Plug-in manager and there i see that is mentalray.dlz properly loaded :/ :banghead: :banghead:

[loran]

Yo,
I have a car scene , with a textured environement sphere wich cast reflection on the car.the sphere material is self illuminated. My problem is that finalGather create cast ugly shadows from that sphere. I want that sphere only to cast reflection on the scene and no light.If I turn off self illumination the reflection decrease. I can't use mapped environement in the car material because the reflection quality is really less realistic.
So my question: How can I have a self illuminated object which doesn't emitt light when Final Gather on.

help me please !

[micco]

Yo,
I have a car scene , with a textured environement sphere wich cast reflection on the car.the sphere material is self illuminated. My problem is that finalGather create cast ugly shadows from that sphere. I want that sphere only to cast reflection on the scene and no light.If I turn off self illumination the reflection decrease. I can't use mapped environement in the car material because the reflection quality is really less realistic.
So my question: How can I have a self illuminated object which doesn't emitt light when Final Gather on.
Look at the spheres mental ray properties and uncheck Generate Global Illumination

[loran]

unfortunately, I ever uncheck all kind of GI disabler, I try to reduce the final Gather trace depth and no changes. :/
So I flip to another solution, faking HDRI reflection with a black n white mask and boosted RGB output (see that? (http://67.15.36.49/team/Tutorials/faking_hdri/faking_hdri.asp)).

But another problem come to me!! Final Gather generate king of caustics casted to the floor from the car paint object! If I disable reflection in the material the ugly effects disapear.
Any Idea???

[psv]

hello loran
use a ~ray type ~ shader to have a custom fg emmision(in your case none)
this will divide ~eye~ rays anf fg rays in separate and controlable shader calls.

why do you need a sphere for reflections??? doesn`t work with regular environment shader in max?

Sorin Vladimir

[loran]

THX psv! my error was to directly put un mix material in the environement channel of my MR material.If I use an "Environement(3ds max)" map and then, my mix map, there is no longer white stains casted around. :D

I prefer use a sphere environnement because its more controlable. environement map reflection doesn t move when the car drive straight aline, move only on rotation.

[loran]

arf! another trouble with MR... when I check Motion blur , my geometry disapear at render!!?? all moving objects doesn't render!

any solution for that??

[JasonCamp]

hey all .. does anybody know if the reason why i cant get the shadow under these shelfs ... i tried messing with the material , gi on all 40 of the lights, i think this was 500 fg 500 gi samples and god only knows the total of gi photons i also tried lowering the gi on most of the other light in the scene wich helped a lot , i lowerd the glossyness on the mat' also wich did a little ... and now it looks good but , no gi shadows

[rudolph]

hi loran try to make aditionals key (duplicate your animation keys before en after your animation) i have the same trouble with final render with motion blur and that' solve it.

hope that's help you.

Bye RUDO.

[JasonCamp]

well i found out something, i set all lights to manual photon setings ... wich is much more faster to render because you can fine tune wich you want to be gi lights or caustic lights, i tweeked them all good , and still couldnt get the light in the building to come down in the deep recessed areas, it happend to be that the skylight i had (that has no rollout for setings on photons and ect) was the problem... and its emitions and energy setings are part of the global setings in the render/indirect illume rollout.. and when i changed the global gi/caustic back down and set the energy seting to half it fixed it ... and it didnt alter the manual setings of cource... this also fixed the washed out with light problem i was having .. this might have been coverd by jeff a while while ago , but i couldnt find the marker for gi setup in the index , and i know i seen him seting it up ,, ah well i wont forget it this way lol

[MikeNash]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if someone can do me example of hdri reflection on Eye Ball please ???
I have scene and textures setup

[csaez]

Hi, try put in the reflect map a metal (lume) shader and the hdri image in the enviroment of the material, you now have the hdri in the reflect map and this doesn't a reflect shader.

Greettings

[MikeNash]

Hey, I did what you said and it works, just now that im wondering how to fix the dots as you can see here ? they show up more when relections are on

[JasonCamp]

have you tried a normal raytrace mat with fresnel reflections / or just low low setings with the same hdr in the enviroment slot ? also if your looking for a dim reflection there are raytrace options to help dim it more.
i think the spots are from the samples... it sets on how well the material reflects and refracts... according to the docs

[csaez]

Hi, i think this can be a wrong mapping for the enviroment map and for that the dots are more visible with the reflections is on. The mapping for the bitmap in you file (kitchen.jpg) is a cylindrical enviroment and maybe are in texture cordinates and not in enviroment cordinates. For better reflections (more clean) in the metal shader try to put the surface color to black and the reflect color to white, this and the correct enviroment mapping could be your solution.

Sorry for my bad english, i can read but write is very difficult for me.

Grettings

[-Vormav-]

Hey. Got a request for an example file for the Hard Light shader, so I'm going to post the attachment here.
Again, the basic idea of this shader is to mimic the hard light blending mode of photoshop within a 3d object. The object(s) you apply the hard light shader to are treated as your "top layer" (the layer that you would set "hard light" blending on in PS). But it will only actually act as the top layer object if it is in front of your other objects (relative to the camera) within the scene. Also, I don't recall if I mentioned it before or not, but "blend channels separately" needs to be checked for PS-like results.

It's not completely working right now, so I'm probably going to have rewrite it (The part that is blending blends correctly - but the objects are still blending against their backfaces in many cases). Just got back from Bart's class though, so I'm a bit more capable than before! :D

EDIT: Whoops, forgot that the scene file also used the 'plain' shader. I'll attach that as well (it can actually be a nice shader to have anyway - especially if you're using texture baking in your scenes)

[Bao2]

Hey, I did what you said and it works, just now that im wondering how to fix the dots as you can see here ? they show up more when relections are on

Is the type of shadow of your light (Spot125). Change it from Shadow Map to Ray Traced Shadows. In mental ray never use shadow map because ray traced is better and faster!

[moidphotos]

true, but there are times when you'll want to use shadow maps to make the render quicker. Most people don't know that you can cache shadow maps in MR (there's a rollout for it at the bottom of each mr light) So although it takes some time to process the first frame of the animation with shadow maps, after that MR just uses the pre calculated maps and you get major speed increases - just like using cached photon maps or FG maps.

I tend to use shadow map lights for background geometry / anything a fair distance from the camera, and use raytrace shadows for characters / anyhting up close. Of course it's another level of complexity to take on board, and it works best for static geometry (with camera moves of course, has to recalculate if you move the shadow casting geometry which makes it pointless) but it can really save a lot of render time. Great for landscapes and buildings.

[-Vormav-]

true, but there are times when you'll want to use shadow maps to make the render quicker. Most people don't know that you can cache shadow maps in MR (there's a rollout for it at the bottom of each mr light) So although it takes some time to process the first frame of the animation with shadow maps, after that MR just uses the pre calculated maps and you get major speed increases - just like using cached photon maps or FG maps.
True. Although, thinking along the same lines, you could just bake raytraced shadows into your geometry as well.

[m@Xist]

Hi guys out there. I was traveling around the internet to find tuts about realistic lightning and shaders and came across this thread, which is really great!

Since this thread has reached over 170 pages, I couldn't read it through yet, but I will do ;) Thanks to all the folks for making the scenes and mats available, it's great ressources! I like the mats Jeff made. I'd like best combining all of the yummy in one mat :)

I experimented with IES-Sky/Sun and the AO shader as a surface shader. I got this nice thang, let's call it frostyMat

http://brainworx.rules.li/brainscan/cgtalk/Frosty.jpg

Made some objects in the scene, some with furrows to see the soft blue shadows. Created a IES-Sky and a IES-Sun light. 0.02 for Sky, so it doesn't overbright.

Mat: Standard with a little noise bump. Slight blue for diffuse. Applied the AO shader to the surface slot. Set the shader's dark color to a blue. Applied the mat to all of the objects, base plate as well (except of the sphere; it's just for reference).

Turned Final Gahter on with 640 samples, radii 4.0 and 0.1. Render's sample quality 1/16.

I have the idea of blending this mat and those of Jeff on page 73. Mine looks more snowy, so put it on top of an iceberg and apply the other to the base. Or better put it into the fridge :thumbsup: I like Jeff's iceberg mat, but icebergs in real life looks little different

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/corps/images/corp1417.jpg

I have also the idea of an iceberg glowing from the inside. How could I reach that, any ideas?

Thanks for your comments

[moidphotos]

True. Although, thinking along the same lines, you could just bake raytraced shadows into your geometry as well.

Good point. But caching the shadow map shadows is much faster (tick one box and hit render) than going through the render to texture dialogue - which also needs enormous file sizes if those maps are going to look good (and they have to be precomputed which takes ages). Caching shadow maps happens on frame 1 (so frame 1 is slow) but after that it's much quicker.

Another nice function is that MR shadow maps respect transparent objects (unlike scanline), so they become less dense if they are cast by glass objects for example.

But as with anything 3D, choose the technique that feels good to you!:)

[JasonCamp]

that and they do soft shadows unlike raytrace.

[-Vormav-]

that and they do soft shadows unlike raytrace.
Raytraced shadows in MR are soft if you use MR area lights (which render out surprisingly fast).

[ToddD]

m@Xist (member.php?u=192184), that is a nice looking material, any progress with that?

With all of the talk about lighting in here, now would be a good time for someone to start a MR lighting thread *hint hint* :thumbsup:

[m@Xist]

Not so far. I have the idea of using good old dirt shader. And then I could use the SSS shader as well as Jeff does, for thin walled ice/snow e.g.

[-Vormav-]

Hey. Finally got some working results from another shader. This one is an infinite ground plane, working as an environment shader. It's currently just experimental, but now that I have the foundations of the shader down, I should be able to add all of the bells and whistles (infinite sky plane, horizon curvature, etc.) before too long.
Lots of things don't work yet: bump mapping, texture mapping, illumination (actually does work, but rather unpredictably - may end up needing a new illumination model), reflections/refractions (an environment can't really reflect/refract itself, but I'll find a way around that), shadows (may only support raytraced shadows in the end), and it'll probably never support GI/FG (the plane doesn't really exist - it has no polys or tris - so photons can't really interact with it). But hey, this at least shows that it can be done! ;)

EDIT: Oh, and don't try using this shader with grid acceleration. Max will crash when you try to render. And if you get any unexplainable artifacts, try unchecking the "scanline" option (use raytracing only).
And I guess texture mapping already does work - Just select Planar from World XYZ instead of Explicit Mapping Channel. Don't try object xyz (crash!).
EDIT2: And just for fun, I started on my own variation of a parallax mapping (aka offset mapping) shader (second attached image). Should be able to do some interesting things with it, but I obviously have a few bugs to deal with. :P

[dave-3d]

Hi All,

OK, I have a bit of a problem. I'm trying to make a glass material that :

1) Is Transparent (mostly)
2) Reflects a local environment map
2) DOES NOT refract this local environment map !

Everything I try in MR creates a transparent material but shows the environment map through the material !!! I've tried standard and raytrace materials. It seems raytrace is the best so far apart from seeing the environment map through the "glass". :banghead:

Is it possible to create a transparent material that ONLY reflects the environment map ? I've tried standard Environment maps and in the MR panel - always the same result.

Another glitch is if I have an object and adjust the properties to say not visible to camera - I can see it behind any glass material I create !!

Can anyone help ? THANKS !

Dave

[micco]

Everything I try in MR creates a transparent material but shows the environment map through the material !!! I've tried standard and raytrace materials. It seems raytrace is the best so far apart from seeing the environment map through the "glass". :banghead:

Is it possible to create a transparent material that ONLY reflects the environment map ? I've tried standard Environment maps and in the MR panel - always the same result.

Are you sure you have set the environment maps coordinates to Environ spherical? :shrug:

[m@Xist]

I don't know exactly what you mean. When you set up an environment map and have transparent obj, you see the background through the transparent obj. You'd rather use the map only as a reflective map in the material slot then

[dave-3d]

Yup, set to spherical. I have included a link to a test scene file below.

Here is what I found happening. I created a test scene, one cube behind a meshsmoothed box. The meshsmoothed box has the raytrace mat. MR as renderer. Here are the results -

1. Setup with an HDRI in the global Environment slot (activated). Glass material has NO reflectivity and no local environment map. Note pattern seen through the glass :

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/pic_1.jpg

2. Now with the Environment map switched off. Glass material has NO reflectivity and no local environment map :

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/pic_2.jpg

3. Now with a local Environment map in the raytrace material and Global environment map switched off. Glass material has NO reflectivity BUT still I get a view of the background through the glass :

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/pic_3.jpg

4. And now adding a fresnel reflectivity setting to the glass material, with a local Environment map and Global environment map switched off. Note the SAME image seen through the glass (EXACTLY the same as the background) but also a nice faint reflection in the glass that is in front of the box (THAT'S WHAT I WANT!):

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/pic_4.jpg

You can get the scene, files and settings here (http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/test_glass.zip)

HOW can I get the nice reflections WITHOUT That background showing through ? Is it possible in Max ??

Dave

[m@Xist]

edited

I have disabled "Raytrace Reflections" in both the mats. Furthermore I set "Max. Reflections" in the Renderer to zero. I still have what you mean :shrug:

Could be a bug or it just seems to be a reflection, but it's refraction?!


edit: It is self refracting/reflecting. I turned it off for the glass mat and now I get this here:

[yoni-cohen]

Vormav you keep astounding me with your prototypes and shaders I hope the offset works!!

:)

[psv]

Vormav you keep astounding me with your prototypes and shaders I hope the offset works!!

:)


that`s 110% correct....your posts are some of the most inovative i`ve ever read...
Sorin

[dave-3d]

Well done ! Thanks. I did try that (point 3, in original post) ... but I thought it was not actually transparent, but in the test scene it appears that it is still transparent, does not refract the background AND reflects !

Hurray !!!

That is a useful thing to know. Thanks for taking the time to look, m@xist.

EDIT : I have just tried that but I can't get the glass to reflect a local map - while NOT refracting this map through the glass. Not using a global map.

Is it possible to have a glass object reflect a local map (no global environment map) but NOT refract it ??:shrug:

edited

I have disabled "Raytrace Reflections" in both the mats. Furthermore I set "Max. Reflections" in the Renderer to zero. I still have what you mean :shrug:

Could be a bug or it just seems to be a reflection, but it's refraction?!


edit: It is self refracting/reflecting. I turned it off for the glass mat and now I get this here:

[moidphotos]

I found another workaround for the "reflecting image background drawn into the transparent object as a refraction effect" problem! (what a mouthful!)

I made a standard transparent max material, (diffuse black and opacity at 5%) put a fresnel falloff in reflect, placed a raytrace map inside the second slot and left all controls alone.

Frome here on you have two options:

If you want to have a plain background with no reflecting image visible do option 1

If you want a render with the reflecting image visible in the background, do option 2

option 1

Next I scrolled down to the mr rollout of the shader and clicked on Environment. I chose Environment (3dsmax) as a map type and inside that I placed the bitmap that i wanted to reflect into the object.

I place a blank colour in the Rendering>Environment settings of the scene - any colour, Max will ignore it...

If you render normally you will get the error. If you go to Render Elements and ask Max to render a Blend element, max renders the scene correctly - the transparent object reflects scene geometry, then the image in the environment slot and does not render out the botched refracted effect. The only issue is Max does not render a background of any kind - you will have to composite one in, but that's easy.

option 2
To see the reflecting image in the background of the scene, place the bitmap in the Rendering>Environment slot of the scene. Now go to Render Elements and choose Blend and Background as the render options. Render the scene and Max gives you the background image in one file and the correctly rendered geometry in the other. Just composite them together and everything is fine!

That seems to work well for me, anyway. Hopefully that fixes Dave_3d and M#@xist's issues

[-Vormav-]

dave_3d - There's at least one way of getting around that problem: MR is basically returning the values of the reflections on the backside of the object as the result of the refraction, so it seems like the environment is being refracted. The easiest way around that is to just run a check for inverted normals when calculating the refraction. And that's just what this simple shader I've attached does. It checks if the normals are inverted, and if so continues the tracing of the current ray (so if it's a refraction, the refraction ray should ignore the back side of your object, and trace further into the scene). Create a new mental ray shader with this set as the surface slot. Then set 'material to shader' as the 'color' for this shader, and put your standard material (with all the reflections/refractions) in the material slot for the 'material to shader.' It should work. I haven't tested it myself; the shader makes use of a function from a more recent version of MR than I have running in Max. :(


BTW, if anyone wants to get geometry shaders working in max (this can be extremely useful; since geometry shaders are called in MR before other shaders, you can use a geometry shader to change options that you couldn't normally change without the standalone renderer - geometry shaders get well over 100 functions that other shaders can't touch), I got this tip from the MR mailing list:
You need to compile mrGeomShaderObject located in the MaxSDK samples, it's a max procedural object (DLO) which will accept Shaders as an input.
The MaxSDK should come with your Max installation CD. I'm guessing they didn't add this example to the set until Max 7 or later though, because it's not there with the max6 sdk. But if anyone wants to go ahead and compile it, and upload the dlo, it could be very useful. :thumbsup:

[dave-3d]

-Vormav- Thanks for commenting, all sounds perfectly logocal. But ... in the example test file, I have actually tried the material with No/Zero Reflectivity and yet it still diffracts the background through the glass material.

I can understand that it may be reflecting the scene on the rearward facing vertices, but not if the material has no reflectivity :shrug: .. ?

It is really puzzling. All I really want to be able to do is use a local environment map for the reflections only, excluding this local map from diffraction.

So far it seems that there is no direct way . .

Is there a way to setup glass as an MR material only ?

Dave

[-Vormav-]

Okay, I have a tested, working solution now. Using a different shader (attached) - environment_ray_type. This shader lets you specify three different environments based on the ray type that's reading them: ray, reflect, and everything else.
To get the effect you're looking for, create a new mental ray material. In the surface slot, use glass(lume).
Now setup your environment with environment_ray_type; put your hdri map in the reflect slot. Leave refract black (or set it to whatever else you want it to be).
Done. Works for me, at least.
If you need it to be a local reflection map, you can instead apply an "environment(3dsmax)" shader in the environment slot of your MR glass material, and use environment_ray_type as the shader for that material.

[dave-3d]

Thanks, Stephen !

I'll have a play around with that mat and give that a try.

Thanks again for taking the time to have a look at this :thumbsup:

Quick question - which folder should I put those files in ? Should I put them in the "shaders_3rdparty" folder ?

Dave

[-Vormav-]

Put the .dll file in max_directory/mentalray/shaders and the .mi file in max_directory/mentalray/include.
I guess in more recent version of Max, they might have created separate folders for custom shaders, but I couldn't say for sure whether or not Max would automatically load them up from that 'shaders_3rdparty' folder.

[dave-3d]

Yup, tried that - and put them into the "shaders_standard" folder and the "shaders_3rdparty" but don't see an "environment_ray_type" material in the material editor list ?

Should they be initialised somehow ?

I have the updated verion of MR that comes with Max 7.5

EDIT : The files should go in the "shaders_autoload" that comes with Max 7.5's MR

just testing it now ..

Dave

[dave-3d]

OK, success !! Thanks a million Stephen : - Vormav - ! :thumbsup:

His shader does exactly what it says on the tin :)

To adjust it to my requirements I created a 2d Checker texture (both colours set to grey, instanced) and placed an instance to the global environment slot (as a background) and to the refract_ray slot in - Vormav - environment_ray_type material (used in the MR Local envirnoment slot). Thus by adjusting the Checker colour I can adjust the background colour and the refract colour at the same time.

I tried it with a scene I am working on and got the results below. Please note that the effect is quite subtle here but that is intentional and is EXACTLY what I was striving for :

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/nice_reflections.jpg

I'll upload the test scene with the materials setup. But thanks go to - Vormav- ! :thumbsup: Result !

Dave

[m@Xist]

edit: You almost got it. To be a little programmer can be very helpful. Thanx too Vormav

The 3rdparty.mi in the shaders_3rdparty folder says:

registry "{_DISCREET_REG_LOAD_3RDPARTY_SHADERS}"

# Add "link" and "mi" statements here, to load your shaders.
# Note that shaders are loaded in REVERSE order from which they appear here.

# Example:
# link "base.dll"
# mi "base.mi"

end registry

[dave-3d]

A Ha ! I saw that file but ending in .mi didn't try to open it with notepad ! :hmm:

Now I know, thanks m@Xist.

Dave

[kreuz]

hey...a MR problem !!

i use MR 3S mt. but it doesn't apparent very clearly
anyone's know how to strengthen the translucency?

[m@Xist]

I think I have the same problem too. When I render those scenes by Jeff everything looks fine, but if I set up a new scene by myself it doesn't.

[JeffPatton]

Scale is everything. If your scene is not the same scale as mine, naturally the settings will have to be modified to accomodate the change.

[pixel-abuse]

:) I saw this solid volume shader in another post for XSI and I was wondering if anyone could convert it for Max. I would love to have a play around with it.

Link:http://www.lastsanity.com/3d/hosted/SolidVol.html

[JasonCamp]

i use parti volume in the volume slot .. with near transparent setings on the normal material options... its hard to say how to set it because like jeff said its changes with how the max files units are set , and the largest item extents, also dgs 'materal' (not material photon) gives a good translucent , and dielectric gives a good glass like or transparent ...

on the mr goodies list i happend to find a web site that is helpfull .. it has a odd name LAMERUG
lol but its contents are well worth the visit.. esp if your just starting like me :)

http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/icons/icon2.gif http://www.lamrug.org/

[rdg]

-vormav-,

thanks for the example scene for your hardlight shader.
It works well, but I agree that the compositing way is the smarter one.

I tried to compile the mrGeomShaderObject, which said it compiled without errors, but I can't find the .dlo :(

But I know it must be somewhere as I compiled it once, but didn't know what to to do with it :)

Georg

[rdg]

http://proforma.preset.de/cgtalk/mr/mrGeomShaderObject.zip

the mrGeomShaderObject.dlo

Georg

[dave-3d]

rdg, I have uploaded a test sene using Vormav's shader. For some circumstances it is better than far than using compositing.

Look at almost any car render done in Mental Ray and you will see the background through the windows because they render against a plain background. How do you composite that away - while keeping the reflections (look at the subtle blue shades in the lower pic that would be lost) ?

In this test scene what you place in the background slot on the material editor will be placed as the background AND as the refract background - WHILE using another map for the reflections !

In this example I used a sky scene (standard with max) but you can change it to a plain background (see below). See the different reflection on the glass that stays ?

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/glass_02.jpg

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/glass_02b.jpg

If you are rendering against a scene background (geometry) then you don't need to use this approach, but in a simple scene with a plain background it is a lifesaver !

Scene file : http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/test_glass_vormav.zip

EDIT: You'll need a copy of Vormav's shader to use the above scene - see earlier in this thread to download and where to install.

Dave

[ReneAlex]

looking around in Google I find this page... in Russian but with an very detailed tutorial about SSS and light maps...

http://www.ixbt.com/soft/ss_fast.shtml

you can tranlate it in www.translate.ru (http://www.translate.ru)

I just think it may be usefull.

[bgawboy]

mental images is now offering training for developing mental ray Phenomena

The three-day intensive class, based in LA will take place on the following dates:

Oct. 17-19 (Mon.-Wed.) 10AM-6PM

It is similar to the shader writing class, except that this class does not cover shader programming in C, but rather the combining of component shaders in mi declaration files.

See http://www.lamrug.org/class2.html for more details.

[john_the_eagle]

Where is the "mib_glossy_reflection" and "mib_glossy_refraction" shader in new mental ray (3.4.4.9 -max 8) ? Maya 7 has those shaders in older version of mental ray (3.4.*.*)


In the "base.mi" file is a line (History part): "13.05.05 alf: added mib_glossy_reflection,refraction", but this shader isn`t 'declared' ? Why ? :sad:

[-Vormav-]

Where is the "mib_glossy_reflection" and "mib_glossy_refraction" shader in new mental ray (3.4.4.9 -max 8) ? Maya 7 has those shaders in older version of mental ray (3.4.*.*)


In the "base.mi" file is a line (History part): "13.05.05 alf: added mib_glossy_reflection,refraction", but this shader isn`t 'declared' ? Why ? :sad:
You sure it's not there? I'm looking at an mr 3.4 base.mi file right now, and I see both of them declared in there. Can't imagine why they'd remove it when copying the base file over to Max...

But in any case, here's what the declaration looks like, so you can add it to your file:
# multisampled glossy reflections
# with optional distance limiting,
# dispersion and fresnel effect


declare shader "mib_glossy_reflection" (
shader "base_material",
color "reflection_color",
scalar "max_distance",
scalar "falloff" default 2.0,
color "environment_color",
scalar "reflection_base_weight" default 0.6,
scalar "reflection_edge_weight" default 1.0,
scalar "edge_factor" default 5.0,
shader "environment",
boolean "single_env_sample" default true,
integer "samples" default 16,
scalar "u_spread" default 0.5,
scalar "v_spread" default 0.5,
vector "u_axis",
vector "v_axis",
scalar "dispersion" default 0.0,
array color "spectrum"
)
apply material, texture
version 3
gui "gui_mib_glossy_reflection" {
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiName" "mi Glossy Reflection (mi)",
)
control "base_material" "shader" (
"uiName" "Base material",
"value" "mib_illum_phong"
)
control "reflection_color" "color" (
"uiName" "Reflection color",
"value" 1.0 1.0 1.0
)
control "max_distance" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Max distance",
"value" 0.0
)
control "falloff" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Falloff shape (power function)",
"value" 2.0
)
control "environment_color" "color" (
"uiName" "Environment reflection color",
"value" 1.0 1.0 1.0
)
control "reflection_base_weight" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Reflection facing weight",
"value" 0.6
)
control "reflection_edge_weight" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Reflection edge weight",
"value" 1.0
)
control "edge_factor" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Edge factor",
"value" 5.0
)
control "single_env_sample" "boolean" (
"uiName" "Single environment sampling",
"value" on
)
control "environment" "shader" (
"uiName" "Specific environment shader",
)
control "samples" "integer" (
"uiName" "Samples",
"value" 8
)
control "u_spread" "scalar" (
"uiName" "U Spread",
"value" 0.2
)
control "v_spread" "scalar" (
"uiName" "V Spread",
"value" 0.2
)
control "u_axis" "vector" (
"uiName" "U axis",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "v_axis" "vector" (
"uiName" "U axis",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "dispersion" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Dispersion (rainbow effect)",
"value" 0.0
)
control "spectrum" "array color" (
"uiName" "Spectrum"
)
}
end declare

# multisampled glossy refractions
# with optional distance limiting,
# dispersion and fresnel effect

declare shader "mib_glossy_refraction" (
shader "top_material",
shader "deep_material",
shader "back_material",
boolean "render_reverse_of_back_material" default on,
color "refraction_color" default 1 1 1,
scalar "max_distance" default 0,
scalar "falloff" default 2.0,
scalar "refraction_base_weight" default 1.0,
scalar "refraction_edge_weight" default 0.6,
scalar "edge_factor" default 5.0,
scalar "ior" default 1.0,
integer "samples" default 16,
scalar "u_spread" default 0.5,
scalar "v_spread" default 0.5,
vector "u_axis",
vector "v_axis",
scalar "dispersion" default 0.0,
array color "spectrum"
)
apply material, texture
version 3

gui "gui_mib_glossy_refraction" {
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiName" "mi Glossy Refraction (mi)",
)
control "top_material" "shader" (
"uiName" "Top material"
)
control "deep_material" "shader" (
"uiName" "Deep material"
)
control "back_material" "shader" (
"uiName" "Back material"
)
control "render_reverse_of_back_material" "boolean" (
"uiName" "Render reverse side of Back material",
"value" 1
)
control "refraction_color" "color" (
"uiName" "Refraction color",
"value" 1.0 1.0 1.0
)
control "max_distance" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Max distance",
"value" 0.0
)
control "falloff" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Falloff shape (power function)",
"value" 2.0
)
control "refraction_base_weight" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Refraction facing weight",
"value" 1.0
)
control "refraction_edge_weight" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Refraction edge weight",
"value" 0.6
)
control "edge_factor" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Edge factor",
"value" 5.0
)
control "ior" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Index of Refraction",
"value" 1.2
)
control "samples" "integer" (
"uiName" "Samples",
"value" 8
)
control "u_spread" "scalar" (
"uiName" "U Spread",
"value" 0.2
)
control "v_spread" "scalar" (
"uiName" "V Spread",
"value" 0.2
)
control "u_axis" "vector" (
"uiName" "U axis",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "v_axis" "vector" (
"uiName" "U axis",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "dispersion" "scalar" (
"uiName" "Dispersion (rainbow effect)",
"value" 0.0
)
control "spectrum" "array color" (
"uiName" "Spectrum"
)
}
end declare

Also, just for the hell of it, I might as well share a much more usable form of the infinite_plane shader. This one interprets coordinates correctly (so when you animate the camera's position, the plane doesn't appear to move with it), works with shadows, and has a second shader (infinite_occlusion) that allows geometry to be occluded by the plane. Still no reflections.
I did write another one that moved points around to simulate horizon curvature realistically, but that shader has too many problems to even be worth showing atm. =x

[john_the_eagle]

Yes I`m sure (checked once again), and in my trial version of max 8 I don`t have it :/

But then I copy 'Your' code all works good. Thanks.

[maxplugins]

Hi all,

I've just done the .mi files for the Solid Volume shader that someone was asking about a few pages back, and have also added a simple test Max scene that shows how to use it.

The original shader is available here:
http://www.lastsanity.com/3d/hosted/SolidVol.html
This is a newer version than the one I have included in the Max version, I haven't had time to try out the newer version yet.

The Max version is available here:
http://www.maxplugins.de/mr_files/Solid_Volume_max.zip

*******************************************************************

I have now updated everything to work with the newest version of the shader (rc19). You will need the DLLs from the first link, and the .mi files and the Max file from this link:
http://www.maxplugins.de/mr_files/Solid_Volume_max2.zip

I have also rendered a quick example of the shader, you can get it here:
http://www.maxplugins.de/mr_files/solid_vol.avi (850 KB, DivX)

Dave

[maxplugins]

Hi all,

I am going to be adding a section for free mental ray shaders over at http://www.maxplugins.de (http://www.maxplugins.de/) ,
and I am trying to get a list together of all shaders that work in 3ds max. I have started going through this thread, but it is a bit difficult to keep track of everything in such a huge thread.

If anyone knows of free shaders that work in Max, and has links for the shaders and .mi files for Max, I would be really grateful if you could send me a mail with the information. Just drop me a line at dave@maxplugins.de .

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[rdg]

Dave,

thank you for this SolidVolume conversion!

Georg

[gonemad]

Hey guys,

This solid volume shader is going to be incredibly usefull. I seem to be having some troubles with the the updated version of it. The files contained in the Solid_Volume_max.zip work just fine, but when I replace the .mi files with the ones from Solid_Volume_max2.zip the shader quits working. All I get is a black material in the material swatch and the cube in the test scene just renders red. Am I doing something wrong? I'm running Max 7.

Also is there anyway someone can write up a brief description of what the parameters for the shader do and how to use them? Paticularly achiveing the effect of the non-solid volumetrics on the LastSanity site. I tried dropping in a fractle noise map in place of the cellular in the sample scene and also replaced the red surface with a mostly transparent one. It seems like even with a transparent surface it's casting solid shadows both inside and out. I'm not having much luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-mad

[maxplugins]

Make sure you use the updated test scene as well. In the newer version, the 'field' property which was mapped with Cellular in the first version has been replaced with 'field opaque' and 'field transparent' properties. The old material won't work.

I'm having the same problems you are with the transparent shading. Just keep on experimenting :)

Dave

[maxplugins]

I've solved the shadow problem.
In the file Sold_Volume.mi, where it says 'apply material' at the bottom, change it to 'apply material, shadow'

You can now apply the shader to the Shadow slot in the mr material.

Also make sure that you replace the dll's with the updated dll's here:
http://www.lastsanity.com/3d/hosted/SolidVol.html (http://www.lastsanity.com/3d/hosted/SolidVol.html)
This is probably why you are having trouble getting the shader to work.

Dave

[pixel-abuse]

Thanx for the solid volume shader conversion - just what I was looking for.:thumbsup:

Can't get the updated version working getting the same result as gone.mad might need the updated version of MR in max 7.5, but the older version works fine.

[divanovic]

hey guys, this is a great neverending thread, thank U all for it!

I was just wondering if there is an option to change defaults for some mats.
For example. when I select DGS, I want it to have 'glossy highlights' set to black, and 'shininess' set to 0.0...
Or even better, loading material editor with 'custom created' default mats..

sorry for my ignorance and thx.

[Bao2]

My post number 100 in CGTalk.:)

To celebrate it, here is the adaptation of l-glass v2.0. It has many improves and the
.mi of before versions is not valid because parameters have changed very much.
Read the txt to install.

[-Vormav-]

Dejan Ivanovic:
You can save out any material you make with the "put to library" option (top of the material editor, material menu). Then when you go to apply a material, choose to browse from "Mtl Library." Or you can save out separate .mat files to import later from the 'get material' window when your browsing from mtl library as well.
If you want to change the defaults for all of your MR shaders, that is done in the MI files, through the gui declaration. They look something lilke this:

gui "gui_mib_illum_lambert" {
control "Global" "Global" (
"helpCHM" "MI_Shaders/mr help.chm",
"helpLink" "/shd-1_6Illumination.html#mibillumlambert",
"addApply" "illum",
"uiName" "Illum Lambert (base)",
"category" "Illumination",
#"hidden"
)
control "ambience" "color" (
"uiName" "Ambience",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "ambient" "color" (
"uiName" "Ambient",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "diffuse" "color" (
"uiName" "Diffuse",
"value" 0.7 0.7 0.7
)
control "mode" "integer" (
#"hidden"
)
control "lights" "array light" (
#"hidden"
)

So changing the line (for the diffuse uiName):
"value" 0.7 0.7 0.7
to
"value" 1 0 0
would set your default diffuse color for mib_illum_lambert to red. Pretty simple stuff. :)
If you want to change this for all of the standard shaders, that's different, since they aren't set by gui declarations. I don't know offhand how that's done. But you could definitely do it through a phenomenon (declared in the mi files), if you learn how to use those.

[Bao2]

So changing
"value" 0.7 0.7 0.7
to
"value" 1 0 0


I remember that generates a mental ray error just starting Max.:wise:
It must be:
"value" 1.0 0.0 0.0
if I remember right because I had this problem. Always use decimals
to differenciate from integers. I think the mentalray .mi interpreter is silly
but so the thing is.

[-Vormav-]

Hmm. That must be an error with an older version of MR. Even looking at my current base.mi file (from the standalone renderer), I'm seeing plenty of cases where they've set default colors without any decimal places.
But you're right though, it's probably at least good practice to add the decimal places in, incase it is an error in some MR versions.

EDIT:
Yet another shader (you're all probably getting sick of me by now, huh? :p ), include_exclude
This is a color shader that checks the three different state types present at an intersection point, and based on the included object list either evaluates a true color, a false color, or returns false (for most shaders, returning false just means you'll get black).
When the color of an intersection point of a reflection, refraction or transparency ray is being called up, parent refers to the object that is looking up the reflection/refraction. Current always refers to the object that is being evaluated directly (the surface of your glass, not the objects its refracting, as an example). And child...well...yeah...That normally would refer to something, but since mi_trace_reflection/refrection/transparency isn't being called up ahead of this shader, it really isn't referring to anything.
I was actually intending for this shader to be something completely different - and useful, I must add - but I wasn't thinking about the whole thing correctly. So, I got this... :banghead:
But I guess you could use it for...Well...Eh... making an object reflect/refract two different colors based on which objects are doing the reflecting/refracting? Using material override to render out two different materials across the scene (you know, for the dozens of times that you've wanted to do that)? Eh...heh. Oh well...Maybe someone has some crazy use for something just like this, but it's mostly the most pointless shader I've written yet. :shrug:

[sampson]

cheers for that Bao.. seems to work well. :thumbsup:

[divanovic]

Dejan Ivanovic:
You can save out any material you make with the "put to library" option (top of the material editor, material menu). Then when you go to apply a material, choose to browse from "Mtl Library." Or you can save out separate .mat files to import later from the 'get material' window when your browsing from mtl library as well....... ....

Hey Vormav, thanks for your explanation. I am familiar with making custom mat libraries, but I will try editing .mi files as U described.

What I needed to know, actually, is whether it's possible to edit default mats that would be loaded when U first start up Max and it's mat editor.. e.g. All slots in the editor are occupied with DGS material instead of the default standard one?

thanks again for your input, I appreciate it.
cheers

[dave-3d]

I've just installed Max 8, but had this problem occur with earlier versions but never this bad. I have created a simple Blend material, upper material a yellow colour, lower mat should be transparent - with a tiff as the blend mask.

When rendering in MR with the lower material with no opacity (set to black) I get the picture on the left when I apply it to the panel in front of the windscreen.

BUT when I turn the opacity down on the lower mat, I get the pic on the right.

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/error_001.jpg http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/error_002.jpg

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with using a lower mat with transparency in a blend material in MR ? What are those horrible reddish and black squares ?

EDIT : Found the solution. In the shadows & displacement section of the Renderer section switch shadows mode from simple to segments

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/error_003.jpg

Thanks,

Dave

[rdg]

hi,

I compiled a sample geometry shader from the mental ray documentation.
but I think the .mi file is wrong.
I can create a mrShader object and apply the shader
but if I render I get the error message:

PHEN 0.2 error 051012: shader "wreath" is not a geometry shader

Maybe this shader works only when used in a different way ...
Maybe the .mi file is wrong ...

I attached all needed files (.c, .dll, .mi and .max) for reference.

I try to compile a different sample shader the next days.

don't know if this of any interest for you ...

Georg

[-Vormav-]

rdg - Your zip file only has the .max scene file and the wreath.dll.
And are you working in Max7? I had a chance to try out the MRGeomShader file you posted up, and while I get the mental ray section under the create menu in Max 6, it wasn't appearing in Max 7. When loading up your file, however, the geometry shader object you placed in the scene was certainly working... :banghead:

Dejan - I think that if you manually place DGS materials in all of the material slots, and then save over your 3dsmax.max file, you'll get DGS materials in all of the slots when you startup new scenes. Sorry, don't know of a cleaner way to do it...

[Bao2]

over your 3dsmax.max file, you'll get DGS materials in all of the slots when you startup new scenes

You mean 3dsmax.mat file (and rename the old to 3dsmaxold.mat to have the original too)

Vormav, I changed to 1 0 0 instead 1.0 0.0 0.0 and in Max 7.5 and 8.0 it don't give the
error I was obtaining like I said (I think Max 6 or 7). But perhaps I was dreaming awake like a zombie that day. So you were right. :thumbsup:

[jigu]

Deleted......

[rdg]

-vormav-,

thanks for checking!
Yes, somehow some files got lost during zipping :)

Here is the complete zip: wreath_complete (http://proforma.preset.de/cgtalk/mr/wreath_complete.zip)

I am working with MAX7.5 - the mrGeometry is visible in the scene and the wreath shader is accessible through the shader button in its modifying panel.

Georg

[divanovic]

Dejan - I think that if you manually place DGS materials in all of the material slots, and then save over your 3dsmax.max file, you'll get DGS materials in all of the slots when you startup new scenes. Sorry, don't know of a cleaner way to do it...

Sounds good to me, thanks again! :beer:

[mitchgates]

So, if any of you MR shader experts are bored, take a look at some of my ideas for useful shaders ;)

1. Advanced Matte Material: This would be similar to the matte controls in VRay, offering features such as alpha channel control, opacity mapping, etc. A must have for serious VFX work.

2. Final Gather Control Shader: This would allow you to control how much a material contributes to FG rays. Would also be nice to have separate control for primary and raytracing contribution. Would help make up for the fact FG uses the "secondary rays" checkbox in object properties and has on per-object multiplier like most of the other renderers out there.

3. Color Correct: Like Cuneyt Ozdas' brilliant freeware one, but works the MR and fully supports all color depths.

4. Edge Spec & Reflection: Some type of shader to add the wonderful Spec and Reflection controls from the SSS_FastSkin to any material. Currently you can do this by putting a "dumbed-down" FastSkin in the 2nd slot of a Shellac, but it renders pretty slow and is far from elegant.

Just putting these ideas out there. If anyone thinks this sounds like fun...

:)

-Mitch

[-Vormav-]

rdg - The shader type you declared in the wreath.mi file is a scalar shader, not a geometry shader.
Just change this part of the mi file:

scalar "wreath" (

to this:

geometry "wreath" (


That gets it working properly. :)

[Bao2]

Hey Vormav, your avatar is christmas prepared now.

[rdg]

geometry "wreath" (



-vormav-,
I replaced the code line,
but the error still raises :(

Can you post a image, what the rendering looks like?

Georg

[cyrrus]

Hello !!

I dont anderstand the raison of this alising on mi mesh. ( SSS ) waths paraméters create this result ???

Is may be a scaling probléms ?
mi sample are whis : 1/4 ( standard )
leattle regater

Please SVP
http://magmacg.free.fr/Daiblo_testSSS3fourbis.jpg

[cyrrus]

Hello !!

I dont anderstand the raison of this alising on mi mesh. ( SSS ) waths paraméters create this result ???

Is may be a scaling probléms ?
mi sample are whis : 1/4 ( standard )
leattle regater

Please SVP
http://magmacg.free.fr/Daiblo_testSSS3fourbis.jpg

[-Vormav-]

-vormav-,
I replaced the code line,
but the error still raises :(

Can you post a image, what the rendering looks like?

Georg
Sure, I'm attaching an image with a couple instances of it.


Hey Vormav, your avatar is christmas prepared now.

It's actually a Team Zissou cap, not a santa hat. :p Though I guess I am set through winter now as well.

cyrrus - Try raising your minimum sampling value. Also, try lowering the spatial contrast values. The defaults of .05 are pretty good for most cases, but parts of your mesh look like they have pretty soft changes in values. As a quick test, to see if it is just a sampling issue that's causing the problems, keep your max samples set to 4, and try setting all of the contrast values to zero (this means that every pixel will take as many samples as are defined by the max sample value - so you can be sure to deal with aliasing issues).

[rdg]

-vormav-,

with a radius of 1000 in the reseted viewport it is sure black ... :banghead:.
now i got mrSpheres, too.

Georg

[saiko]

Does anybody know how to make blurry falloff/fresnel reflection?
Hav been trying for last couple of days, but could not get the desired result.

[moidphotos]

Have you tried increasing the Lightmap size in the SSS material from 50% to 100%? That often fixes the problem.

Also add a turbosmooth modifier? Are you using MR spotlight or MR Omni light?

good luck:)


Hello !!

I dont anderstand the raison of this alising on mi mesh. ( SSS ) waths paraméters create this result ???

Is may be a scaling probléms ?
mi sample are whis : 1/4 ( standard )
leattle regater


Please SVP
http://magmacg.free.fr/Daiblo_testSSS3fourbis.jpg

[cyrrus]

HMmmm I have may be find the probléms.

But I dont anderstand veri well the résult for now.

The alising disipear whan I the scaling range of my mesh are modified. The som paraméters of the spacials contraste doenst change this alising. ( réf : 0.55/0.55.0.55 to 0.00/0.00/0.00 ).

when i change the range of the size of my mesh, I oberse différentes résult. (I will posting images exmple for demo ).

I have testing whis différente sclae units ( meters, cm ) and I have testing whis the scalling % ( ex : scalle for 1000 %. ) But I doenst have the sem résult. Why ???

Images comming soon ...

[Rigged]

wonder if we shouldn't start this thread over again ?

[JasonCamp]

hello all , i just wanted to say i finnaly compleated one of my projects called A Shining Headache , look for it in the compleated 3d forums

[JasonCamp]

oh or i could just post it here
http://storage.msn.com/x1pqP5noGPWAA6nDDGiCTFzbtcT9jT3U-YO_dlIkrdKL7sGAG3Di3Bm3O3_qlU7AZ1LaFM9qDNx0SqiSn1vC0NZQsRj7fdMdG-ywZ7ClX2Q2qRG0HOsWNb4uUgrAvAVzvPoy65aGKB_3zTvm1KJkzbiWw

[fhodshon]

just wanted to thank everyone here AGAIN for such a great thread.

my render results have VASTLY improved since i started visiting cgtalk.com!!!

INDISPENSABLE!

http://www.hodshon.com/pt_mr.jpg

[JasonCamp]

wow thats cool look like some form of medical support device

[fhodshon]

good call.

its a laser stroke therapy system.

f

[csaez]

Hi fhodshon, a render very clean :thumbsup:
The only thing is that the wheels it seemed that they flew, maybe lowering the radius of the Final Gather you can to land the object. Anyway its a beautiful render.

Grettings

[Cgmystic]

I've been reading this Mental Ray discussion of and on for some time.
Mental Ray has never been talked about as much as here.

note: I searched this forum discussion for referance to Max Plugins.de having Mental Ray resources to no avail, so try this link :)

MAX Plugins.de (http://www.maxplugins.de/max7.php?page=1&range=mental%20ray%20Shader)

[stefan]

http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=20262;start=0

[fhodshon]

here's another that a client appreciated.

lovin' mental ray!

http://www.hodshon.com/igt.jpg

[Chapt0r]

Heya,

Like most I have followed this thing on and off, for some time. and just did a search for this, but didn't come up with too much, but I am sure it had to be covered. I am working on a PDA model, that has that shinny, but metalic plastic look to it.

Very similiar to this
http://www.pocketcentral.com/res/pc/images/nokia_n70.jpg

Can anybody point me in the right direction, or link on this thread to read up on how to create this?

Thanks in advance
W

[JasonCamp]

well i am not sure but it looks like there are 2 materials there... the outer casing that happens to be like a white plastic and then a fake plastic chrome, for that one i would use a raytraced mat with a falloff in the refelect or a metal lume ... i like the falloff better ... or if you want a ansiotropy map wich helps bluring , but its a pain to set up and then the lighting would probably be a area light or a self illum plane with fg on massive

edit:
also that accually doesnt look like they raytraced at all.. looks more like they just maped it with some chrome colors heh

[evil-98]

just a test of mental ray 3.4
raytrace material with metal(lume) as diffuse channel
and a falloff, fresnel in reflect channel. blur reflection to
simulate specular highlight
17 min render w/ FG and HDRI

[JasonCamp]

i think if you turn up the samples its supposed to blur the reflections more ... never did get used to it but if you put the defuse map in the specular level slot it helps a bit ... also its better to desaturate it to grayscale and change the hot spots of the specular highlights to more white for the specs to stand out more ...

[-Vormav-]

i think if you turn up the samples its supposed to blur the reflections more ... never did get used to it but if you put the defuse map in the specular level slot it helps a bit ... also its better to desaturate it to grayscale and change the hot spots of the specular highlights to more white for the specs to stand out more ...
Turning up the sampling only makes the blur more detailed, it doesn't blur it more. "Spread" controls the amount of blur.

[JasonCamp]

Turning up the sampling only makes the blur more detailed, it doesn't blur it more. "Spread" controls the amount of blur.

doh.. heh something like that...

[Bao2]

Just in case somebody don't knows:
In max8, in mentalray, rendering windows, Renderer tab, set Frame Buffer type to
Floating Point 32 bits per channel.

Then instead saving your renders in jpg, tif or whatever, use the EXR format (an
enhanced HDR). Then open it in PhotoshopCS2 and adjust gamma and exposition and then save to jpg or what you want.

Also, the render you view in the Rendered Frame Window with 32 bits is not the real
thing. You probably are viewing worse quality than it is. Just save as EXR, open in Photoshop
and convert to 8 bits (without no adjust of gamma nor exposition) and save as jpg and you have better quality than you was viewing in the rendered frame buffer window.

I love EXR. :love:

[JasonCamp]

well i just had another lovely mental ray mem freeing crash problem ... i know that if you dont collapse all of your uvw maps modifiers that it somehow sucks a lot of mental rays mem allocation away somehow.. does anybody know if its the same with any modifier in the stack ? or just the uvw mods ?

edit: me and my damn leafe debris

edit: dahh this is driving me batty, it got to 100% then when it started to call the outputshader [glare] it crashed on me... least i got that far... i collapsed most of the modifiers and then changed the memory useage up to 1500 and lowerd a lot of photons... got a whole lot less errors for storage and a whole lot less memory changing mm lowering again i guess :(

edit: woo hoo ! finnaly it renderd man i didnt even have fg on too hope it will fg ... i lowerd all the pointless extra photons changed the bsp depth back to to 40 and added memory limit to 1700 [in the processing tab]...

[SandeepMaithani]

Hi Evil

I just tried to build up on what u did and i got this....

Both r mental Ray materials with glass lume and metal lume on the diff/surf slot with HDR and FG.
Blur reflection is set to default.
render time is one minute on P4, 2.8, 1 gig , Gforce fx 5200 latest forceware drivers
still working on so many things in mental ray shaders....will come with somthing else soon...
is it good, bad!!comments welcome

regards

sandy

[JasonCamp]

i never liked glass lume , but its a quick setup... it always looked fakeish.. i just go with a standard raytrace mat with a dielectric [not material] photon shader and a few parti volume shaders on low settings ... and you say you put them in the defuse/surface slots ? if you put anything in the mr surface slot the standard material gets wiped out ... not sure if you knew that

oh good blured teapot tho

[FATdan]

Anyone got any ideas on how to create a lightning shader? like the kind you get in a storm...
ta :)

[rodrigogua]

the way i'd go about it would be creating a plane and applying an opaciy map and making it self-illuminating.

[Just_David]

I think this thread while starting brilliantly has lost its way, its has nothing but clutter posts in( including this one )

:/

[JasonCamp]

is it just me or is cgsociety down or something ? i cant get to the main page and cg talk is soo slow ..

[J.O.]

Well, after finally making sense out of mental ray's parti volume shader (yay for me! :D ) and learning how to do volumes, I made a quick render to check how did it work on a complex mesh... and here it is:
http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/1020/volume5vz.jpg
Take a close look on the volumetric shadow path on the volume, it is all jittered. What setting should I change to make it smooth or crispy? :D
(I already tried beefing up antialias samples)

[Cgmystic]

Now that is neat J.O.
It is really nice how there appears to be depth in volume on the oppisite side of the statue that your light source is.

[J.O.]

Well, after some researching aI found out some issues with volume caustics, here I go:

Setting up a simple refractive ball which does volume caustics is easy and works 100% of the times, but whenver I tried to switch the ball for a torus know to see more complex caustics, they either:
A: vanished
B: Made mental ray lose track of photons and not store anything
(with correct glass material and settings)

The helper plane casts no shadows so the volume doesn't vanishes, but that is the only changes I made from jeff's original scene.

Another issue I noticed, is how parti-volume works... it fades the WHOLE scene, not just the lamps (even if I set to lamp-only), unlike scanline volume lights fake effects. Is there any way of doing some containment to the effect? otherwise I have to oversaturate the whole scene's lightning to be able to see anything.

Thirdly and most importantly, due to the fading, there is exponential gain in the brightness of the volume whenever I zoom in to it. What settings control such gain in energy?

Oh and anyone bothered sniffing on the mib_cooktorr shader (hidden shader)? It appears pretty nifty to do metals with strange spectral propeties...

EDIT: One last thing... I am looking on how to do fading reflections (which get tinted as they get farther from the reflected surface), that efect is easy in vray and final render, but so far I haven't found a way to do it in mental ray... :blush:

[JasonCamp]

yea i know heh , what color level are you useing for the parti volume, and do you have it on a box or is it in the render settings ,
if im useing the camera shader , i useually set my parti volume color to be like .002 - .01 useually it doesnt fade as much ,extinction is .001 .. but the reason why is that it accually goes through the volume as it were real... but i think its a 2d volume thats on a camera shader differnt then if you were to put it on a box because when you do it that way it changes everything ... , and fading reflections... = falloff map with a fallof color on near far setup i would think, oh also if you really just want a hazy like look you could use mist lume for the camera shader , it works good enuff but doesnt do volume caustics...

on a side note it finnaly [ after a week ] looks like cg society is back up again :)

[CyberGolem]

I used a grass bump map in the MR displacement slot to make this patch o' grass. Material is on a low poly plane (4x4 grid)

http://www.pixelperfectgraphics.biz/cg_files/Grass.jpg


I know this is an old post I'm quoting, but I was hoping that someone could still help. BTW:Thanks for the great thread, however I'm not finding where this MR Displacement resides.
I changed the Assign Renderer to MR, but still can't locate anything from there that resembles what Jeff describes above... help?
Thanks,
—Chaz
Using Max 8

[J.O.]

As far as I know the mental ray displacement is under the 3dsmax name (Displacement (3dsmax)), and is found in the displacement slots for mental ray connection and mental ray materials.

[JasonCamp]

hello.. yes jo is right its in the mental ray connection rollout under the maps in the material editor, it should say like volume bla bla and then grayed out is displacement... just click on that lock thing, then you then assign a 3d displacment map for the shader on it... its a bit tricky to set but the results are really neet... the catches are
1. the mesh must be all the same texture [ anybody correct me if im wrong ]
2. the objects mesh must be quit detailed... enuff to keep it from pulling away from the displacement useually a subdivision with nothing but a smoothness of 1
3. the normals of the mesh must be uniform... unless you click on the object independent... at least i think thats what that does , the help file should discribe it better then me
also for describing how the setings of the picture for the displacement is set...

also in the render setup you can increase the details of the displace and change the displace edge lower... but that really really increases the render time esp with final gather :( really really really increase. i am working on my project right now and the cement on the ground displaced and i changed from 2 to 1.8 and it tacked on a whole more hour of fg heh

heres a shothttp://storage.msn.com/x1pqP5noGPWAA6nDDGiCTFzbtcT9jT3U-YO_dlIkrdKL7sSy5ivdrzWldpvaXpokejrWVE_n45PNdwc7ljsQkILlCT45T5aILy092KOiSM59HSEx4lP324NABREf7U-1u02Ebe3Ng58fhYdvfmneoFM8A

[CyberGolem]

Thanks J.O. & Hellion.

I didn't know there was an extra step of applying the 3D Displacement into the 3D Displacement material slot in the MR rollout, unfortunately I still don't see GRASS anywhere when I select any of the NONE slots in the submaterial slots.
Extrusion Map(Strength conversely in the Shaders rollout)
Direction Map(Strength conversely in the Shaders rollout)
The Material/Map Browser goes from Gradient Ramp to Landscape (lume). No grass anywhere.
Is there another step I'm missing or is there even a grass texture?
Sorry to be a bother —especially since I have a feeling this is stting right in front of me, but I'm just not seeing it.

Cheerz,
—Chaz

[JasonCamp]

er heh yea i guess i left out that , you have to have a grayscale picture / tga is what most use i guess, and how you get displacement is from the picture you assign it to the extrusion map slot in that 3d displacement...

the length number is for how high the total displace reaches , the extrusion strength slot / number is for how much it decays over the dither in the picture [ how rough it is ] the map in the extrusion slot is well the gradent details for it to make 3d ,[blacks= negitive displacement/grays= midpoint displace/white= high displace area] so if you had a radial grayscale where the outer rim was black leading to a white tip there would be a cone like displacement , the direction map is for well direction for it to travel more of the info on that can be found by pressing f1 and going to search and typeing in displacement in help

mainly that grass probably was just a noise map somebody tossed on there i dunno heh

[J.O.]

Actually, in that specific scene the grass was made of the same map as the bitmap texture. :bounce:

[CyberGolem]

No worries Hellion,
Your explanation actually makes sense and it's the way I would've done it in Maya -I'm an employer <errr> inluenced Max convert and Jeff's post made it sound a lot simpler than the way I've done things in the past.

J.O.
What bitmap would that be?

Thanks y'all.

[JeffPatton]

Why not download the file and have a look at the settings yourself? :shrug:

[CyberGolem]

Why not download the file and have a look at the settings yourself? :shrug:

Thanks Jeff, I assume that's the packet of goodies on page one?

[JeffPatton]

Yuppers. I basically have part of my personal website dedicated to hosting these files (and some that are not listed in this thread). You can either follow the link in my signature or the links in the first post. There's a Max6 & Max7 section on my site with downloads.

[CyberGolem]

Yuppers. I basically have part of my personal website dedicated to hosting these files (and some that are not listed in this thread). You can either follow the link in my signature or the links in the first post. There's a Max6 & Max7 section on my site with downloads.

Thanks again Jeff. Is there anything I should know about using Max 8 with these?

[-Vormav-]

Hey. Been awhile since I've been able to do anything in MR, but here's a shader I put together today: Indirect Illumination.
It's nothing really complex, just a shader that allows you to pipe your indirect illumination through your shader wherever you want (adding indirect illumination to a constant shader, perhaps?), independent of illumination shaders. Additionally, it gives you a multiplier that could be used to either adjust the level of your indirect illumination, or maybe tint it.

You can already tint Caustics/GI via the photon shaders of caustic/gi generator, and adjust brightness at the light level using the 'energy' settings. The advantage here is that tinting/brightness can be controlled to some degree at the caustic/gi receiving objects, which could be useful in some special cases.

As for FG...bear in mind that the FG solution includes lighting over the entire scene, not just the black, shadow-like spots that are the most easily noticable element of FG. In fact, those black spots are the absense of FG photons. If you have one skylight in your scene, your illumination comes from the FG solution, not from the illumination models. So, if you wanted to match the FG output from this shader to that of a standard middle-gray illumination shader, you would actually want 'surface' to be set to 0, and then set 'multiplier' to the surface color you want to match. That's kind of bassackwards, so it should be mentioned that the only real advantage to using this shader with FG is that it allows you to adjust the FG level on one object, without having that change be reflected with FG color bleeding on another surface (when FG maps are being calculated, they only see the 'surface' value, so the multiplier can be used as an independent control).

Kind of a limited shader, but maybe it'll evolve into something more useful at some point... :shrug:

[dave-3d]

Vormav,

Seeing as you are looking at shaders and FG ... would it be possible to have a shader for a Matte plane that accepts FG shadows ? At present, without resorting to compositing and Ambient Occlusion it is not possible to have a nice set of FG shadows on a matte plane.

It is the one thing about MR that is completely sub-standard. I just don't understand why MR can't do this when Vray, BRazil etc. manage fine :shrug:

Dave

[-Vormav-]

Dave3d - Yeah. Here's a quick one. :)

[dave-3d]

Thanks I'll give that a try - any special insrtuctions or intsallation ?

Dave

[dave-3d]

Thanks ... that will be VERY useful.

But is it possible for the FG shadows to also show up on the matte plane ? Am I doing something wrong ?

Here is the first test render of a grey ball on Vormav's matte plane - in Mental Ray ! Using an MR_omni with soft shadows :

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/matte_001.jpg

Dave

[-Vormav-]

Not really. Just apply it to a standard mental ray shader, and then apply your normal shader as the 'surface' shader. Your normal shader is read when MR is calculating FG, but only the indirect illumination at the surface point is output at render time.
As a 'happy accident', it seems to do the alpha channel correctly, too.

If your FG 'shadows' are black, and you're confused as to why the plane is appearing all black, be sure to check the alpha channel!
It's really mostly useful for post-processing work. If you want to be able to see through the matte material where there is no indirect illumination (which in a lot of cases is not going to happen), I'll have to write another shader to handle that. That shouldn't be very complicated though; I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

Also, my other post mentioned it, but I'll mention it again: If you're using a skylight, all of the skylight's light is calculated through FG solution! (FG isn't just the dark spots) You can see this if you try using my matte shader with FG and a skylight in the scene. It will look like a regular render.

[dave-3d]

I must be using it incorrectly - exactly which slot should I put your shader ? I don't see an alpha channel option ? Could you show me a screenshot of your material editor settings ?

If possible I would like to be able to have a totally transparent plane that accepts both FG shadows (from the skylight - or lighting panels) and/or standard lights (omnis, spots, etc.).

Dave

[-Vormav-]

Well, here's one that might be more useful to you. I added in the transparency option (Max7+ only!), and made it a little more GI-friendly.
The workflow is simple:
mental ray material
(surface shader)->indirect illumination matte: (surface)->the regular shader of your surface (mib_illum_blinn, perhaps).
If you want a totally transparent plain that's only picking up indirect illumination, then you can just set a transparency (or transmat) shader as the surface shader, and enable the 'transparency' option. Setting a transparent shader as the surface shader should keep the plain from contributing to the FG calculation, but it'll still pick up FG from other objects.

Its greatest use is just for developing separate indirect illumination-only passes for use in compositing. I don't know that it'll be quite as useful for direct rendering as the matte/shadow material can sometimes be.

[JeffPatton]

Thanks man! I haven't tried the matte material yet, but I'm diggin' the indirect illumination controller! Thanks a ton for your efforts and contributing these to the community.

[Shadow_545]

I just got done modeling Obi-Wan's ANH lightsaber and now I'm working on the shaders. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to achieve the gold metal and the metal shading. I've got the overall chrome look down fairly well, but any ideas for the circleing pattern on the chome? And for the gold metal, I'm having a hard time trying to get the color down and the reflections and the bump... Also, I got a version of the semi-transparent half spheres, but it's not very good. Can someone send me in the right direction?

Thanks for any help.

[mister3d]

Its so realistic and so beautiful!
What will this suppose to be?amazing.Like cyan stuff.
Gold has more shineness and stronger coloration imo.

For circular speculars(?)there is anisotropic shader.

[hjalle]

Try this map as a bump, I made it for just lathe trace on metal.
Or make your own.
http://www.illustratoren.se/link_image/circ.zip

[hjalle]

Base Gold shader MR
http://www.illustratoren.se/link_image/gold.zip

[Bao2]

Deleted. (I was thinking images attached in post 2743 was mental ray renders)

[JasonCamp]

the gradient ramp has the option to do a radial ramp, wich is like hajalle tga, not as detailed tho unless you set the tga to maped and use it , or you can sit there and make little ring patterns heh , good results either way

[hjalle]

Bao2 you fooled me to to look at the image over and over again.
With a inner voice -It cant be MR rendering :scream:

[Bao2]

Bao2 you fooled me to to look at the image over and over again.
With a inner voice -It cant be MR rendering :scream:

The images have names like this: "mr-obiwan-asbuilt-29.jpg" and I was thinking
mr means rendered with mentalray. But then I was viewing some dust and imperfections
and I was thinking it was the best render ever. Then I was to the page to download all
the images before and after that 29 and at last I know they are photos. The depth of
field fooled me because looks like computer rendered. Now I have hurry to try replicate
the 28 or 29 so I test my skills. I will post here my results and materials and scene, I
hope this weekend. Very very beautiful photos these 28 and 29, I want replicate them, even
the imperfections.