Mental Ray - Shaders

[-Vormav-]

Hey guys. I have a crapload of utility shaders to share.
Most of these are designed to allow you to do programmerish things in MR through shader networks. This is by no means a valid replacement for programming in a production pipeline (this is slower and just can't do as much), but for those of you that don't know how to code MR shaders, or that can't be bothered to learn how to, these shaders should at least allow you to get your feet wet. It's also largely about giving the artist more control.
You don't have to be a programmer to use these, but you do have to understand some of the most basic principles (floats, integers, booleans, scalars, colors, vectors, that sort of thing).
I'll post a few samples of how these can be used in later posts. But for now, I'm just going to list off what I've added (note: a lot of these - most of the miUtil set - are functions that are already built into MR, but that just haven't been made available as standalone shaders):

channel_extract
extracts one element of a color (r, g, b or a) and returns it as a scalar.
channel_vector_extract:
same as above, but for vectors
channels
allows you to set scalar values individually to output a color
clamp
clamps a scalar value of the range (min,max) to the range (clampMin,clampMax)
Ex: Given an input of 10, if the min is -20, the max is 20, and we're clamping to a clampMin of 0 and a clampMax of 1, the result would be a value of 0.75
color_ray_type
Like my previous environment_ray_type shader, only this exposes all of the ray types.

if_else
If the condition returns true, the "true" color is evaluated. Otherwise, the "false" color is evaluated.
if_else_boolean, if_else_int, if_else_scalar, if_else_vector
Same as above, for specific to their respective return types.

condition
Returns true or false based on these conditions:
mode 0: A == 1
mode 1: A == B
mode 2: A > B
mode 3: A < B
condition_merge
Allows you to combine conditions.
merge 0: return true if A AND B
merge 1: return true if A OR B
example workflow:
if_else:
condition->condition_merge
conditionA->condition
conditionB->condition2
mode->0
true->color1
true->color2
In coding terms, this would look something like this:
if(condition && condition2) {
return color1;
} else {
return color2;
}

ray_type:
If current ray type matches one of the tagged rays in the set, this returns true. Otherwise, ti returns false. Note the return type: You could use this as a condition in an if_else statement, or a conditioN_merge.
info:
Used to output little pieces of information (a color, a vector, a scalar, an integer and a boolean) to the mental ray output window, for debugging purposes. %f and %d signs from the text box are needed for the proper info to output. You will need to enable 'output' in the mental ray output window to see any of this shader's output.
Important note: "limit" limits the amount of times in one render that the information is printed. Although you can disabled this feature, *it is not recommended.* If you apply info to a sphere, have your camera zoomed up very close to the sphere, and then render, this shader will be evaluated THOUSANDS of times before the rendering is done. The amount of overhead produced when printing out that much data can slow down your system very quickly (especially in windows), and can quickly make max crash. If you need to disable this, lower your render resolution to at least 100x100 (I'd recommend no more than 50x50, actually).

int_to_scalar:
converts and integer to a scalar
vector_to_color:
convert a vector to a color. Not normally needed
layering_color:
For use in shader lists (will be explained later).
mode 0: add
mode 1: subtract
mode 2: multiply
mode 3: divide
layering_scalar:
Same as above, for scalars.

loopFor:
performs a for() loop:
for(i = start; i comparison end; i + increment) {
evaluate output
condition mode 0: comparison operator is <
condition mode 1: comparison operator is >
variable mode 0: output overwrites itself
variable mode 1: output is added per i
variable mode 2: output is subtracted per i
variable mode 3: output is multiplied per i
average: if enabled, divides the result by 'end' (so if you're using variable mode 1, this averages each call of output)
loopFor_scalar:
Same as above, for scalars.
loopWhile:
evaluates output while the condition is true. Alternatively, you can break out of the loop by setting the alpha value of your output (in the shader further along in the network) return a <0 value, if enabled.

A quick note on the above: The 'enabled' options are disabled by default as a security measure. Be careful using these functions, because if MR tries to run an infinite loop, it will crash (even if just in the material editor).

state_extract_boolean, state_extract_float, state_extract_int, state_extract_vector
In MR shader writing, state variables hold lots of valuable information about the scene and the point currently being evaluated, such as the intersection point, the normals, etc. etc. The state_extract series of shaders offer a way of exposing these variables within the shader network. Just apply the appropriate state_extract shader wherever you need it. The extract variable # setting sets the variable that is being extracted (you can see the numbers in the shader properties). You also have to enable extraction for whichever shader you've selected.
Most of these variables will be useless to you. I added all that were there simply because they're there. To understand which ones to use, refer to the "state variables" section of the mental ray manual.

miUtil
miUtil_vector_dot:
returns dot product of two vectors.
miUtil_vector_math:
vector math functions.
mode 0: add
mode 1: subtract (a-b)
mode 2: multiply
mode 3: divide (a/b)
mode 4: mod(a,b) (remainder of a/b)
mode 5: a^b
miUtil_vector_scale:
mode 0: mutliplies vector by a scalar
mode 1: divides vector by a scalar
miUtil_vector_neg:
reverse vector direction
miUtil_vector_normalize:
normalizes vector. Usually, you will want to normalize any direction vectors, unless they're already normalized.
miUtil_vector_norm
return |input|
miUtil_vector_minmax
mode 0: return minimum values of a & b
mode 1: maximum values of a&b

miUtil_scalar_trigFunctions, miUtil_vector_trigFunctions, miUtil_color_trigFunctions:
trig functions for respective variable types.
mode 0: cos
mode 1: sin
mode 2: tan
mode 3: acos
mode 4: asin
mode 5: atan

miUtil_scalar_math, miUtil_color_math:
math operations for scalars and colors
mode 0: add
mode 1: subtract
mode 2: multiply
mode 3: divide
mode 4: remainder
mode 5: a^b

miUtil_trace_eye:
traces an eye ray, returns a color
miUtil_trace_reflection:
trace from current point in 'direction'
miUtil_trace_refraction
miUtil_trace_transparent
miUtil_trace_environment
miUtil_trace_probe
Note: unlike all of the other miUtil_trace_ functions, which all return colors, probe returns only true or false.
miUtil_sample
Gets a quasi-monte carlo sample value.

color_average
averages a color's value, and sets all of its channels to this average
vector_average
same thing for vectors
degreesRadians
mode 0: convert degrees to radians
mode 1: convert radians to degrees
commonConstansts_scalar
return some common constants that are global constants in the mr shader writing environment.
miUtil_random
returns a random scalar value
miUtil_reflection_dir
miUtil_reflection_dir_specular
miUtil_reflection_dir_glossy
miUtil_reflection_dir_glossy_x
miUtil_reflection_dir_anisglossy
miUtil_reflection_dir_anisglossy_x
miUtil_reflection_dir_diffuse
miUtil_reflection_dir_diffuse_x
miUtil_refraction_dir
miUtil_scalar_to_color
outputs a color with all channels set to applied scalar value. If separateAlpha is enabled, you can set the alpha manually here.


You know the drill: .mi files in the mental ray include folder (shaders_autoload/include for max7+), .dll files in the mental ray shaders folder (shaders_autoload/shaders for max7+)

[-Vormav-]

And so, some simple examples of how we can use these utility shaders in the shader network:

Example 1:
Let's try building a simple black and white cel shader. One quick and easy way to do this is to make use of the shading models we already have available, and manipulate the output to get our desired result. That's what I'll be doing here.

Step 1: create a new mental ray material.
Step 2: apply an if_else shader to the surface slot. set the 'true' color to white, and the 'false' color to black.
Step 3: click the 'condition' slot of the if_else shader. Apply a 'condition' shader.
step 4: In the condition shader, click on the box for 'operatorA', and select 'Illum Blinn' (note: you need to have this shader unhidden to use it here. Otherwise, use a material to shader with a standard shader. Having a diffuse element is the important part)
step 5: go back to the condition shader. Change it's "type" to 2 (a > comparison operation). set the value of operatorB to 0.5.
Done! Apply it to a teapot, and do a quick test render. That was easy enough, no?
The first attached image shows this shader network.

Now, what if we wanted to add another level of detail to the light side of the object? You could do so the same exact way. For the "true" (white) color of your if_else shader, set another if_else shader. change the false value to, say, mid-gray. Setup everything else the same as with the other if_else shader, only this time set operator b to something higher (.75, maybe). You should now have an additional layer to your cel shader.
This doesn't have anything on a full cel shader that uses loops to get any amount of levels in the shading, but it's not bad for not touching a line of code.


Example 2:
Okay, so let's try something that's a bit more difficult. One way that you can fake diffuse lighting on your objects in a scene with no lights is by just looking at the object's dot_nd value: this is the dot product between the ray coming from the camera, and the object's normal. Here's how you can do this:

Step 1: create a new mental ray material. Apply 'scalar to color' as the surface. In the settings of this s'scalar to color' shader, enable 'separateAlpha', and set the alpha value to 1.0
step 2: For the "input" of the 'scalar to color' shader, apply a scalar math shader. We'll use this to have a multiplier of the dot_nd value.
Step 3: for the 'scalar math' shader, set the mode to 2 (multiply). For now, set "b" to 1. We can adjust that later.
Step 4: Now, to actually get the dot_nd value, we have to dig into the state variables. dot_nd is a scalar, so apply a "state_extract_float" to the material slot of "a" in your "scalar math" shader. In the shader properties of the "state_extract_float", scroll down to intersection_dot_nd, and enable it. The number of this variable is 12, so scroll back up and set "extract variable #" to 12
Render now and you get nothing. That's because the ray direction and the object's normals are pointing in opposite directions. Unless you're evaluating the backside of an object (maybe you have a two-sided object), dot_nd is always going to return a negative number.
But that's easy enought to fix: Go back to your 'scalar math' shader, and change operator 'b' to -1. Now test it out!
Shader network is shown in attachment 2.


Okay, so we've had a couple simple shaders to get a feel of the process. Now let's try to 'code' through 'networks' something more difficult: Ambient Occlusion. Don't freak out; as is the case for most shaders you encounter, ambient occlusion is actually as simple as tracing out from an object's normals, and seeing if you hit anything. There are additional levels to that: You can jitter the tracing direction, and take multiple samples and average those out to get smoother values. Or you can also bend the normals away from the occluded area to get even smoother results. But at its most basic level, all you're doing is tracing, and seeing if you've hit anything. So, let's just do it:

Step 1: Create a new mental ray material. Set an "if_else" operator as the surface shader.
step 2: for the 'condition' of the if_else shader, apply miUtil_trace_probe. Also, set the true color to black, and the false color to white (false will be our surface color). What this will be doing is seeing if our tracing operations has hit any objects, and if so it will return black. Otherwise we just get the surface color.
step 3: Now we really need to dig into the state shaders, because we have to tell the probe where to start from, and where to go. Start this by applying a state_extract_vector to 'direction'.
step 4: on the state_extract_vector, enable intersection_normal, and set extract var # to 3
step 5: go back up to the trace_probe shader, and apply another state_extract_vector shader to the 'org' setting. For this shader, enable intersection_point and set extract var # to 2.
step 6: create a plane in your scene, and place an object above it. Apply your ambient occlusion material to the plane, and render. There you have it; Ambient Occlusion in its most basic form.

Now let's consider some ways that we could "sexify" this shader: First off, when you use the tracing functions in MR, state variables store the distance that these rays travelled before reaching their intersection points. We could read in those distance values, and lighten the AO shadow the larger that distance gets.
Doing this is going to require some changes to our shader network.

Step 1:
Go to your if_else shader. Instead of black for the true color, apply a scalar to color shader. For the 'scalar to color' shader, enable "separate_alpha", and set the alpha to 1.
step 2:
for the 'input' of the 'scalar to color' shader, apply a 'state_extract_float' shader. In this shader, enable "intersection_dist", and set "extract var #" to 13.
Right now, this won't do. When a ray is cast in a shader, the results of the intersection for that ray are recorded in a child state, and we're currently extracting from the current state. Setting 'extractFrom' to 1 will make us get the distance from the child state instead, so make that change.
Step 3:
Right now, it's probably no good. We're passing our distance off as the color of our surface. But if you're dealing with the average scene, that distance is probably much greater than 1, and any value greater than 1 in a color is just going to be white. So, we need to clamp the distance value into a range of 0 to 1 (or less) so that we can see a gradient going from white to black.
First, if you don't already have a plane (with this material applied to it) and another object over the plane in your viewport, set that up. Once you've done that, select your "state_extract_float" shader, and choose to change it to clamp. When a dialogue pops up asking whether or not you want to discard the old material, choose to keep it.
step 4:
Now we need to setup our clamp. First off, set clampMax to 1. Clampmin can stay at 0. Also keep a min of 0. The 'max' value will depend on your scene scale: The higher you set your max value to, the broader the range of effect from AO is. Keep it low for a good dark to light gradient. Do render tests as you make changes, and adjust the max setting until you're satisfied.

This AO shader is getting better, but it still sucks. There is one other way that we can sexify it: We can randomly alter the direction of the ray that is traced out, within a certain range, to broaden our results. This is actually a quick step:
step 1: Go into your miUtil_trace_probe shader. Select the state_extract_vector vector shader that is applied to the direction slot. Choose to change it to miUtil_vector_math, and when the prompt comes up, choose to keep your old map.
step 2: Just as a precaution, choose to change your miUtil_vector_math shader to miUtil_normalize, and choose to keep the old map when the prompt comes up.
step 3: go into your miUtil_vector_math shader. Keep the mode at '0' (add). For 'b', apply an 'miUtil_sample' shader.
step 4: in the 'miUtil_sample' shader, set the dimension value to 2.
This shader network is shown in attachment 3.
Check your render out now. It's choppy, but it's a lot better. And you've gotten all of this without a single line of code. At this point, a full ambient occlusion shader would sample multiple times at each point, and average out the values, which would remove that choppiness you see in your render. Working with loops in the right way to be able to do this is something that I haven't quite yet found out how to do through shader networks, but I may get these utility shaders to that stage at some point. Right now, you should just be getting a good idea of the added control that these types of shaders can give you.

Enjoy!

[Brix]

Snakeye -> I did unlock the Glare (old method, deleting the "hidden"), but it doesn't seem to work anyway. :shrug:

[-Vormav-]

The glare shader works fine in the Max8 trial. If you're not seeing it anywhere, remember that it is applied as an output shader (render->rendering tab->output slot).
Also, to see its effect on the render, set the quality to at least 3.

[KORBAC]

thanks Vorman for your effort and contribution to mental ray community.Your explanations are very informative and useful for us who are stick whith "base" mental ray shaders.Thanks for sharing those shaders!

[DaveKW]

Glare (lume) is working now. At first, although it did render, for some reason the effect was completely over the top and nothing like it's R7 counterpart. For some reason it's sorted itself out :shrug:

[psv]

thanx VORMAV you are the best !:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: thx again for sharing ....


cheers Sorin

[stefan]

MegaTk shader in max. But U need mrGeomShaderObject.dlo from rdg's post /thanks once again/ here- http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2704526&postcount=2656

megaTK-
Download- http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/download/shaders_p_e.shtml
More info- http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/download/megatk_e.shtml
Tutorial- http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/tutorials/howtomegatk_e.shtml

Hope it is not agains any law to post thous links.

[EmpY]

MegaTk shader in max. But U need mrGeomShaderObject.dlo from rdg's post /thanks once again/ here- http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2704526&postcount=2656

megaTK-
Download- http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/download/shaders_p_e.shtml
More info- http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/download/megatk_e.shtml
Tutorial- http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/tutorials/howtomegatk_e.shtml

Hope it is not agains any law to post thous links.


Stefan, you are fantastic! This is bloody awesome!! Thank you sooo much, I just tested it in max8 (saved out passes in exr) and it works like a charm. And your MEGA shader is totaly amazing.

I can not tell you how helpfull this is!!! THANKS!!:bowdown:

[stefan]

It is not my shader I just found it. All credits go to rdg and puppet /also here around but in maya forum./
If someone is interested go for ctrl-buffers shader from francescaluce here- http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=1961208&postcount=1

I did not tested it so...But it shoud do same job.

[rdg]

-Vormav-
thank you!
You shader-utils are great. :thumbsup:

Georg

[rdg]

It is not my shader I just found it. All credits go to rdg

And I found the mrGeometryObject.dll - no need for credits, either.
The source for this is in the MAXsdk, i just compiled it.

Georg

[rdg]

-Vormav-

do you have a utility to calculate the distance between two scenenodes?
Maybe
Node A = the object the shader is assigned to OR a an arbitrary Node
Node B = an arbitrary Node

returns the distance.

Or is this possible with your utilities?
I tried to use the utils and a Point3 Expression, but stumbled.
I will try more.

Georg

[EmpY]

It is not my shader I just found it. All credits go to rdg and puppet /also here around but in maya forum./
If someone is interested go for ctrl-buffers shader from francescaluce here- http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=1961208&postcount=1

I did not tested it so...But it shoud do same job.


Thanks for the info Stefan! I'll go look for puppet now.:thumbsup:

cheers

[EmpY]

And I found the mrGeometryObject.dll - no need for credits, either.
The source for this is in the MAXsdk, i just compiled it.

Georg

Thanks for mrGeometryObject.dlo RGD! awesome!

[-Vormav-]

rdg - That would require additional utilities for handling miTags. I'm still trying to figure out a clean way to implement that. I'm hoping to write a utility shader that can read through the scene dag somewhat reliably, in which case you could do that without too much trouble.
The only real problem is that, once you start dealing with tags and that sort of thing, this type of shader becomes extremely unstable (one simple error in the shader network = crash). But I think it'll be doable.
Apart from that, I'm planning on another state_extract for miTags, usable 'for' and 'while' loops (the current ones are mostly useless in that you can't currently pass data up the shader network), light looops, light and object lists, and maybe some utilities that allow this kind of work flow for output shaders. Heh, just need another week off. :sad:

[fhodshon]

here's a really dumb question.

after getting the MegaTK stuff loaded, i created a p_megaTK shader but can't for the life of me assign it to any objects in my scene.

suggestions?

thanks in advance.

fred

[Toxic Frog]

I'm in need of a file or tutorial on making a good bone shader (for teeth) in Mental Ray. Anyone have any resources or suggestions?

[JasonCamp]

what type of light are you useing ? raytrace / or shadow map

[fhodshon]

how may one accomplish this:

6. Create p_MegaTK_pass geometry shader and assign it to transform node of dummy object(cube).

?

fred

[Toxic Frog]

what type of light are you useing ? raytrace / or shadow map

I'm using raytraced lights

[EmpY]

how may one accomplish this:

6. Create p_MegaTK_pass geometry shader and assign it to transform node of dummy object(cube).

?

fred


I attached an image that answers your questions. Check it out.
cheers

[-Vormav-]

Quick MR rendering tip, slightly OT I guess:
Though it's rare for someone to need to use orthographic cameras when rendering with MR, there are those special cases where it's necessary. And then when you do try to render with them, it's fairly common for MR to report that some feature you're using (view-dependent tesselation, z-depth, whatever) isn't compatible with an orthographic camera.
There's a fairly simple way that we can fake this effect, using a reverse camera, parenting, and some of the miUtil shaders I posted awhile back. We can fake MR into thinking that we're using a perspective camera, and then use a reflection to redirect rays orthogonally.

First, create a plain old 'free' camera. Toggle its "orthographic projection" option, and rename the camera 'camOrtho01.' This will be used to preview the orthographic view. Shift-rotate 180 degrees to create a 'copy' of the same camera, facing the other direction. Rename the duplicate to 'camPersp01', and make sure its 'orthographic projection' option is disabled. Parent 'camPersp01' under 'camOrtho01.'

Now, create a plane (1x1 segments, no reason to go higher) and name it 'planeOrtho01'. Use the align tool to align both the position and the orientation of this plane to 'camPersp01'. After that, parent the plane under 'camPersp01.' Switch to the local reference coordinate system, and push the plane out along its z-axis, such that it will be visible to camPersp01.
To avoid rendering issues later, go into the properties of planeOrtho01 and uncheck "visible to reflection/refractions", "receive shadows" and "cast shadows." Go into the "mental ray" tab from the properties menu, and disable everything. We only want this plane to reflect. That's all.


Now for the simple shader for the plane (the only reason that this quick tip is semi-on topic ;)). Create a new mental ray material. For the surface shader, use an miUtil_trace_reflection shader. Normal reflection shaders use functions (exposed with the miUtil_reflection_dir shaders) that take into account the direction that the eye ray is coming into the surface. We're going to ignore that, and just redirect the rays directly out from the plane. Apply state_extract_vector to the direction of the miUtil_trace_reflection_shader. In the state_extract_vector shader, enable the "intersection_normal_geom" option, and set 'extract variable #' to 4 (note: in a simple plane like this, unless we've screwed with the normals, the regular and interpolated normals are going to point in the same exact direction; that is, straight out from the surface. So we could use intersection_normal instead, without any problems).
Apply the material to planeOrtho01, and you should be set. Use camOrtho01 to preview your scene, but render from camPersp01. You can either adjust the lens/fov of camPersp01 or simply move planeOrtho01 along its local z axis to adjust the orthographic view you get in the rendering. Since we're also mirroring the render, you may need to scale or rotate your rendered images in post.
The advantage here is that MR thinks you're doing a perspective rendering, so you can use any feature you want without getting those "x feature doesn't work with this camera" errors.

[fhodshon]

EmpY,

THANKS!

i kinda hacked my way through that portion. Always nice to have confirmation!!!

now (to overstay my welcome), i'm having trouble getting the render pass files to show anything other than complete white.

thoughts?

thanks again!!!


oh, and pardon my ignorance, what is the advantage of rendering out individual component passes over a single full render?

fred

[-Vormav-]

oh, and pardon my ignorance, what is the advantage of rendering out individual component passes over a single full render?
With multiple passes, you can easily change things in post with near-realtime playback - make shadows softer, lighting brighter or dimmer. You can easily tweak your render to perfection, where single pass renders would require repeated rerendering, which really sucks when you're dealing with even mild render times.
Doing some things like rendering scenes in layers (often necessary when rendering larger scenes) or many post-processing effects (fog, dof, relighting, 2d motion blur, glow, etc.) require certain elements to be rendered individually as well.

[fhodshon]

Vormav:

beautifully put. THANK YOU!

now, if i could only get my passes to show.

one of these days i'll get it.

fred

[fhodshon]

sorry that i need to be baby-stepped through this, BUT:

here's the error message i get when i render:

MSG 0.0 warn : C:\3dsmax8\RenderOutput: Image format not supported by mental ray. Will pass the image as raw data (slower and more memory consuming).

MSG 0.0 error: Image file "C:\3dsmax8\RenderOutput" is not supported by mental ray nor 3dsmax.

ideas?


fred

[KORBAC]

ignore that masagge,everything is ok,you get all your render passes

[fhodshon]

thanks Korbac,

ignored, however, at least half the passes are not recognizable by photoshop.

also, what layer mode and sequence is used to comp the passes?

if there's a "comp" tutorial somewhere, i'll be glad to study that rather than waste bandwidth here.

this method looks especially promising. i hope my questions are helping others.

fred

[EmpY]

fhodshon, there is tutorial link on how to comp the passes a few pages before, I think.

I used openEXR (in p_MegaTK_pass set "otput format" to 1) and comped all the passes in fusion 5, works perfectly....or, shake , nuke, etc...will do it too.

Also, you can get the openEXR photoshop plugin here: http://www.openexr.com/photoshop_plugin.html

hope this helps

[fhodshon]

EmpY:

thanks for the tip and the plugin link.

i am now able to open all the passes in photoshop.

although, most look like this:

http://www.hodshon.com/ff.diffuse.0000.jpg

[-Vormav-]

I think they only turn out like that if you don't use his special lights as well. At least, from the information I saw on the site, p_megaTK was only compatible with his own custom lights.

[fhodshon]

YES!

i had the light shader assigned, but - not enabled.

ALL THE PASSES LOOK GOOD! YIP.

now, to learn how to layer them properly.

full steam ahead.

THANKS ALL!

fred

---update:

comp'd in photoshop, VERY cool! i'm assuming that the "PLUS" translates to screen mode.

seems to work.

i agree now, it is nice having component control over the final result.

f

[Bao2]

As said in Post 2750, I've tried replicate a photo, not the 28 nor 29 but the 17 one you
can get here (http://www.rebelscum.com/mr/mr-obiwan-asbuilt-17.jpg).

Below is a render attached. Not GI nor FinalGather, only MentalRay renderer. If you turn on FinalGather or GI you must adjust the lights to lower intensity also.

You can download the Max 8 scene (http://download.filefront.com/4437148;f8efb6e09096c05209d023d2c32f45abb6e14ebbc020b43e03ab78b9b74732105810edf778c61d2b).

[JasonCamp]

nice reproduction/ yours has better lightin and contrast , the original has more ray trace [reflection] depth but theres no telling really wich would be the photo


on a side note , not sure if i asked this yet ... but if i havent ive been meaning to for the longest time... is it just me .. am i doing something wrong ... i cant get gi or caustics with a max6 photometric area light ... puting a area light with caustics/gi on and enabled in a box room with lets say a teapot or a cube gets no gi for me

[Bao2]

the original has more ray trace [reflection] depth

i cant get gi or caustics with a max6 photometric area light ... puting a area light with caustics/gi on and enabled in a box room with lets say a teapot or a cube gets no gi for me

The steel object is the more difficult. The reflection of the metal (lume) don't works
like the original and the raytrace does but can't be blurred. So my solution to it
was composite the two. The depth in the original is because it have a surface more
nitid, mine is more full of dirt, but when I tried less dirt the material looked worst. Perhaps
someone can enhance it? I just now am bored about lightsabers. But in a few days I perhaps
try finish it, even perhaps turning it on? :eek:

Hellion:
In this scene there are three photometric area lights. I was not using GI but one of my tests used GI on and Caustics on and I saw the GI effect on it, but I agree I didn't see
the Caustics effect (reflection of the metal parts on something) perhaps the light was very much weak I don't know. I would increase the amount of caustic photons and the strength of the light, I think photometric lights can do caustics. But as I said I was not
viewing it in my tests but I think I could be doing something wrong.

[JasonCamp]

yea i know what you mean on the reflection on metal lume... i tried a lot of combinations and compositing falloff's and sorts of things,theres not much options for blury relections ...

photometric omni's and spots and wave pattern lights work just greate for global illum/caustics..
its just when i try a linear light / area light that my caustics and gi dont show up ...

actually if im correct , light thats bouncing off a reflective surface is gi photons and caustics are just from transparent objects that have a refraction , well in both cases i get none heh ... also i found if you have caustics on but dont have anything that "a) generates phontons other then the light b) is transparent and has a ior" then the renderer will try and find spots that are transparent and have a ior and that really takes a long time because it wont find any...

mr area lights get gi / caustics but are really hard to get a photo light setup for me anyways... i judge by lumes or cd power gives me a warm and fuzzy to think its similar to real world light numbers heh

[Bao2]

also i found if you have caustics on but dont have anything that "a) generates phontons other then the light b) is transparent and has a ior" then the renderer will try and find spots that are transparent and have a ior

Yes the objects must be set to generate caustics. I put them but I can't saw caustics.
When the render spend time without any logic look at his message window (Rendering / mental ray Message Window) and it tells always what is happen. If it says can't store photons you can fix it putting some map in the photon slot. Using max materials avoids you
forgetting that when using GI or Caustics.

[JasonCamp]

i tried puting a photon basic/ other photon shaders on all objects a few times ... i cant remember what it messed up but it didnt render the correct way... it might have been with final gather i cant remember heh

but another way to stop it saying that it cant store any 'caustic' photons is if you dont have anything thats transparent and has a ior to turn off caustics because theres nothing that uses caustics if theres no transparent objects , this is from what i am guessing also but it seams right , that does remind me to try putin on the photon shaders with a photometric area light tho...

[JasonCamp]

ok heres a example ... same settings [area light 'area' also] for the most part besides the light brightness values that i couldnt match it i wanted too ...

the one with the caustics and gi is the mr area omni
the one that has no gi/caustics is the photometric area

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/37/testcell0015gf.jpg
http://img275.imageshack.us/img275/4169/testcell0027tm.jpg

[JeffPatton]

Theres nothing wrong with the photometric area light & caustics or GI. Simply put, photometric lights are physically based lights. As such, they require you to model to scale. If your scene scale is outta whack, it throws everything off. Therefore the caustics/GI photons aren't visible (but they are being created)

I'll stop there because this is really a lighting question/issue, and not a MR material related deal, therefore OT for this particular thread.

[gulio]

Hi all,
this is my first post at this thread, which is amazing btw. I´ve spend some weeks to read the whole thread from the beginning on, and want to thank you buddys for your generous attitude to share all this valuable information.
Now, I tried this mega_tk thing with max 7.5 with mr. 3.4.2.76. When I start max I get the this message

MSG 0.0 error: Shader declaration 'p_environment' has no apply type. This shader cannot be used in 3ds max until it has at least one apply type.
MSG 0.0 error: Shader declaration 'p_saturation' has no apply type. This shader cannot be used in 3ds max until it has at least one apply type.
MSG 0.0 error: Shader declaration 'p_color_to_float' has no apply type. This shader cannot be used in 3ds max until it has at least one apply type.
MSG 0.0 error: Shader declaration 'p_buffer_writer' has no apply type. This shader cannot be used in 3ds max until it has at least one apply type.

I can setup my scene as discribed with the p_megaTK_pass shader assigned to the mr_geom_shader dummy, but when I start my render max crashes with this message

mental ray has encountered a fatal error and the application will now shutdown. The error is:

DB 0.2 fatal 041061: invalid tag value 0x3f333333 requested

or I had also the message that a mi_openexr.dll is missing.

I´ve read anywhere that one can use this megaTK only with max 8, any ideas...:curious:

[-Vormav-]

I´ve read anywhere that one can use this megaTK only with max 8, any ideas...:curious:
That's right. More specifically, it requires MR 3.4.

[JasonCamp]

hello all... been thinking ... just told bao in a pm that caustics are only created with a transparent object that has a ior... but i just put a dgs mat on a standard object and it was creating a caustic trail...or so it seamed ... does anybody know if caustics are generated by reflections ? i could have swore it was global illum photons were bounced from objects and caustics were just transparent refractions... this actualy does make a differnce because like i said on a standard material i dont get a single caustic photon but if i change it to use a dgs photon shader then it doesnt seam to matter if its transparent or not i get caustic photons ... and a normal raytrace with transparency and a refraction gives caustic photons right ? arg see what happens when i start making q4 maps i go an lose it all

[rodrigogua]

caustis can be created through reflection too

[JasonCamp]

wow i just noticed that the material was still useing the same dgs caustic pattern even after i took it off and put the lock back on it ... then i changed the material it was useing and the caustic pattern went away... this is a trip

well anyway sorry bao i must be out of it ... i didnt mean to tell you wrongfull information

[gulio]

Hi Vormav,
thanks for your reply. I´ve installed max 8 meanwhile and the mega_tk seams to work.
I still get the messages of the missing apply types but max don´t crashes anylonger. When I render my scene I also get the messages like fhodshon posted earlier

MSG 0.0 warn : C:\3dsmax8\RenderOutput: Image format not supported by mental ray. Will pass the image as raw data (slower and more memory consuming).

MSG 0.0 error: Image file "C:\3dsmax8\RenderOutput" is not supported by mental ray nor 3dsmax.

As I understand the belonging post replies this seems not to be a problem, but my rendered .exr files contain nothing but black.
I´ve tried various adjustments but could not find i.e the place where I can determin the settings of the .exr files like I can in the normal render dialog when I choose .exr as output format.
If someone would be so kind as to post a little scene where mega_tk is working and I could check the settings, I would be very grateful.

[-Vormav-]

gulio - What kind of surface materials did you use in your scene? That pass shader only works if you've used the pMegaTK surface shader. Nothing else will output to those framebuffers, and so you'll always get black if you use other shaders.
As for the apply type errors, check your .mi file and make sure that every shader declaration has a line like "apply material" in there. The .mi file in the Max folder with the latest download does have apply types for everything, but you might be using a different version? (the Maya versions don't all have apply types). If you find any declarations like that, it usually works to just add "apply texture" below or above the version line.

[gulio]

The .mi file in the Max folder with the latest download does have apply types for everything, but you might be using a different version?

Hi Vormav,
what Max folder do you refer to, I had this p_megaTK shaders from the website of "puppet" downloaded? Anyway, I´ve filled in the "apply material" in the corresponding shader declaration and the messages don´t appear any longer. Btw, does it matter if it´s "apply material" or "apply texture" in this case? (sorry, if this is a really a stupid question:rolleyes:)
I tried to assign a mental ray mat and in the surface slot the p_megaTK shader and adjusted the colours and values so that I could see a shaded material in the sample slots. Also I tried with a standard max mat and the p_megaTK in the diffuse slot.
Beside the message
MSG 0.0 warn : C:\3dsmax8\RenderOutput: Image format not supported by mental ray. Will pass the image as raw data (slower and more memory consuming).

MSG 0.0 error: Image file "C:\3dsmax8\RenderOutput" is not supported by mental ray nor 3dsmax.

there appears this one
PHEN 0.2 warn : p_MegaTK cannot use zero or negative index of refraction 0.000000 (using 1.0)

The render frame buffer displays in both cases the image but I´ve got the same black .exr files. When I open the .exr files with "view image file" I can view the file informations which tell me that there are 3 channels 16bit fp, a data windows size, a display window size and so on. Look´s ok imho. I would really like to see this running, because it looks very promising to me.

[-Vormav-]

The .zip that you get from his site has two separate versions of the shaders for Maya and Max. The shaders in the 'Max' folder from the zip have apply types for all of the shader declarations. The shaders in the 'Maya' folder do not.
The distinction between 'apply texture' and 'apply material' usually doesn't matter in Max, since Max decides where you can apply most things based on their return types. Apply types only come into play for other types of shaders: shadow, lens, output, environment, etc.
When you first apply the p_megaTK shader as the surface shader of an MR material, do you see a blue diffuse material in the sample window (you did say that you had to make some changes to see anything)? If you're not, Max might not be processing the gui declaration for some reason (and if it was failing to do that, then the "custom buffer" options at the bottom of the megaTK shader wouldn't be set properly - in which case your geometry shader would output the images, but nothing would have been written to them so they would be pure black).
If you've had to add any apply flags at all, you might want to try downloading the whole set all over again. If you've used the .mi files within the Max folder of the .zip file, then you really shouldn't be getting any apply errors at all... So maybe other parts of the files your using are bad too? :shrug:

[relics71s]

I've tried using the dielectric shader in Max 8 but I'm getting a lot of artifacts when I render.

Does anyone know of a max equivalent of this?

http://home.broadpark.no/~rslettli/lob_glass.html (this was done for Maya)

Thanks very much for any help.

[-Vormav-]

The Maya version of l_glass actually works just fine in Max. Just copy the default options from the .mi file into the shader properties in Max when you go to use it.

[relics71s]

Thanks very much....


Noob question...

How do I install in max?

[Puppet|]

I can see hot discussion about my p_MegaTK shader here.

Any questions?
Sorry I can't read all post here, maybe you'll create new topic or ask me here.

to fhodshon:

comp'd in photoshop, VERY cool! i'm assuming that the "PLUS" translates to screen mode.

PLUS in Photoshop is Linear Dodge mode, but not Screen.

Sorry, Max version lower 8.0 don't support p_MegaTK_pass shader because bug in mental ray.
But you can use p_MegaTK shader without passes.


MSG 0.0 warn : C:\3dsmax8\RenderOutput: Image format not supported by mental ray. Will pass the image as raw data (slower and more memory consuming).

MSG 0.0 error: Image file "C:\3dsmax8\RenderOutput" is not supported by mental ray nor 3dsmax.
Forget about it. It not influence at all. It's only max specific problem, I still can't fix this warning. I don't know why it happend, sorry. Maybe I'll fix it in future versions.

[Bao2]

I've tried using the dielectric shader in Max 8 but I'm getting a lot of artifacts when I render.
Does anyone know of a max equivalent of this?
http://home.broadpark.no/~rslettli/lob_glass.html (http://home.broadpark.no/%7Erslettli/lob_glass.html) (this was done for Maya)


You prefer v1.2 instead v2.0beta?
v1.2: Page 114, Post 1708
v2.0: Page 179, Post 2671
Version 2 is far far better.

[JeffPatton]

Thanks very much....

Noob question...

How do I install in max?

Also if you're new to MR & this thread, be sure to review the info in post #1. In post #1, I've tried to compile information for the most common questions. How & where to install the .mi & .dll files is one such topic.

[relics71s]

Thanks a bunch Jose,

I tried using the search but it doesn't show which page in this very long MR thread l_glass was discussed.



Thanks very much Jeff.

I'll be sure to rember the next time I browse this thread :)

[gulio]

Hi Vormav,
you put me on the right track :applause: . Stupid me didn´t unzip the file with recusiv pathes on, instead I just opened the file and grabed the first .mi file I saw, which you guess right was the Maya version. So everything looks pretty good, also the menu templates in the mat editor are now well stuctured. In the former attempts they were really confusing. So now, I have plenty to play around with and would like to thank you very much for you patience and your detailed explanations which will be a milestone on my way to perfection. :thumbsup:
I´m once again absolutely delighted by this thread. :bounce::bounce::bounce:

[audienceofone]

Hi! I've been following this thread for a long time now, and it sure has helped me a lot.

But I need help this time.
I have modeled a car (yet unfinished) and I was trying to reproduce an original nissan scene.
I've been using the cgtalk.mat materials only with different colours.

http://pwp.netcabo.pt/straight/cgtalk/primera.jpg

In this scene I have 3 white (output) planes for reflections and a skylight (no map multipl.1.0) I have tried with different lighting and this is the closest I've been to the original.

The car paint seems different, and I've tried messing with the gradient ramp, because it seems the colours get too dark before they reach 90º normals :(

The headlight chrome/billet is also too dark, or either too reflective :\ I can't seem to figure out the settings... (Please don't mind the glasses and the visible seams, I just mirrored the model, no welding yet. Oh and the Rims aren from a different Primera)

If anyone can be of assistance...

Thanks in advance,
Rui

[Werewolf006]

Quick question, I have an interior scene and whenever I use mental ray some geometry that has details get serious artifact what setting I should amend to prevent that, anybody knows?
thanks in advance.
Her's a small Pic below it is a scanline render
BTW I'm using Max 8, final gather samples around 200, radius of about 250cm ~ Hight of the window

[JasonCamp]

hello , that is a sampling per pixel 'antialiasing' issue, just goto the render dialog, then goto renderer, at the top left where it says samples per pixel change it to 1 min and 4 max.. it takes longer but it should clear that up ... the more min and max samples you use the higher detail that will show up always more max then min tho never the same

[Dodgeas3d]

Can anyone check this out I'm on dead end.... ?

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=301076

Thanks!

[-Vormav-]

hello , that is a sampling per pixel 'antialiasing' issue, just goto the render dialog, then goto renderer, at the top left where it says samples per pixel change it to 1 min and 4 max.. it takes longer but it should clear that up ... the more min and max samples you use the higher detail that will show up always more max then min tho never the same
Though that's usually right, there really isn't anything wrong with having them both the same. Actually, if you're doing any post work with z-depth, object-ids, or any of the other aliased channels, you'd get the best results in post if you rendered everything out with both min and max at 1 (ensuring that your aliased channels match up perfectly with the rest of your render - because this is the only setting that those channels render out at).
But don't mind me, I'm just nitpicking. :p

audienceofone - Just one quick idea: Maybe instead of just using white planes to create the reflective highlights, you should also throw in some actual lights where the planes are as well. That should give you some sharper highlights. I don't think that one skylight is really going to be a good enough lighting solution for that shot. For instance, note the point where a shadow is being cast from the rearview mirror onto the car; they definitely didn't get that angle in the shadow with any sort of skylight setup!

[JasonCamp]

yea it looks to me like they used a area light and bounced it off a standard plane of some sort... thats usually how they do it in normal camera shots , why break from the normal heh... nice car tho...

vormav- thanks for the heads up on that sampiling
Dodgeas3d (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=75537) - is that shadow maps on a transucent shader ? shadow maps dont work with anything that says translucent

[Werewolf006]

Thanks For the Tip Hellion and Vormav it worked well. so if I pumped both of them up more it will take more time and look even beter?

audienceofone a Suggestion: maybe if you post a scene containing the light setup we can help you and study the situation more. Just replace the car with a teapot of the same Mat.
if you want.

[JasonCamp]

yea just be prepared that the higher you set those the longer it takes to render... looks cristal clear tho...

[Bao2]

1) Theres nothing wrong with the photometric area light & caustics or GI.
2) they require you to model to scale.
3) I'll stop there because this is really a lighting question/issue, and not a MR material related deal, therefore OT for this particular thread.

1) I've been testing Hellion's scene he sent to me (Max 6). There are problems with photometric area lights in Max 6 but no with Max 8. The glass was a Raytrace material but the same results are using the glass physics phen.
2) Test scene was cup of glass modelled to scale
3) It was material related in Max 6. I only could achieve caustics turning off "Enable Area
Sampling" option in the Photometric Area Light, and also if the Photon slot in the Mental
Ray Connection of the glass material (raytrace) was used.
Artifacts were produced using Raytrace map in Reflection map slot and not using Photon slot.
Turning off the enable area sampling option the shadows were normal (no the soft area ones) but it was the only way to do caustics with photometric area light and raytrace material. So the only way to have caustics with photometric area was forcing it in photometric non area behaviour.
Using a glass physics phen as the material was the same result.
As said the scene was rendering without problems in Max 8.

Note: I don't think caustics as off topic. Caustics are material dependant: no material no caustics, bad material bad caustics. I think caustics are on topic. But just my opinion.

[hjalle]

I have a problem with the table. I have a Mental lume on the wood to get a weak bluri reflection. And it don't look so good.
(The brass circuit switch looks like a Christmas tree decoration, I know)
Is it some other way to get bluri reflektion in MR. (MaxR6)

[JasonCamp]

wow thats intricate, more samples ? also if you do a high detailed bumpmap thats noisy and a specular map it makes it more blury
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/9945/ashiningheadache6ka.jpg
this wood was done without a metal lume also so thats why theres not much bluryness

re: bao yea the parti volume shaders on the glass were to give it a fogy look on purpose it took a lot of looking at glass, and i found that some glass isn't compleatly transparent... also its a template glass i have made for doing sss colored glass , parti volume is the only way i know how to do sss in max6.
also did you know you turned off generate caustics on the area light ? i just noiced that ... i dont think it maters because ive seen stuff make caustics when the light doesnt have it on but it says to have it on i think.
also the reason it was taking so long to render , is those raytrace materials i think they are meant to have reflections turned on just a little bit. try turning on the reflect just a little bit on that room2's materal , it will speed up the render 100%
oh yea on the Obi Wan Kenobi light saber, could you take a screen shot of the material editor maps tree , also hjalle ? could see what your settings are and might help dunno.. :)

[JeffPatton]

1) I've been testing Hellion's scene he sent to me (Max 6). There are problems with photometric area lights in Max 6 but no with Max 8. The glass was a Raytrace material but the same results are using the glass physics phen.
2) Test scene was cup of glass modelled to scale
3) It was material related in Max 6. I only could achieve caustics turning off "Enable Area
Sampling" option in the Photometric Area Light, and also if the Photon slot in the Mental
Ray Connection of the glass material (raytrace) was used.
Artifacts were produced using Raytrace map in Reflection map slot and not using Photon slot.
Turning off the enable area sampling option the shadows were normal (no the soft area ones) but it was the only way to do caustics with photometric area light and raytrace material. So the only way to have caustics with photometric area was forcing it in photometric non area behaviour.
Using a glass physics phen as the material was the same result.
As said the scene was rendering without problems in Max 8.


I'm attaching a simple Max6 photometric area light/caustic scene. To help illustrate that a photometric area light can indeed create caustic photons. Naturally the settings between this Max6 version (MR 3.2) and newer versions (Max7 & 8) will not be 100% transferrable since they handle photons differently (and more efficiently).

[JeffPatton]

the car paint seems different, and I've tried messing with the gradient ramp, because it seems the colours get too dark before they reach 90º normals :(
-Vormav- is spot on, I've also found that paint materials generally work better if you use actual area lights instead of light cards. So, try replacing those cards & skylight with MR spotlights (and be sure to enable the "visible in render" option).

I'm attaching a test studio render using area lights instead of light cards.

[JasonCamp]

I'm attaching a simple Max6 photometric area light/caustic scene. To help illustrate that a photometric area light can indeed create caustic photons. Naturally the settings between this Max6 version (MR 3.2) and newer versions (Max7 & 8) will not be 100% transferrable since they handle photons differently (and more efficiently).

jeff thanks for the help, i know this isn't 100% on topic but...

well i opened up the scene and had a look , well it took forever, and well i think bao and myself forgot to mention yes we got some caustics , just not ones where they should be , bao got caustics from a box instead of the glass ,and i got some caustics that were off to the side of the light and im still not sure where it came from heh.

the picture you posted from your test ,the caustics are away from where they should be, and seams to be coming from the top of the helix instead of the bottom where its most intense caustic should be showing up. and there not anywhere the way they should look...take that area light and just uncheck the use area sampling , wich is not an area light anymore but it generates caustics the correct way .., also with a identical 'nearly' mr area omni the caustics look just fine[and even better then the standard light caustics imo]

the global illumination was also what i was refering too... the gi is jacked up as much as the caustics ....depending on different materials things changed, i put a raytrace brass like mat on a lampshade type model and placed the area light inside where it would be the lightbulb, and i got great caustics ,too much infact... just only from the lamp shade, and nothing else , nomater what i changed even an box with the same brass material i hear that it is a max6 issue , hopefully i get this job friday and soon ill upgrade to 8 or whenever i can...

i noticed that i had my main surrounding box with generate caustics on, its hard to tell , this is the 3rd test file i started so im not sure what my file was set at when i sent it to bao .[sorry bao for any gray hairs i might have caused]
all i know is there are no correct caustics when the main box was set to generate caustics .. but still that doesnt change the fact that the photometric area light doesnt generate the caustics in the same manor as a mr area omni... wich seams to be correct .
also another oops i thought i knew... i think i was saying that if you texture those standard materials even with a noise map in the defuse / bump / specular ..it gets rid of the warning no photons stored, well it might still but i noticed that when i unchecked the main box of the generate caustics, the error stoped 'probably it was creating a hall of mirrors like caustic trail that never ended because the whole box was generating caustics.it does speed up the render about 60% i went from a 6 min render time to a 2 min render time , but that might just be because it doesnt have to bounce the photons as far because the surface is spliting it up more...

so this does help some i think, sometimes i might accidently click that box when i am in a fast rush... wich might explain a few things im not geting caustics from , because the object that is at the end of the trail should not generate any more , sort of a landing spot / is this making sence ?
also i added a comparison shot same everything except i used the mr area spot/ and adjusted the energy to compare... damn i love the color of the photometric light tho, looks more like a florescent light.. oh well ill just settle for the mr area spot until i get max9000
thanks for the help tho bao/jeff i think it might have been that check box... also it sometimes seams like mental ray and max have a mind of there own so i think i know what im saying but if i go back and try to do it again , it makes me a liar http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/icons/icon9.gif

[theotheo]

Just a quick question.

Have anyone portet Alan Jones Genietail volume render to max yet?

http://binaryiris.com/main/?id=GenieTail

[Bao2]

try turning on the reflect just a little bit on that room2's materal , it will speed up the render 100%


I would never think about it. Many thanks Hellion! Running to try it.:thumbsup:

[Bao2]

a photometric area light can indeed create caustic photons. Naturally the settings between this Max6 version (MR 3.2) and newer versions (Max7 & 8) will not be 100% transferrable since they handle photons differently (and more efficiently).

Thanks Jeff for look into this.
I opened your max 6 file and rendered (image Max6_01). Then I moved the torus back
(Max6_02) and after a little to the left (Max6_03). All these images show the paranormal
caustics Max6 does with photometric area lights. You just turn off "Enable Area Sampling" in
the mental ray Area Light Sampling rollout of the light (so it is now a normal light instead an area one) and you get the correct caustics like those showed in the Max8 renderings as comparison.
So as I said, you can't do caustics with photometric area lights in Max6.

[gulio]

MR spotlights (and be sure to enable the "visible in render" option).

Hi Jeff,
can you tell me please where the place is to enable "visible in render", I only know this from the spline modelling. :shrug:

[JeffPatton]

Hi Jeff,
can you tell me please where the place is to enable "visible in render", I only know this from the spline modelling. :shrug:
Sorry, I get those terms mixed up too. It's called "Show icon in Renderer" and it's in the area light parameters rollout.

[JeffPatton]

Hellion & Bao2 - Obvoiusly I've misunderstood your post(s) on this subject. I understood you both to say that photometric area lights simply could not create caustics. Which is obviously not true. Now whether those caustics are physically correct or not, that's another question, for another thread.

And Bao2, I understand your point here:
Note: I don't think caustics as off topic. Caustics are material dependant: no material no caustics, bad material bad caustics. I think caustics are on topic. But just my opinion.
But you're really not discussing the photon shaders, it's moreso a topic about area light settings & how they affect caustics in Max6 correct? And as such, I still feel this should be in a separate thread. I'm not a moderator here, and I feel silly everytime I have to say "this is OT" here. Because it's just my opinion, and I feel like I'm forcing my opinion on others (which really bothers me). But honestly, I'm only trying to maintain the original focus of the thread:
Note from moderator
Hey guys, I moved this to the resources forum to have a focussed discussion about the creation of mental ray shaders, please keep it that and that alone. if you are having errors and shaderunrelated questions about mental ray, please use the regular maxforum

Cheers, Equinoxx
Now this includes myself...Obvoiusly I've gone OT with lighting comments here as well. So I don't want you to think that I'm excluding myself from this. Bottom line, lighting & materials go hand in hand. But if we lumped both lighting & materials into one thread, it would be a monster thread that would be a pain in the @ss to search through (much like this one) when you need a specific answer.

Well, that's just my thoughts. If you guys think I'm wrong, or being overly anal about this...I'll shut up. :shrug:

[Bao2]

And Bao2, I understand your point here:
But you're really not discussing the photon shaders, it's moreso a topic about area light settings & how they affect caustics in Max6 correct?

Yes the solution to achieve caustics working well was turning off that option in the light so
you are right about this as off topic. But while analyzing the scene I was viewing different results if a standard material or a raytrace material was used as glass (even you used
a distinct material: the glass physics phen) and I still think if with each material the result
of the caustics are so different (truly paranormal with standard materials) it was on topic
and that I think yet. I really think all the characteristics that change with using a material or
another is on topic: reflections and his artefacts (people are posting these outside this thread and so every week we have some post about it), refractions and artifacts, caustics, glows, etc while it be so because the material used.
But I understand you Jeff and I think you are more right in this than I, I know it is in the
limit of on topic with some leg out of it. :)

[JasonCamp]

well really i think this is the reason i was holding off on posting anything about the area lights , mainly because it was light realated. but then i was hearing about people saying that photons dont react correct until you put photon shaders on. so i was tring this and still didnt get anything differnt then normal reactions with gi and caustics. but by puting a photon basic on i did get more of a control of gi and caustics when they did show. thought i would ask everybody if it was just max6 that i couldnt get correct looking caustics with the area light or was i doing something wrong with the photon shaders . also it was hard to tell if the material i was useing just wouldnt do correct caustics ... wich when i used a mr area spot with a box like area just the same 'like' setings as the photometric the caustics on the material showed up fine so i answerd my own question really on that one but still was not sure because in jeffs post he was geting caustics with a photometric area. glass phen being just the same as a raytrace with a dgs material photon shader on 'more or less ' ,

im druling over those max8 shots bao , also in the max6 02 thats with area sampling off right ? i hope so because with a lot less energy that would be correct caustics ..

hmm now off to test mr area lights and sss parti volume [somebody kill me plz]

re: hjalle oh also i forgot in a earlyer post i said did you try more samples on the metal lume i mean to ask if you tried more samples and more spread .. also.. sorry..

[JeffPatton]

I really think all the characteristics that change with using a material or
another is on topic: reflections and his artefacts (people are posting these outside this thread and so every week we have some post about it), refractions and artifacts, caustics, glows, etc while it be so because the material used.
But I understand you Jeff and I think you are more right in this than I, I know it is in the
limit of on topic with some leg out of it. :)
It's a fine line to walk when trying to separate material topics from lighting topics. Especially when dealing with the photon shaders. I'm not sure what would be the best way to sort these things out. I mean even if we made a lighting resource thread, I'm sure at times, material topics would come into play there just because they go hand in hand....so what do we do? I think it's time we put our heads together and try to find a solution. Maybe something like this:

Mental Ray:
FAQ (no posting, just answers to commonly asked questions)
Materials/shaders (creation of custom shaders/shader setting questions)
Lighting (interior & exterior lighting, FG/GI, Caustics, material/light interaction discussions?)
General questions (A/A sampling, distributed rendering, etc).

And I think this style setup would be handy for all the popular rendering packages, not just Mental Ray.

Would this be a waste of time, or do you guys think it would be helpful? Should I setup a thread in the general max forum where we can vote/pitch additional ideas on this? Then the moderators would have enough info to decide if this would be worth the effort to setup, or leave it be.

Ultimately, the last thing I want is for people to simply not post questions because they aren't sure where to post it...and think they'll get "fussed at" for posting in the wrong forum. I sincerely hope nobody feels that way since I keep harping on "this is OT"....

[hjalle]

I Don't think it is a big problem. Everybody is a beginner in the begining.
Wait until it's a real problem.I think the forum is relatively clean.

[JasonCamp]

well heres a test i did with metal lume as a reflection map, in that map i used the same texture as wood defuse, for the surface material... i tried it as a defuse like i see most doing , but i didnt like the result. i used a background environment as well wich helps with shoing more reflections than whats in the scene.. i made it pritty blury off the start and it actually took me a while to get it not blury heh...
http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/5043/metallumetest0000zt.jpg

[hjalle]

=HELLION=
I tryed to, and failure.
I think I keep this shader i have.

It's a MR material, in the Surfase channel I have
the Metal Lume Shader.

Surface Material--Material to Shader--wood texture and bump
Reflective --Specular (black an white) wood texture
Reflect Color --wood texture


(It's hard to see any reflektion on the table at all, but it's there)

[JeffPatton]

hjalle - DGS materials can be used for glossy surfaces, but the "blurrier" you want the material, the higher the A/A you will have to use (read longer render times). None the less, I have a glossy DGS example scene on my website that you can download and review if needed (look under my max7 files section).

[JasonCamp]

yea thats pritty much what i was useing , only i didnt do a material to shader..
what does that writing on the wood texture say? something how ? and my i ask what is that machine ?
the wood texture looks good to me ..

[hjalle]

Thanks Jeff.

=HELLION=
It's a mechanical violin, like a mechanical piano.
I do things like this sometimes, improvise around mechanic.

This is a earlier one.
http://www.illustratoren.se/images/score.jpg

[JasonCamp]

wow thats different , very complex

[jigu]

Guys i need little help...i know this is the only thread where i can get solution regarding to mentalray(thanks to jeff patton and vormov and other guys for their helps)

ok.....u can see in below image that i m getting checkers on the image..(i dunnno)....
i m using 3ds max 8 and mental ray for displacment mapping.
below is clean image .....

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/9356/final4vq.th.jpg (http://img355.imageshack.us/my.php?image=final4vq.jpg)[/url]

and here is the image where i maked the area where some area is happening to be dark and some r bright.

[url="http://img355.imageshack.us/my.php?image=finalproblem2cm.jpg"]http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/9273/finalproblem2cm.th.jpg (http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=final2cq.jpg)

Excuse my bad english...

Thanks,
Jigu.

[BrianHarbauer]

Howdy,

With max 8, gives you the ability to render to texture with MR. So I have a very large STATIC complex scene that I wanted to use Ambient Occlusion. Render time was over 25min per frame of a 1500 frame sequence. So I baked my AO solution to a model, put it in the self-illum slot, set my render for default scanline, and hit render. It rendered in a matter of seconds.

Anyways, very simple, but thought I'd share none the less. Saving me a boatload of render time.

It's for a background sequence that probably will be blurred a little and what not, so for me it worked great. But because the AO solution is rendered to a TGA, obviously the AO isn't interactive with moving objects in the scene.

-Cheers

[hjalle]

"the_jigu"

How many polygons (on the mesh) do you start with. try more polygons.
Maybe the bitmapp has this checker information in it self .

More info.

[hjalle]

wow thats different , very complex

Or sick. :bounce:

[jigu]

"the_jigu"

How many polygons (on the mesh) do you start with. try more polygons.
Maybe the bitmapp has this checker information in it self .

More info.

Thanks for reply.....

well i have 4x4 plane...so if it is due to those polygones,i should reduce both segments 1.
one more thing guys,
i have rendered the animation of this crop circle.and i got some noise in the animation.
As for crop circle's material i have two noise maps as mix map.and they r not animated noise maps.but still i m getting noise.
As for GI and FG ,i have used only FG around 200.i saved fg map and used that file to render whole animation.
what should i do to reduce noise?(it's not FG map artifacts) but noise maps look animated.

i hope u guys understand my question.

Thanks,
jigu.

[jigu]

thank hjalle reducing polygone counts to 1 solved the problem...:)

EDIT :: Thanks it's almost solved...

[JasonCamp]

also ive read that also you can turn meshsmooth on with only the smooth that it helps for the displacement, but those checkers ? you say this is an animation ? what compression are you useing ? is it an avi file or mpg.. it might be the codec compression settings

also on a gerneral topic i think priviously i stated that if you assign a texture to basic materials that it speeds up the render, i think i might have been wrong and that particular instance it was speeding up the render, see mr made me a liar again lol

[Bao2]

Mental Ray:
FAQ
Materials/shaders
Lighting, FG/GI, Caustics, material/light interaction
General questions (A/A sampling, distributed rendering, ...

And I think this style setup would be handy for all the popular rendering packages, not just Mental Ray.

Would this be a waste of time, or do you guys think it would be helpful?

Ultimately, the last thing I want is for people to simply not post questions because they aren't sure where to post it.

Personally I would like only a second thread for rest of mentalray things: "Mental Ray General" thread. The same with each renderer: one thread for materials and one for
the rest.

[relics71s]

What am I doing wrong?

I download v2 Beta of l_glass and installed the dll into the
mentalray\shaders_standard\shaders

I then downloaded the mod. mi file from Bao and insalled into the
mentalray\shaders_standard\include


But I don't see it in the list of shaders.

What am I doing wrong?????

[JasonCamp]

well i think that its a good idea with another thead , it is full in here, a general mental ray for 3ds would be good too.

[jigu]

Thanks hellion for reply..yeah as hjalle said it's solved.

EDIT :: sorry guys this question wasn't mentalray shader related..

[audienceofone]

-Vormav- is spot on, I've also found that paint materials generally work better if you use actual area lights instead of light cards. So, try replacing those cards & skylight with MR spotlights (and be sure to enable the "visible in render" option).

First of all I want to thank you all for your prompt answers :)
I've been out for a few days, but I've done some testing, and I still can't get close to it.

Jeff, for your Gold car scene you posted, how many lights did you use, and where did you place them?

(while uploading my scene to a server, I read some of the recent posts, and I do agree with that thread separation I think it's organized and easier to use. But I know I'm just a newb here. I know this issue is OT and I won't post again on this thread on this particular issue, just did because my first post on it was here as well :) sorry guys)

Werewolf006 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=70386), I did what you sugested and uploaded a mod scene with the light/material setup (3 teapots, car paint, rim mat, and headlight billet)
The light setting is aprox. the one I used on the render I posted. vbmenu_register("postmenu_2900848", true);

http://pwp.netcabo.pt/straight/cgtalk/scene1.max (http://pwp.netcabo.pt/straight/cgtalk/scene1.max)

Thanks in advance!
Rui

[JeffPatton]

There are 3 MR area spot lights used. I've attached the edited scene for your review.

[JasonCamp]

thats one sexy lookin teapothttp://forums.cgsociety.org/images/icons/icon4.gif

[Bao2]

But I don't see it in the list of shaders.
What am I doing wrong?????

It's a "map" not a material. Example: create a mentalray material and put it
in the surface slot, can you?
Also I think you probably forget switch to mental ray renderer (probably
you are in scanline)

[-Vormav-]

relics71s - try putting the files "shaders_autoload" instead of "shaders_standard."

[relics71s]

Jose, Stephen,

Thanks very much for all the help. I really appreciate it.

I edited the standard.mi and everything is fine now.

Thanks again.

[maxplugins]

Hi all,

I've just finished writing the include files for the Binary Alchemy shader collection ( http://www.binaryalchemy.de/develop/shader/index.htm (http://www.binaryalchemy.de/develop/shader/index.htm) ) and now I can't find the zip file with the shaders on their site any more. All I can find is the XSI_ADDON file, which is no use to Max users. If anyone knows where to find them on the site, let me know please...

If anyone wants the Include files before I post the shaders at Maxplugins.de, you can get them here: http://www.maxplugins.de/mr_files/BA_Shader_Collection_Includes.zip

Dave

[hjalle]

=HELLION=
You wanted more samples:
http://www.illustratoren.se/images/fiddle.jpg
And Jeff Patton thanks for my new awakening. I mean about the DGS materials.
I have it on the table now.
DGS+low poly= excellent
DGS+high poly= time consuming.
Love it.

[JasonCamp]

=HELLION=
You wanted more samples:


well i was meaning to try more samples , but that looks great
, your runing max6 still right ? how did you get jeffs dgs file to work its max7 ?
also i see what it says on the wood table now... elbow... you have a lot of stuff that says elbow .. whats that all about?
also i dig the water damage that was added

[fhodshon]

you have a lot of stuff that says elbow .. whats that all about?


i bet it's the type of grease he's using to get that quality of render.

f

[JasonCamp]

well i went to his personal site and he has a lot of illistrations on there with elbow on it as well heh

[hjalle]

It's a name i came up with, just for
plaing with text and image.

And I like the name.
So the label on the fiddle is "Elbow touch".

I was not using jeffs DGS material. but he made
me aware of wath it is for. DGS was a big black hole
in my shader knowledge. R6 have DGS to.

[rodrigogua]

dgs shaders are very powerful and relatively easy to setup. if you set glossy highlights, that'll take the render times up (just as any raytraced blurry reflection) but if you only set speculars (G value set to black) it'll render as fast as any raytraced material

[hjalle]

Thanks rodrigogua. Good to know.

[maxplugins]

In response to my own post above ( http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2910753&postcount=2857 ) I've been in touch with the author of the shaders, and he will be posting a zip file on his site of all the shaders in the next few days.

Dave

[KORBAC]

hi,

Does anybody know is there a lens shader which transform colors of my render into grayscale (black and white) image.I need to do this through lens shader,not postprocesing.For closer idea what I need, there is a Pixero's shader "rgb to luminance" but it is a texture shader so it does't work in lens slot...In general I would like to achive this effect with one shader (not to apply "rgb to luminance" to every material in my scene),maybe someone have idea how to do this?

thanks

[hjalle]

The "maxplugins" guy
I tryed to find XSI_ADDON file, but I did not find it.
Sorry.

[-Vormav-]

hi,

Does anybody know is there a lens shader which transform colors of my render into grayscale (black and white) image.I need to do this through lens shader,not postprocesing.For closer idea what I need, there is a Pixero's shader "rgb to luminance" but it is a texture shader so it does't work in lens slot...In general I would like to achive this effect with one shader (not to apply "rgb to luminance" to every material in my scene),maybe someone have idea how to do this?

thanks

This would actually usually be done through an output shader, not a lens shader.
I'm attaching a quick and simple grayscale output shader that you can try out. Just be sure to pick the correct file version from the zip. The shader also won't work until you check the "enabled" option in its parameters.
Or if you really want to do this through a lens shader, I'm attaching one of those as well.

[KORBAC]

thanks Vormav!!!

It works....I asked for lens shader,because i had thought it would affect photon map,and it did affect,... for example if i have colored scene and apply lens grayscale,only "grayscale information" are written in the photon map,what is not case with output shader

thanks again

[maxplugins]

The "maxplugins" guy
I tryed to find XSI_ADDON file, but I did not find it.
Sorry.



@hjalle: The XSI_ADDON is in the first Zip file on the site, but it is only useable if you've got XSI. In Max you need the DLL files which are packed inside the XSI_ADDON file.

Like I said a couple of posts back, there will soon be a new Zip file on the site with the DLLs in it. Then we can all use the shaders, and there are some good ones in there. The cell shader and the fractal4d shader are very useful...

Dave

[Eugenio]

Hi! I don't know if this is possible, but I think would be really nice to have a blur shader, similar to an output one, that we could put another shader on it (like metal lume) and it blurs the result (maybe to have more options like saturation, contrast, sharpen, etc. Would be very useful too).

I've came up with this idea because I was thinking if there is a way to interpolate glossy reflections and refractions similar to what Vray or FR does. Because as far as I know MR always do it by the brute force way.

If there's a way to interpolate area shadows would be even better I think, but then just Vormav could answer! :)

Hey David, do you have any link to see more in depth what shaders these are and what they do?

Regards,

Jr.

[KORBAC]

yeah, it would be great if Vormav can implement H S V and contrast control on grayscale-lens shader(like lume adjustment shader).I found this shader very useful!
best regards

[maxplugins]

Hi Eugenio,

go to this page:
http://www.binaryalchemy.de/develop/shader/index.htm
and scroll down to the bottom, there is a link to a page with examples of what the shaders can do.

Dave

[-Vormav-]

Hi! I don't know if this is possible, but I think would be really nice to have a blur shader, similar to an output one, that we could put another shader on it (like metal lume) and it blurs the result (maybe to have more options like saturation, contrast, sharpen, etc.
That wouldn't be too hard to do, but it would require custom user frame buffers, meaning Max8+ only. I could always create an entirely separate framebuffer equivalent to get it working in Max7, but that would probably either be extremely slow, or take up tons of memory... I might try it anyway.
Some sort of contrast lens/output shader also shouldn't be too complicated.
I may take a look at them soon. I'm finally getting a decent break after this weekend, so I'll be getting some time to do some shaders (and I have a rather long list of shaders to go through...)

For now, you could at least do the first one (blurring result from a material) with compositing; you can use the rpf format to output material ids, and use those as separate masks for a blurring filter. It's more or less the same thing I'd be doing through a custom shader anyway (output shader using material ids stored in a framebuffer to distinguish where to blur different shaders - as long as you're going to be manipulating the output, you might as well just do it in a more preview-friendly and non-destructive compositing environment).



Thanks for the shader links! Fractal4D seems pretty nice. :)

[maxplugins]

The Binary Alchemy shaders have now been posted here: http://www.binaryalchemy.de/index_dev.htm
Just click on the link at the right for the free shader collection.

The includes for Max can be found here: http://www.maxplugins.de/mr_files/BA_Shader_Collection_Includes.zip

I've also just added another 37 shaders to the database at MAX Plugins.de, there are now 167 shaders in there.

Dave

[JeffPatton]

Cool. Just incase I haven't said it before..thanks for your efforts Dave. :thumbsup:

[hassandiab83]

hello every body especial jeff patton:thumbsup: ,
i woul say that it's grate to find some one like u jeff who sare his knoledge with others, so u r so grate as i see.

i want to ask if some one can help about texturing a sea froth, a realistic sea froth with mental ray shader or even other shader, i dont care abut particles i just want a sea froth realisticaly animated and textured, so it is not static.
like thos in films and disney movies.

idont know if u understand what i want ?! but an example the froth appear on the top of sea waves and close to the rock or somthing like this.

any idea will be helpfull and thaks for all

exuse me for my bad grammar and english laguage.:rolleyes:

[Werewolf006]

@ Hassan I don't think this is a mental ray shader issue but I think it can be solved by using a blend material with displacement for calm sea
and a blend material with some vertical gradiant mapping for stormy seas.
visite pete draper's www.xenomorphic.co.uk for a Pefect storm style tuturial.

[loran]

I am alway seeking for a volumetric MR shader... Solid volum is an amazing shader but I can t create volumetrics as we can see on the XSI version web page. Anyone try it this way?? or any volumetrics MR shaders?

[bgawboy]

mental images is now offering artist training for using mental ray

A series of one-day intensive classes, based in LA will take place on the following dates:

Jan. 17,18 (Tuesday, Wednseday) 10AM-6PM

Tuesday is the basic introduction, Using mental ray - Shaders
Wednesday is all about FG, Using mental ray - Finalgathering

More info here:

http://www.mentalimages.com/2_1_7_1_information/index.html

[loran]

Anyone see that cool ToonShader for MR? tutorial included
http://dl3d.free.fr/shader_tutorial_toonshader.php
enjoy

[PhantomDesign]

This thread has been a great resource for improving my materials! I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for making my scene textures slightly more random in appearance - like dirt or wear of various sorts. I could try to hand-paint them, but I was curious if there are any good plugins or shaders for this sort of application.

http://www.gryphonauto.com/vehicles/Enigma%20III/images/107-800.jpg

[fhodshon]

i echo the sentiment, this thread has helped my technique considerably:

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

[JeffPatton]

I took the liberty of converting most of the architectural materials over to mental ray DGS materials. While I didn't duplicate the enitre architectural library, I did convert the majority of materials.

I've configured these with bumps (some with displace), diffuse maps, reflection maps, and even the photon maps.

Download link:
DGS Architectural materials (www.jeffpatton.net/postings/mr-arch-materials.zip)

[fhodshon]

MY HERO!!!

thanks JP.

f

[micco]

Whoa! :eek::surprised:D:scream: Thanks Jeff!

[ToddD]

Jeff, as always great work on this!!! Thanks a million!

Todd

[rodrigogua]

awesome as usuall jeff!!

[saiko]

I took the liberty of converting most of the architectural materials over to mental ray DGS materials. While I didn't duplicate the enitre architectural library, I did convert the majority of materials.

I've configured these with bumps (some with displace), diffuse maps, reflection maps, and even the photon maps.

Download link:
DGS Architectural materials (http://www.jeffpatton.net/postings/mr-arch-materials.zip)


Thanks a lot Jeff !! :)

[pixel-abuse]

Thanks a lot Jeff. :thumbsup:

[nudelsalat]

Anyone see that cool ToonShader for MR? tutorial included
http://dl3d.free.fr/shader_tutorial_toonshader.php
enjoy
this tutorial shows how to create cell shading materials and the outline without plugins and mental ray. the results are pretty good, in my opinion even better than with this plugin.

EDIT:
oops, forgot the link: http://67.15.36.49/ffa/tutorials/max/cel_shade_tut/cel_shading_tut_main.asp

[DDS]

Hi!

I'm getting those artifacts here, with the Fast SSS Skin material. I'm not using GI or Final Gather. Any thoughts? :)

Also if you would point me to a way of making the cloth look better than in the render, I'd be very glad. Thanks!


http://membres.lycos.fr/dreamdesigner/imatges/m4_31b.jpg

[JeffPatton]

I think I remember seeing a problem like that before and it was related to the light(s). Something to do with using a MR spotlight with a large area setting. I can't find the thread for the life of me though. Maybe I'm confused :shrug: ...either way, if your using MR lights, try photmetric lights instead and see if that helps.

[Dodgeas3d]

DDS > i got the same results and I solved them by increasing scatter radius : top layer for example - 1, middle - 3, and back layer - 6, if radius gets too close to each other sharp corners appear on skin, the radius depends on scene scale, so you may need higher radius values.

Hope this helps!

[DDS]

I tried that, Dodgeas 3d, and it didn't work, but thanks anyways. It's the more logical thing...

Jeff Patton, photometric lights fixes that completely, however, I'd like some control over the falloff of the light, or erase it completely. Is that possible? Any other choice that gives me nice area shadows?

Thank you!!

[Spizzy]

Hey, like everyone else first I gotta say this thread is amazing and its been a great help.

Anyway, I've been playing around with the dirtmap in the diffuse slot of materials, trying to get materials to look rusty in the corners. I wanted some help, as nothing I've created looks anything near realistic. Any hints, ideas, or solutions would be greatly appreciated!

[Spizzy]

Hey, first off this is a great thread and its helped me learn a lot about lighting and materials.

Ok, so I want to create a rusty material using something like a dirtmap so it can be applied to multiple objects without being mapped or textured. Nothing I've created thus far has had any semblance to rust, please help!

[Bran]

hi there,



i'm currently in a project where there is need for nacre (i'm sorry of my bad english).

i tried to use gradient ramps (lighting-based) for colored highlights and reflektion with the fastskinshader in different variations, but somehow the material does not loose its plastic look.
some noise does not really helps me to get rid of that look.
i'm getting strong headache...

has anyone a solution for me or some starting points how to create nacre?

[hjalle]

Spizzy.

Check this file, its vertex paint, and two example.
This is vertex paint on lowpoly, if you paint on a objekt with more polygons
you can get more details on it.

[Commie]

Hello, I found these files to be absolutely fantastic in helping me achieve some perfect materials, but I was having some minor problems that I was hoping to get some help on :) Sorry if these were answered earlier in this thread, I just didn't have time to read all the posts (I hope you can understand ;))

http://www.lineusup.com/car/3d/3d_problems.jpg

1. As you can see, I get some weird artifacts in the car paint when I render. In the picture you can see them in the bumper holes on the bottom and on the side of the grille (the bright teal dots).

2. The 2nd problem is that if I texture a small object (like the rear view mirror) then the car paint becomes very grainy in comparison to the large textured areas (like the hood).

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[StratusFarm]

What a fantastic thread.

I have been digging into mental ray a lot lately with great progress - really getting my brain around it now.
I am hitting a small snag:
I have downloaded *all* of the files off of Jeff's initial post, and put them in thier proper folders, however I am still getting the missing dll error mentalray.dlz sub class mr_subScatter
I checked the plug in manager and the mentalray.dlz is indeed getting loaded.
Is this because I'm using Max 8 and there is something in the .mat that isn't working?
I noticed the date modified for that mat file is 10/17/2004

Also, I opened up the Glass_sss.max file and looked through it, but there is something I don't quite understand.
When open up the material editor and use get material from scene, to what is applied where, there is a material called "Blue" that is says it is assigned to the spot light. What I can't sseem to find is just how it applied - I don't see in as being put into a light shader slot in the command panel anywhere. How is that being applied?

Thanks.

[JeffPatton]

error mentalray.dlz sub class mr_subScatter
I checked the plug in manager and the mentalray.dlz is indeed getting loaded.
Is this because I'm using Max 8 and there is something in the .mat that isn't working?
I noticed the date modified for that mat file is 10/17/2004
It's not the mentalray.dlz that's creating the error, it's the MR_subScatter material. And yes, it's probably because you're using max8, and the files I posted are from Max6. I don't remember what site that shader came from. I'm sure it's listed in this thread somewhere though so run a thread search if you need to. Or open the .mi file and see if the developer put his website address in there. However, I'd probably just remove it and use one of the newer SSS shaders that ship with Max now.

[JeffPatton]

Also, I opened up the Glass_sss.max file and looked through it, but there is something I don't quite understand.
When open up the material editor and use get material from scene, to what is applied where, there is a material called "Blue" that is says it is assigned to the spot light. What I can't sseem to find is just how it applied - I don't see in as being put into a light shader slot in the command panel anywhere. How is that being applied?
No idea why (or how) that shader became linked to Spot01.Target. No worries though, that shader isn't being used in the scene anyway. And again, it may be related to that file being rather dated now, and we're using newer versions of Max/MR.


Totally unreleated:
I updated the first post to add a link to maxplugins.de. Many thanks to David Baker for adding the Mental Ray shader section over there.

[JeffPatton]

1. As you can see, I get some weird artifacts in the car paint when I render. In the picture you can see them in the bumper holes on the bottom and on the side of the grille (the bright teal dots).
What A/A sampling rate, and type are you using? Are you using the glare camera shader? What type of lights? What version of 3dsmax?

2. The 2nd problem is that if I texture a small object (like the rear view mirror) then the car paint becomes very grainy in comparison to the large textured areas (like the hood).
The grain is simply from the maps used to make the paint material (to simulate metal flakes). You should put a UVW map modifier on the car (I normally set it to box type, and size it to 10x10x10). That will even out the speckle pattern over the entire car.

[StratusFarm]

Thanks Jeff.
Just so I understand:
However, I'd probably just remove it and use one of the newer SSS shaders that ship with Max now.
That is, replace the shader in the material editor? or muck about with the files?

I looked through the *.mi file and saw it was made by a guy named Mark Davies. A quick search showed that he has a newer version of the md_subScatter.dll and mi files, but it produces the same error - not new enough I guess.

The previous results you've posted are awesome - hopefully the sss shaders shipping with Max8 will produce as nice of an affect.

Good to hear about the 'blue' material on that spot01 - that was driving me batty. Some anomoly between version 6 and 8 somehow?


Thanks.

[JeffPatton]

replace the shader in the material editor? or muck about with the files? No, I'd just remove the shader from MR completely if you can't get it to work. Now by saying that, I'm assuming you've placed the shader in the appropriate folders, and made any edits needed to make it work properly.

Good to hear about the 'blue' material on that spot01 - that was driving me batty. Some anomoly between version 6 and 8 somehow?LOL, it's probably something silly I did instead of an anomoly between the max versions. :)

[Spizzy]

Dahr great my first post here and I make myself look like an idiot... in my defense the 1st post didnt show up for 30 minutes, the 2nd one didn't either so i just said screw it and came back two days later to see both of them. Aaaanyway...

Thanks hjalle for the file but I couldn't get it to work. When I opened it max said "obsolete data format found" or something of the sort, and all of my renders appeared completely black. I messed around with environment settings and even just switched in standard materials on all the objects but it always just rendered black. Any help?

[StratusFarm]

As for your first two post being delay, that is by design of the forums.
A mod must see your first two posts before they go on the boards. Notice there is no spamming here? That's how.
Afterwards your account will be "fully" activated.


Files created in previoius versions will give you that error. Typically you just need to resave the file.

Which file were you laoding?
And what version of Max are you using?
I didn't have a problem rendering any of the ones posted on the first page of this thread, and I am running Max8.

Make sure that your renderer is set to use mental ray.
mental ray materials will usually show up black if you are using the scanline renderer.

[Spizzy]

It was the file hjalle posted just a few posts up, and I have Max8 as well. I'll try resaving it right now...

Ok it doesn't give the error anymore but it still just renders all black?

[hjalle]

I use Max 6, and LandscapeLume Shader.
(the LandscapeLume Shader i maybe is a overkill.)
Don't Max 8 have Lume shaders?
"Obsolete data format found" i not a error. It's mean that it's from a earlier version of MAX

Is the render on "Selected" maybe?
Shange it "View"
:curious:

The "Splat" give it a more random appearance
The car is made with vertex paint and my material.

[Dodgeas3d]

Hi MR masters ;)

I got some problems with sss glass in 3dsmax8 MR 3.4 . I went thru all pages of this thread, I found earlier posts about sss glass, but MR version changed and early shaders dont work, like "subscater"... here is the pic from that post
http://www.pixelperfectgraphics.biz/cg_files/sss-athena.jpg

The trouble is there that cant find no other solution for that kind shader. I need controls over transparency (glossy), reflection(glossy), sss, specularity at the same time.
I used and found how sss fast skin fast mat works, but i cant find refraction there.

I tried to blend between glass (clear) and sss fast mat, but results were not good.
I added my scene with both shaders, if anyone could take a look.

Here are pic of what i got with sss skin
http://img16.imagevenue.com/loc274/th_541db_balls.jpg (http://img16.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc274&image=541db_balls.jpg)

I tried volume shaders ( parti volume) to get sss like look but it only tinted glass and didnt gave rubber like glossy depth.
Im looking something like this combined together (like nice superball)
http://img138.imagevenue.com/loc70/th_eb7c1_balljs.jpg (http://img138.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc70&image=eb7c1_balljs.jpg)
http://img17.imagevenue.com/loc296/th_da64b_sifter_balls_and_cubes.jpg (http://img17.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc296&image=da64b_sifter_balls_and_cubes.jpg)

Thanks in advance!

[JeffPatton]

Arnas,
try skipping the SSS deal and just use the glass(lume) shader. It should get you very close to the effect your after. You can blur the reflection & refraction (called transparency). Then be sure to reduce the transparency.

[Bran]

hi,

after throwing me out of my window, climbing up the stairs again into my appartment back again, i changed the basematerial of my nacre form the fastskin to standardmaterial.
in the mr-connectionrollout i put the partivolumeshader, now it looks like this:

http://www.3d-ring.de/3d-galerie/3d_bilder/761_13.jpg

the red marked area of the picture shows how i would like my material to see completely, how can i reach this (oh my god, my english is absolutely ******* today)?

[JeffPatton]

Brian,

You might have better luck (and much faster renders) by using a custom shader called "oily specular". They have it over at maxplugins.de, just run a search for "oil" and it it should show up: http://maxplugins.de/mentalray.php

[Dodgeas3d]

Thanks Jeff !
Here what i got:
http://img129.imagevenue.com/loc86/th_5d145_balls_mr4.jpg (http://img129.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc86&image=5d145_balls_mr4.jpg)


And another shader i got playing with glass (there is only one sphere no inside ;) )
http://img140.imagevenue.com/loc51/th_7cd1b_balls_mr3.jpg (http://img140.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc51&image=7cd1b_balls_mr3.jpg)


Now I realy miss specularity controls over glass, i know its phisicaly incorect, but how to get specular over glass in MR any suggestions?

Thanks again!

Here is the mat files of both shaders:

[stefan]

What about use glas in standard material reflection and refraction slot? U coud use spec in standard mat.

[Dodgeas3d]

Yes but then i get weird results, strange refraction an messed up colors, i use blured refraction too and its not working as should. Any examples of that configuration?

Thanks.

[loran]

Dodgeas3d, beautifull glass setting !
could you share the scene or a screen capt of your setting with GlassLume?
How do you do that blured shadows?

[JeffPatton]

Now I realy miss specularity controls over glass, i know its phisicaly incorect, but how to get specular over glass in MR any suggestions?Along the lines of what Stefan said, you could try placing your glass shader in a shellac material with a standard material for the specular.

The DGS material would work for this too, but the render time would be a killer due to the high a/a samples you'd probably end up using.

[CupOWonton]

Dear Jeff and the rest of you MentalRay masters of the universe,

I was talking with a Maya user who specialises in mentalray, and he stated that mental ray has the ability to cast actual light rays from objects without the need for FG or Photons. Apparently this is a shader of some kind, and can be applied to any 3d form but he failed to give me the name of such a shader, and where to find information on it. I'm assuming this shader if it has already been put on the net could be re-written for max since the core of mentalray should be the same.

So, my question is if any of you awsome people has any clue what this shader is, and if someone is working on a copy of it for max.

Thanks for your time.
DP

[Clanger]

Dear Jeff and the rest of you MentalRay masters of the universe,

I was talking with a Maya user who specialises in mentalray, and he stated that mental ray has the ability to cast actual light rays from objects without the need for FG or Photons. Apparently this is a shader of some kind, and can be applied to any 3d form but he failed to give me the name of such a shader, and where to find information on it. I'm assuming this shader if it has already been put on the net could be re-written for max since the core of mentalray should be the same.

So, my question is if any of you awsome people has any clue what this shader is, and if someone is working on a copy of it for max.

Thanks for your time.
DP

Sounds like, ambient occlusion to me

[psv]

Dear Jeff and the rest of you MentalRay masters of the universe,

I was talking with a Maya user who specialises in mentalray, and he stated that mental ray has the ability to cast actual light rays from objects without the need for FG or Photons. Apparently this is a shader of some kind, and can be applied to any 3d form but he failed to give me the name of such a shader, and where to find information on it. I'm assuming this shader if it has already been put on the net could be re-written for max since the core of mentalray should be the same.

So, my question is if any of you awsome people has any clue what this shader is, and if someone is working on a copy of it for max.

Thanks for your time.
DP


its ``ctrl_objectlights`` a shader by francescaluce.....you can find it in maya rendering section here on cg talk

[CupOWonton]

Sounds like, ambient occlusion to me
No, Im pretty sure he knows the difference between ambient occlusion and an object casting light.

[CupOWonton]

its ``ctrl_objectlights`` a shader by francescaluce.....you can find it in maya rendering section here on cg talk

Thank you thank you thank you.

Now, Would this shader work in max? or would I have to find a capable coder to rewrite it for max+mray?

[-Vormav-]

Should work without a problem in Max. You'll need the max plugin for using geometry shaders to use it though (was uploaded here awhile ago, as "mr_geomshaderobj" or something along those lines). Also, from a quick look at the MI file, looks like it'll only work in Max8+.

[psv]

Should work without a problem in Max. You'll need the max plugin for using geometry shaders to use it though (was uploaded here awhile ago, as "mr_geomshaderobj" or something along those lines). Also, from a quick look at the MI file, looks like it'll only work in Max8+.

nope ...it doesn`t..... i`m using max 8, and the geometry shader also

it`s loading , etc , etc ,,,, hit render after that crashes max...

though it would be nice to have it....

[CupOWonton]

Hm, I cant find the mr_geometryshader that you speak of. Would you be able to find the actual name for it?

Also, it looks like this wont work for some reason, hopefully someone gets into it so we can use it with MR and MAX.

[maxplugins]

Vou can get the Geometry stand-in plugin here:
http://www.maxplugins.de/max8.php?search=geometry%20shader

Dave

[Jered]

I must be a little dense. I've been trying to figure out how the hell you use the mr Geometry Shader. I put ctrl_objectlights in the Shader map slot but it does absolutely nothing and I can't seem to figure out how to hook up the transform and light fields for ctrl_objectlights. Is there a good tutorial on how to use a geometry shader in max?

[CupOWonton]

Google search "mrgeomshaderobject" and youll come to a ... what loosk to be russian website. It has images that show whats going on. I'll have to use a translator on it when I get home later, but it also has working downloads of both the Geometry shader and the plugin. Zips arent downloading correctly for me for some reason.

[-Vormav-]

Geometry shaders aren't applied in the same way as other shaders. After you've installed the plugin (by putting it in the correct folder), and restarted Max, you'll have a new category listed under the 'create geometry' rollout; "mental ray." Switch over to that category, and you should be given an "mr Shader" object, which you add to your scene like any other object (within your scene, it's just going to look like a standard dummy object). In the object parameters rollout from the modifier tab, there's a place to apply a geometry shader. Drop the shader you want into the slot, then duplicate an instance of it to the material editor to adjust its properties.
One more important note, though. If you're not seeing the 'mental ray' category at all, go to customize->preferences->mental ray and check the "enable mental ray extensions" option. (I believe it's disabled by default in Max8).

I don't know why exactly francesca's shader wouldn't directly work, but I'll see if I can figure it out later.

[CupOWonton]

Would you happen to know what dirrectories I should install these files into? I got the geometry plugin, but I apparently didnt install the shader to the correct spot.

max/mentalray/shaders_3rdparty. Then I broke the DLL and mi into the seaperate folders and added.

link "ctrl_objectlights.dll"
mi "ctrl_objectlights.mi"

to the 3rdparty.mi text file. was that not the right thing to do?

[-Vormav-]

Would you happen to know what dirrectories I should install these files into? I got the geometry plugin, but I apparently didnt install the shader to the correct spot.

max/mentalray/shaders_3rdparty. Then I broke the DLL and mi into the seaperate folders and added.

link "ctrl_objectlights.dll"
mi "ctrl_objectlights.mi"

to the 3rdparty.mi text file. was that not the right thing to do?




Just put them in the right folders within the shaders_autoload directory, and save yourself the trouble of modifying the rayrc.
It should still work fine the way you did it though, except that you mentioned that you placed them in separate folders, in which case both your 'link' and 'mi' statements should be specifically pointing to those folders.

[CupOWonton]

Thanks for all the help Vormav! :D
My only problem now is that I have no clue how to assign the light, object, and transform or any of that in the material editor.:shrug:

[Jered]

I too can get the geometry shader all working fine (I think) but can't get the ctrl_objectlights figured out. Perhaps it no worky? :(

Another mental ray shader I'm having problems with is finding the paint.dll and the paint.mi as mentioned here (http://www.lamrug.org/resources/doc/paint.html) from the LAMRG site. This would be a rockin' car paint shader to have available in max.

[Jered]

Never mind. I downloaded the sample file from that russian site (http://www.ixbt.com/soft/mr_lights.shtml). Figured out the syntax and got it working more or less.

Here's the trick:
1) Create your geometry for the light. Note it's name. (Let's call it "MyMesh01")
2) Do like Vormav said:

you'll have a new category listed under the 'create geometry' rollout; "mental ray." Switch over to that category, and you should be given an "mr Shader" object, which you add to your scene like any other object (within your scene, it's just going to look like a standard dummy object). In the object parameters rollout from the modifier tab, there's a place to apply a geometry shader. Drop the shader you want into the slot, then duplicate an instance of it to the material editor to adjust its properties.

In addition. Make sure it's sitting at the world origin.
3) The shader you want to add is the ctrl_objectlights. Drag an instance to the material editor.
4) Create a mrOmniLight and place it at the world origin (IMPORTANT!!!). You get unpredictable results if the light and the geometry shader aren't at 0,0,0. Note it's name. (Let's call it "mrOmni01")
5) Under the mental ray Light Shader rollout check Enable and in the Light Shader slot choose the type "Light Point (base)" then drag an instance to the material editor.
6) In the material editor you can mess with the Light Point (base) material colors and such if you wish. Turn on shadows for sure.
7) Edit the ctrl_objectlights material instance. In the transform slot you place the path to the object's mesh. In this case you'd put MyMesh01|Instance(Mesh00). In the light slot you put the path to the light it mimics. In this case mrOmni01|Light.
8) Render. Voila! Geometry Light. You can hide the geometry if you wish and it still emits the light. I'd recommend adding a material to the geometry that matched the light and self-illum it.

[CupOWonton]

Wooh, it worked! Deffinately something they need to integrate into max better though. 8.5 maybe? Has anyone had any success with the geo_color plugin at all?

[Jered]

Yes, sort of. Just replace the Light Point (base) in your light's Light Shader rollout with ctrl_geocolor and drag a copy to the material editor.

Make sure you have a material applied to your light shape and that it has a map in the diffuse slot (or whatever).

To get it all working you'll have to set the following from the defaults in the ctrl_geocolor instance:
color: white
shadow: checked
texture: click on the little square to the right and pick your diffuse material from before
usetexture: checked
lightintensity: 1

So that should work... kinda. I'm getting some strange results placing a gradient as my diffuse map and using it in the geocolor. It emits light and colors everything alright, but more like it's compositing a map of the gradient over the existing textures. Not like it should be doing and emitting color corresponding to the geometry.

http://www.mindfury.com/test/geocolortest.jpg
Bent cylinder in the corner is the geometry light. Weird huh?

I'll poke around some more and see if I can get it to behave.

[Puppet|]

New version of shaders_p 2.9 released, if you interesting it:
http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/download/shaders_p_e.shtml

Updated p_scatter_wrap shader

http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/download/images/scatter_wrap_render.jpg

http://www.puppet.cgtalk.ru/download/video/drag_result.mov

Read history.txt for more details about changes in new version of shaders_p 2.9

[revelaciones]

simple but dificult in mental ray, how i can create a simple blinn shader in mental you know like the 3ds max shader, with faked specular, bump, and alll of that

[JeffPatton]

simple but dificult in mental ray, how i can create a simple blinn shader in mental you know like the 3ds max shader, with faked specular, bump, and alll of thatIt's actually quite simple in MR too. Just look through the .mi files that come with max and unlock the Illum Blinn (base) shader. You may also find some of the other hidden shaders useful like:
Illum Lambert
Illum Phong
Illum Ward

If you don't know how to unlock shaders, there's plenty of info in this thread about that already. Just run a search, or I think I may have put instructions in the first post.

[nachogrande]

Jeff I have just added the mi and dll files which you gave in this thread. I can see a lot of new sahders but I also see the error below (which has shown at startup)

I copied the files into C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\mentalray\shaders_standard include and shader folders and there is no "hidden" line in lume.mi file. But I still can't see the glare.

Any information welcome :)

http://www.s3-design.com/images/Clipboard02.jpg

http://www.s3-design.com/images/Clipboard03.jpg

[JeffPatton]

Those files were outdated Max6 files. You'll need to restore your original max8 files.

Glare = camera shader, not a material or texture.

[nachogrande]

Oh OK thank you very much Jeff. Actually before I saw this thread I havent even touch to Mental Ray. Thats why I have no idea.

EDIT: How can I get those hidden shaders by the way. I already searched th thread but couldnt figure out. I bet you have to dea lwith this question everyday. Maybe it would be better if tehre is some info about this at he very first page of the thread.

[JeffPatton]

How can I get those hidden shaders by the way. I already searched th thread but couldnt figure out. I bet you have to dea lwith this question everyday. Maybe it would be better if tehre is some info about this at he very first page of the thread.ummm, I have listed it in the first post. :shrug: In fact, I've spent quite a bit of time editing that first post to provide helpful info for people getting started with MR. I've made a table of contents and in that, it gives the post(s) & page numbers for common topics (like unlocking shaders).

Also, on my website in the "tips & tricks" section, I show how to unlock the glare shader...but the process is the same for the others.

[nachogrande]

Thanks Jeff. I havent get any sleep yet because of my last render session (Jeez damn deadlines) So eventually couldnt get it at the first sight. I am gonna stick to first msg :thumbsup:

[CupOWonton]

Does anyone know WHY those shaders are still hidden by default?

[prisoner881]

Does anyone know WHY those shaders are still hidden by default?


A while back I posed that question to a Discreet (now Autodesk) person during a seminar. They stated that they haven't tested these shaders with Max yet and thus don't guarantee them to work. This seems rather silly because quite of few of these shaders (like Glare) are very basic and are used by hundreds or maybe thousands of Max users all over the world. Why Autodesk can't get off their butts and certify these shaders is beyond me.

[-Vormav-]

A while back I posed that question to a Discreet (now Autodesk) person during a seminar. They stated that they haven't tested these shaders with Max yet and thus don't guarantee them to work. This seems rather silly because quite of few of these shaders (like Glare) are very basic and are used by hundreds or maybe thousands of Max users all over the world. Why Autodesk can't get off their butts and certify these shaders is beyond me.
Because many of them don't even completely work. The case with most of them - including the glare shader - is that only half of their parameters work.
And as far as I can tell, lume shaders aren't even updated anymore. I'd be very surprised if they are, because Max is the only package I know of that even includes them as a standard part of the release (even though Mental Images owns the rights to the lume shaders, not even MR Standalone comes with them). I wouldn't be surprised if many of the parameters don't work just based on the changes from mr3.2 to 3.4.
:shrug:

[loran]

here is a render I do using Glass Lume blured transparency.
final render was improved in photoshop.
waiting for your crits.


http://laurent.renaud.free.fr/divers/civelle-print%20copy.jpg

[Cryptite]

Whoah, nice!

[placidus]

Hello!

Thanks a lot Jeff for all this stuf about Mental ray. Sending huge amount of karma to you. :thumbsup:
I'v created a light dome by course of this tutorial: http://www.jeffpatton.net/Tips/Sky-dome.htm
I have some objects with Normal bump in the scene. Is it possible to get them affected only by Final gather lighting, comming from sky dome? Normal maps work properly lit by mr Area spot, but they are flat in the shadows. When I turn off mr Area spot, and leave the lighting only on Final gather, the normal bump effect dissapear.

thanks a lot for any advices. :bounce:

[pyruss]

Hi
Does anyone has an solid insights on how to use the Mib_glossy_reflection/refraction
i´m trying to build an good shader for the outer eye.. i´ve heard several peolpe building a sucessfull outer eye shader with Mib_glossy_reflection/refraction,but unfortunatly they didnt explain how


Thanks in advanced :)

[Zmurf]

Loran it´s very beautiful work.!...pls can you share your material ,scene or setup?I want to learn to do something which is looking so nice! And which improvements you did in photoshop?

[jigu]

Hello guys,

Mental ray's object motionblur seems to very slow..so i m wondering if there is any shader like Glare(lume),mist etc that can do image motionblur after one frame rendering?(should be support particles motionblur too).is there any shader possible for that?

or any other solution?

-Jigu.

[maxplugins]

You can use image motion blur with mental ray. Take a look here:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=1963026&postcount=6

Dave

[jigu]

Thanks a lot!! :D

That trick worked very well...


-Jigu.

[saiko]

here is a render I do using Glass Lume blured transparency.
final render was improved in photoshop.
waiting for your crits.


http://laurent.renaud.free.fr/divers/civelle-print%20copy.jpg

very nice render. :thumbsup:

[hassandiab83]

hey every body,

i'm trying to generate caustic from 4 consicutive box below a spot light but it dos'nt generate any caustic elseif i use just 2 box i dont know why??:sad:

i use glass_phisics_phenom as a shader for the boxes, and the default render settings

caustic works narmaly with 1 or 2 boxes but if i use more than 2 boxes it will never generate any castic (well at least idont see the caustics).
ex: < |||| (spot light , 4 boxes)
< || (spot light, 2 boxes)

if any one can help it will be grate.

[MarkSnoswell]

http://workshops.cgsociety.org/courses/000015/

Check it out. We have just announced a new CGWorkshop -- mental ray fundamentals with Bart Gawboy from mental images.

[rodrigogua]

you will probably need to increase the number of reflections and refractions calculated by the renderer. the rendering time will increase a LOT, but that should work. also, try adn increase the energy of the spotlight

[hassandiab83]

hey rodrigo, 10x a lot.

i dont know how i forget it .

first i tried to increase te reflection and reflection max in the rendering algorithm:hmm:, sure it wasn't work.

but thanks to rodrigo, cuz there is an other max refraction and reflection in indirct illumination trace depth other than rendering algorithm.

10x again.:applause:

[rodrigogua]

no problem!

[KB_22]

Hello,

I've been using Max for the last year or so for product visualisation. I've searched the forums, and tried a few tutorials on MENTAL RAY but seem to be chasing my tail, i just don't get the material / shaders

I'm currently rendering a injection moulded plastic material, semi glossy with the need for the soft shadows of mental ray. I know it sounds basic, but everytime i change the material i don't get an accurate representation of it in the material editor.

I see you have surface and shadow shaders in addidtion to photons and extended shaders. I just need to learn how these shaders effect the material. The material themselves are dead easy in scanline but a nighmare in MR.

Any ideas would be much appreciated,

[-Vormav-]

A lot of those shaders can't be previewed in the material editor at all. For example, the shadow shader determines the look of shadows cast by an object - and no shadows are ever cast in a material editor scene (which consists of only one object, and no shadow-casting lights). Photon shaders are processed only during the FG/GI stages of rendering, and the material editor never uses these processes. If you're doing anything like glossy reflections, the amount of blur in the reflection depends in part on the distance to the object being reflected - and in the material editor, these reflections only ever see the environment map, so it's hard to gauge their true effect.
A lot of the time, it just really isn't even possible to get a decent material preview in the material editor for MR networks. I'd almost suggest ignoring the material previews entirely. You should get used to doing simplified render previews to really get an idea of how things are really going to turn out.

You may just want to stick with the default shaders for now. They render just fine in Mental Ray, and provide a more artist-friendly approach to building illuminated surfaces.

[Nii]

Generally I'd prefer to avoid posting requests for help in this thread, but the MR troubleshooting thread seems to be devoid of any fellow 3d souls. Cut and pasting:

"I'm using the skin shader supplied in the MR shader thread. However the texture seems to be scaled too large, and hence the skin doesn't look correct, the model has giant splotches on the body instead of small freckles. How do I go about fixing this? There should be an option to rescale or tesselate the texture somewhere. Oh and face map is enabled..."

Thanks in advance,

-Nii

[eagle4]

i'm new to making my own shader, and i have been fiddling arround trying to get a good snow material, i am using SSS with a complex bump map, to give the roughness of my snow, but i am getting wierd white lines and patches showing up depending on the camera angle. any thoughts? i have tried playing with the smoothing groups of my land plane, i even added a meshsmooth and i am still getting this issue.



eagle4

[Carl van Heezik]

Hey guys,

Has anybody ever tried to use the landscape (lume) for texturing a landscape.

[Shadow_545]

Hey, I'm trying to get down a shader for blood cells and this is what I've gotten so far using SSS Fast Material. This is with a free direct light shining down on it. I like how it's looking from the backside, but the frontside looks too plastic. I'd almost want both sides to look like the backside to get that cool microscope soft look to it.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions or criticisms? I would appreciate it.

http://img457.imageshack.us/img457/6221/bloodcellcopy9ap.jpg

[bubba_989]

The electron Microscope look is a result of using luminosity or self-illumination slots filled with a fall-off map assigned.

http://www.nikclark.com/materials_files/microscope/microscope.htm

THis matlib has some great examples. They are used for brazil but are basically raytrace materials and will work in MR or Max Scanline too with little or no modification.

[John-Stetzer]

Hey, I'm trying to get down a shader for blood cells...


Seem to remember Neil having an example using falloff for a blood cell... ah, here 'tis (near the bottom of the page)...

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/complex_mats_falloff/complex_mats_falloff.htm

[Shadow_545]

Thanks guys, but I know how to do the electron microscope look. I've done that before in other projects. This time I'm going for the organic look, as if you were there. This isn't a 100% realistic rendering of blood. More of what you'd see in the old movie Innerspace (If anyone has seen that?).

*EDIT*
@John-Stetzer
Actually that is closer to what I'm thinking. If not exactly still a really interesting tutorial. Thanks.

I want to try and use SSS to get a really organic feel. See light pass through one side and illuminate the whole cell with color.

[Carl van Heezik]

Shadow_545

Did you check out the sample blood.max that ships with 3dsmax

[loran]

Hi people!
I m just sharing a render I ve done for a customer.
Let me know what you think about!
For me, it missing details like stitches, ripples...




http://laurent.renaud.free.fr/divers/leather-MentalRay.jpg

[Carl van Heezik]

loran,

Nice render, but of course we all like to know the settings for the mental ray shaders.

[KORBAC]

yeah.leather material is very nice!!What kind of shader did you use for it.Did you use hdri for environment?
Maybe you need some improvements on your wood material,like adding little glossy.
Very,very nice render!!

thanks

[loran]

Thx guys!
True for the wood, I have to refine this.

the Leather Material is a Mr material with DGS surface.
the Diffuse Channel is a leather scan to set the color (I have many differents leathers renders to do)
Glossy Highlihts is a Falloff Shadow/light with a noise and a grayscale texture I created in PSD to mimic the bump of leather.
Shiny channel is set at 3.0

3 area lights and a Sky. No Gi, FG only (for the Sky light)

HDRI for environement reflection

[felipefg]

hi guys, i got a problem, i am using the sss physical shader and achieving nice results but i can´t get materials without specular reflections, i want to get rid of them, i have done some attempts, but no way.... can anybody give an idea??

[rodrigogua]

the material itself is great, but the map is mirroring and it's kinda obvious. other than that, it looks great!

[JAF]

pour une humble critique positive loran : les socles ont besoin d'un smooth, on voit trop les polygones, sinon, super travail comme à ton habitude ;)
je rajoute qu'un petit chanfrein au extremités des accoudoirs serait pas mal, ils ont l'air d'être taillés au laser là... :) m'en veux pas, c'est pour ton bien.

[jigu]

guys i was trying to render one object's diffuse,reflection etc chennels and it has assigned mentalray metal (lume) material.but i get completely black and i don't get any reflection or diffuse chennels..

is it only with metal(lume) or with other lume shader as well.


-Jigu.

[wdcstudios]

I was wondering if there was a way to ajust the shadow on a glass material. O and I love this thread it has helped me greatly in just a few days.

[Shadow_545]

I have a quicky question. Why can't I use a SSS shader within a blend or composite? I'm doing some abstract renders and I wanted to blend from a glass shader to a SSS shader, but when you pull those two into, say a blend then the SSS no longer calculates. Is this impossible? Anyone know any cheats around this?

[rdg]

A possible cheat could be to do this in compositing. In my opinion this can give you greate control over the transition, more control over each layer and shorter rendertimes.

Last time I mentioned this, I learned that there are indeed reasons not to do this with compositing as the "interaction" between the two materials would be lost. On the other hand a blend is just a blend?


Georg

[wdcstudios]

I just thought I'd post a image I made thanks to reading this thread I'll be glad to post a scene with the materials is anyone has a intrest.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=329229

[disassembler]

Last night I downloaded and installed the Daniel Rind's Diffraction Shader. I've experimented with putting in the refraction and iof slots with some results. Just not the result one would desire.

DOes anyone have any suggestions or insight into how to use this. Thank you.

[Cruzifer]

hi everyone,
i have a problem to build a shader that looks like "cola". Can sombody help me out with a little hint or whatever... i´ve already searched the forum for some equal, but with no luck.

It is so tricky to build, because cola has a lot of colors in its density (from black over "dark red" and "deep yellow"). it appears so diffrent on various light situations... don´t no where to start:blush:

Cheers Cruzifer

[wdcstudios]

After I get out of work I'll upload a shader scene with a material I used for a lime drink you can probably modify it to be cola.

[Cruzifer]

thanks a bunch wdcstudios!

This what i´ve got so far but i fear that the shader only works in this enviroment.

I simulated the whole thing in realflow and my goal is to splash a cola and a water bubble into another with some nice mixing effect but for now i only get two meshes "bending" around each other(i want color mixing!). I don´t know how to handle it because there are no tutorial shipped with realflow explaning this feature. But maybe is somebody out there allready played around with this nice program?!
at first i would appreciate some help for the cola shader - the other plroblem is offtopic anyway...sorry.

cheers Cruzifer

[lehthanis]

I'm having aheck of a time with my glow shader.

I want glowing green water...kinda like radioactive sludge, but clear.

So I modified the JP-Water from the CGTalk-MR mat file as follows:

Mental-Ray
-Surface: Glow (lume)
--Surface: Glass(lume)
-Photon: Photon Basic
-Bump: Ocean (lume)
-Volume: Submerge (lume)

The glass shader is in the surface material slot of the glow shader...which gives it the glowing look I want...but its not casting any glowing light on the side of the pool...I went through the ToC for this thread to all the places glow is mentioned, and saw that glow is supposed to shed photons...but mine isn't.

Anyone have any ideas for glowy water? Here's the scene and a render....

I also do't know how to get rid of that pinwheel effect :( Notice how the glowign water does not cast light onto the rim of the pool above the water line and it doesn't cast light onto the waters edge of the sphere.

Edit: Attachment removed, see next page.

[wdcstudios]

turn on final gather in the global illumination panel and you should get what you want

[lehthanis]

Final gather is on. 500 samples, 1" radius (pool is 144" radius) depth/reflections:5 bounce:0...download the scene and see for yourself ;)

[JeffPatton]

Try this: Instead of putting the glass as a sub-material to the glow...put the glow as a submaterial to the glass like this:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/cg-post/glow-liquid.jpg

I didn't use any volume maps (but you can if needed), just the glass, glow surface combo and a bump map for the ripples, and glare to boost the glow effect.

[lehthanis]

THAT is pretty much perfect!!! Trying to replicate now...I'll let ya know...thanks Jeff! I did find out I had my glow brightness too low...raised it and started a render that looked good, but still no residual light. I'll report back shortly

[lehthanis]

Hmm...I must be doing something wrong, or max8 is a little weird...(Unless of course you're in 8 as well) but my surface looks almost identical to yours, except I'm not castign any light on the rim like you are...Though I'm not using glare...could that be it?

If you could throw up a copy of that scene, I'd be MOST grateful...

[JeffPatton]

Sounds like you need to adjust the transparency setting on the glass(lume) shader.

[lehthanis]

Should it be more transparent or less transparent? I have Glass transparency and reflectivity at .5 right now...which is what made my material editor preview look closer to what yours looked like...also I wasn't quite sure what to do with the falloff map, so I made it two shades of green, a lighter and a darker. Glow (lume) brightness is 3.

Also, I tried adding my spotlight to the lights list for the glass, but it didn't help.

[lehthanis]

Just set transparency to 0 and I'm getting something. But I do want to see the stuff below the surface of the water...so thats not good.

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/8003/glowtest21gj.jpg

[JeffPatton]

Just set transparency to 0 and I'm getting something. But I do want to see the stuff below the surface of the water...so thats not good.
Right, so adjust the transparency (mine was set at .75 btw)...then the water material will become clearer...and darker because the glow effect will not be as visible on a clear surface...so therefore as you increase the glass(lume) transparency you need to also increase the glow strength.

[lehthanis]

I found that bit out as I was waiting for your reply...then I had to leave work.

Ummm...Last thing I need to know then is how come the glow effect on yours is so smooth around the rim of the tub and the rim of the teapot, and mine looks like ripply crap? I THOUGHT I had my settings cranked up...I guess I don't. So again, could I view your scene or could you advise me on what I may be doing to cause that problem?

I am learning quite a bit, and this glow effect will push my scene to th enext level and I'll be ready for sure to move into texturing. Thanks!