Mental Ray - Shaders

[rohit]

I have to create realistic ocean water like the one someone posted here. Can anyone suggest me the way to achieve that?

regards, rohit

[Dark3k]

Hi to everyone!

I've been lurking here for some time now and I would like to say thanks to everyone who has kept this topic alive and kicking for all this time.

The reason that I've decided to come out of hiding is that I've been messing around with the SSS shader found over at Lightengine3d (http://www.lightengine3d.com/). It seems to have a couple of very annoying shortcomings. First of all it doesn't seem to react to a lights multiplier at all, it's either just on or off (you get the same intensity of the SSS effect with a multiplier of 1.0 or 0.001) This might have to do something with the shaders implementation in Max. Secondly, a light with a falloff on the multiplier doesn't seem to work either no matter what you do. The last thing that bothers me is that the shader doesn't react to objects inside the SSS mesh (like say, bones inside of a hand). What I would like to know is if anyone have solved these problems or if it's just limitations in the shader. It's probably just me that has missed something obvious.

Keep up the good work guys.

[3D_Mike]

Woohoo, this thread just keeps on growing, Great work peeps!

Been experimenting some with compositing dirtmap render passes lately, what a great way of getting fast and quality results!

Keep it up, this thread (or should I say online manual) rocks :bounce:

[Dark3k]

Been messing around with the dispersion shader from the animusartis (http://animus.brinkster.net/index.html) webpage. I have no idea if it could ever work in max, getting some funky results just now. Was just wondering if someone else been working on dispersion in mr.

[geoMan]

i wanted to have some information on the glare shader....is there anyone kind enough?...i was inspired by it when i saw it being used in the previously posted pictures!

[treed]

Dark3k, thanks for that link. Although when I launch max up mental ray is giving me errors.

It says shader decleration "diffraction" has no apply type. This shader cannot be used in 3ds max until it has at least one apply type.

Could you maybe cut and paste your .mi file and see if mine matches yours?

[MCage]

Can some anyone help about this --> http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1192370#post1192370


Thanks!:bounce: :applause: :bounce:

[Dark3k]

treed, all you need to do (I think) is to type "apply material" right under "version 1" and above "end declare" like this:

# MI file for Diffraction Mental Ray utility
#
# Version: 1.0 for Mental Ray Diffraction Shader 1.2 by Daniel Rind
# Created: 12.05.2003
# Author: Robert Mehofer
#


declare shader
color "Diffraction"
(
color "input", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
color "refract", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
color "filter", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
scalar "glossy", #: default 0.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
integer "samples", #: default 0 min 0 softmax 1000
scalar "ior", #: default 1.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 100.0
integer "max_depth", #: default 1 softmin 1 softmax 10
scalar "aberration", #: default 0.0 softmin -10.0 softmax 10.0
scalar "saturation", #: default 1.0 softmin -10.0 softmax 10.0
scalar "transpose", #: default 0.0 softmin -1.0 softmax 1.0
scalar "absorption", #: default 0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
boolean "absorption_enable", #: default 1
integer "exhaust_mode", #: default 0 min 0 max 1
color "exhaust_color", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
scalar "normal_blend" #: default 0.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
)
version 1
apply material
end declare

[Pixero]

Here is my modified mi file for MR Diffraction shader. It now has Max GUI declarations for default values in Max.
Enjoy!

________________________________________


# MI file for Diffraction Mental Ray utility
#
# Version: 1.0 for Mental Ray Diffraction Shader 1.2 by Daniel Rind
# Created: 12.05.2003
# Author: Robert Mehofer

#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Diffraction 3dsmax GUI declarations by Jan Sandstrom
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gui "gui_Diffraction" {
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiName" "Diffraction",
"category" "Illumination"
)
control "input" "color" ("value" 1.0 1.0 1.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)
control "refract" "color" ("value" 0.0 0.0 0.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)
control "filter" "color" ("value" 1.0 1.0 1.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)
control "glossy" "float" ("value" 0.0)
control "samples" "integer" ("value" 0, "range" 0 1000)
control "ior" "float" ("value" 1.0, "range" 0.0 100.0)
control "max_depth" "integer" ("value" 1, "range" 1 10)
control "aberration" "float" ("value" 0.0, "range" -10 10)
control "saturation" "float" ("value" 1.0, "range" -10 10)
control "transpose" "float" ("value" 0.0, "range" -1.0 1.0)
control "absorption" "float" ("value" 0.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)
control "absorption_enable" "boolean" ("value" 1)
control "exhaust_mode" "integer" ("value" 0, "range" 0 1)
control "exhaust_color" "color" ("value" 0.0 0.0 0.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)
control "normal_blend" "float" ("value" 0.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)

}




declare shader
color "Diffraction"
(
color "input", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
color "refract", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
color "filter", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
scalar "glossy", #: default 0.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
integer "samples", #: default 0 min 0 softmax 1000
scalar "ior", #: default 1.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 100.0
integer "max_depth", #: default 1 softmin 1 softmax 10
scalar "aberration", #: default 0.0 softmin -10.0 softmax 10.0
scalar "saturation", #: default 1.0 softmin -10.0 softmax 10.0
scalar "transpose", #: default 0.0 softmin -1.0 softmax 1.0
scalar "absorption", #: default 0.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
boolean "absorption_enable", #: default 1
integer "exhaust_mode", #: default 0 min 0 max 1
color "exhaust_color", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
scalar "normal_blend" #: default 0.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
)
version 1
apply material
end declare

_______________________________________

[Rich Joyce]

hi guys -

cheers for the comments on the shader, Deetee, Rohit and Folical9.

i'll upload the ocean and let people have a look for its beginning to get me stumped.

a few notes up to date.

- I have found that ocean displacement works best on a nurbs surface.

- mental ray is very scale based, getting it to work correctly on any other surface, for the same results is proving hard.

- the inclusion of a DSG didnt add to the shader at all

- you may need to play around with the displacement settings in the render dialogue

- its a good idea with waves to add wave modifiers to the mesh/surface and animate them for the roll of the ocean

i'll upload the file tomorrow or later tonight (my time) as i have to pop out now.

Rich

[3D_Mike]

Heya peeps, just wanted to show yall what I cooked up with the SSS shader and some basic Max materials like Blend and Front/Back Material:

http://www.3d-mike.com/work/miek_skin_02.jpg

Its supposed to be really transparant skin tissue like the one found on a navelcord and internal organs (is that the correct word) Its slightly transparant and you can see a bloodvessel running through it. Or at least thats the idea :)

Btw, no FG used. Lemme know if you need this for your mat.lib

[JeffPatton]

3D_Mike, first off....Ewwwwww. Second, of course I would love to add it to the .mat file. :thumbsup:

[treed]

Thanks a bunch Dark3k and Pixero, it works now. I know this shader originally came from XSI, but what are the steps for making it compatible with mental ray in max?

Sorry I haven't really contributed in this thread too much. I'll start looking into all these new shaders and see what nifty things I can make. :)

[JeffPatton]

I've added 3D_Mikes material to the .mat file as well as a brick displacement shader I made (see image below)
http://www.pixelperfectgraphics.biz/cg_files/bricks.jpg

Note: There are 53 shaders in the .mat file to date.

[Damm]

awsome shader 3D_Mike :D

[bobg]

I think I finally have something to contribute. I took Daniel Rind's diffraction shader and wrote an diffraction.mi file so that I could use it in 3D Max. Unfortunately either I can't or the shader cant do caustics. I can accommplish them by compositing but thats a slow kludge approach and the caustics don't have the prismatic flair thats internal to the material.

file:///C:/temp/diamond_glass.jpg
Here's the basic glass shader with IOR at about 2.6

file:///C:/temp/diamond_diffraction.jpg
Here's the diffraction shader replacing the standard MR glass.

file:///C:/temp/diamond_composite.jpg

Here's a composite done in Photoshop using alpha channel for a mask.

If this is something that may be useful (it has the potential of greater subltety than I've shown here, I can post the mi file.

Bobg

[bobg]

Alright!.... forget my last post, I was beaten to it. Clearly I seem to be inept at posting images within my message here as well. I can't seem to save the file below th 20K maximum without making the file useless as a sample. Perhaps I still haven't posted enough.

My '.mi' file was much longer. probably because I adapted it from the original SPDL file.

I still would like to find out if caustics could be used with this without doing composites.

Bobg

[bobg]

The images are on the
http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php
site.
diamond_glass.jpg
diamond_diffraction.jpg
diamond_composite.jpg

[deetee]

Doesnt diamonds only shine white and not in colors? :D Nice tho, will make it easier to recreate better glass effects!

[Dark3k]

From the documentation of the diffraction shader: "Originally just built to be a replacement of the standard XSI Refraction node (minus the refraction bug), this shader evolved to a complete replacement and enhancement of the Refraction_Diffuse node. The glossiness value will deliver superior results to the standard node, and the dispersion values can add very much to the realism of refractive materials (especially of diamonds and crystal)".

Now if someone that has some knowledge of both Soft and Max could give us a hint in what slot we should put this it would be great;)

The Refraction_Diffuse node.....hmm there are no diffuse reflections in Max so.....Maybe in a mental ray slot? If you put it in the surface slot of a mr material you lose control over everything else (like reflections). It might be that it won't work in max regardless of where you apply it.

The search continues (unless there is some other way to accomplish diffractions in mr)

[Willem]

Hi there, Ive been following this thread on and of.. I thought maybe try it myself, I am busy now optimizing the glass-sss scene, I dunno if anybody is interested but this render took only 3.33 min. (800x600) on my comp. amd dual 2.6H and 2.0 gig memory.

I tweaking it now so if anyone is interested in the specs.
let me know..(sorry for the compression)

If I get some time I'll try to create some materials myself..

(i dont know if this is still interesting, after so long)

Greetz Willem
http://www.thepharmacy-media.com/willem/glass.jpg

[canderled]

Hi!
this thread rocks:beer:

on the site of the diffraction shader there is also a shader deriver which can be really useful for anisotropic effect but there is only the .dll not the .mi. Is there a way to creat this missing file?
http://animus.brinkster.net/index.html


thanx:bounce:

[bobg]

deetee,

Actually diamonds don't just reflect white. The dispersion (prismatic spectral color) is higher in diamonds than most other commonly known clear materials. Dispersion is also referred to as 'fire'.

Dispersion can be increased in glass through addition of lead (Pb) and highly accurate cutting. This is why Austrian crystal (Strass and Swarovski) - which is what I was actually trying to emulate - has so much fire. Diamonds have both high dispersion and a high IOR.

One day, I will get to work on something that can be accomplished without compositing. It seems that I'm closer to that with Mental Ray in Max than ever but I still hit so many 'rendering walls'.

I have to say that I've learned more from this thread than any previous source since its not just theory or recipies, its actually applied.

bobg

[deetee]

bogb: What I meant was that the diamond, a real one with the best cutting as in your scene doesnt disperse the prismlight inside of itself, but reflects the light to its enviroment, like this : http://www.goodoldgold.com/proporti.htm

[Pixero]

Here is my mi file for Deriver. With Max GUI declarations.
I havent tried it myself yet so Im not sure how it works.

Enjoy!

___________________________________

# MI file for Deriver Mental Ray Shader
# Version: 1.0 for Mental Ray Deriver Shader by Daniel Rind
# Created: 11.03.2004
# Author: Jan Sandstrom

#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Deriver 3dsmax GUI declarations by Jan Sandstrom
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

gui "gui_Deriver" {
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiName" "Deriver",
"category" "Texture"
)
control "passthrough" "color" ("value" 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)
control "mode" "integer" ("value" 0, "range" 0 2)
control "north_dir" "vector" ("value" 0.0 1.0 0.0, "range" -1.0 1.0)
control "north_pos" "vector" ("value" 0.0 1.0 0.0, "range" -1.0 1.0)
control "rotation" "float" ("value" 0.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)

}

declare shader
color "Deriver"
(
color "passthrough", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0
integer "mode", #: default 0 min 0 max 2
vector "north_dir", #: default 0.0 1.0 0.0 min -1.0 max 1.0
vector "north_pos", #: default 0.0 1.0 0.0 min -1.0 max 1.0
scalar "rotation", #: default 0.0 min 0.0 max 1.0

)

version 1
apply texture
end declare


_____________________________________

[bobg]

deetee:

You (and the website info) are correct to a point. Diamonds, cut properly, will refract the most light back out of the front/top of the stone. However, there is dispersion internally as well that is apparent in some of these images. If you look at the sample image, in the website you provided, that shows the fire, there is some internal dispersion there. A 'Brilliant" cut diamond is meant to show 'sparkle' more than 'fire'. The more 'fire' the less sparkle. Additionally, the lighting in the first samples on that website are from a slightly diffused light as is apperent by the shadow below it. That diffusion will significantly reduce the dispersion both withing the stone and at it leaves the the stone.

Incidentally, in my renderings, I had intentionally not modeled the geometry to represent an actual diamond cut since I'm going more for the 'chandelier crystal' which is definitely more fire than sparkle.

I must admit that you have a keen eye.

bobg

[geoMan]

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

can anyone PLEASE PLEASE tell me about the glare shader?

[JeffPatton]

Geoman, what additional information do you need that has not already been covered in this thread? The glare discussion begins on page 11.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104578&perpage=15&pagenumber=11

[Macrog]

Hey, Folical9....where's the .mat file with "brick displacement"...i cannot find thid file :O(

[bobg]

The .MAT file is on page one. Its the first file.

(I thought I'd save you the trouble folical9 - BTW the brick texture is excellent).

bobg

[3D_Mike]

Allright Ive been fiddling with the sss shader some more:

View Skin Test Render (http://213.84.68.21/miek_skin_01.mpg)

View Internal skin Test Render (http://213.84.68.21/miek_skin_02.mpg)

View Internal skin Test Render 2 (http://213.84.68.21/miek_skin_03.mpg)

I never believed Max was capable of such coolness!

Oh and trust me you DO want to see all 3 of the movies ;)

[JeffPatton]

lol, that third video is cool man! great job, what was the render time like?

Jeff

(and thanks bobg...:thumbsup: )

[ElmarNieser]

Heya, can someone help me create a material ?

http://elmar.nieser.net/material.jpg

i tried making one myself, but i dont know how to create that blurry reflection in the matererial :|

[ToddD]

Elmar it has been covered already, in the mat file from this thread there are 2 nickel materials, you could also make a basic mat with a metal lume in the reflection slot, just adjust the spread and reflection values.

[rohit]

Why only one thread? Why not complete forum dedicated to mental ray?

regards, rohit

[CHRiTTeR]

Because, then they should do one for every rendering system.

Well why isn't there a thread for shading in other rendering systems?
Because the mental ray shaders work different then the shaders of (most) other popular rendering systems (they roughly work like the standard max materials)

[Macrog]

Hi, I've problem with "F9 brick shader"...Can you take a look at this ?

http://macrog.fm.interia.pl/brick.jpg

and .max file :O)

http://macrog.fm.interia.pl/brick.max

thx...:)

p.s. thx bobg :)

mac

[adr]

Finally !!! I spend all the night reading all your coments , watching the tests and making some renders in max with Mr and i want to thank you to Folical and everyone that help in this thread with great info and good examples . Really you can learn a lot of things bout Mr here. Lets keep this up and ill post my tests on the weekend to share with you all the info that i learned in bout 8hrs

Thanks



:thumbsup:

[geoMan]

thanks a lot Jeff...

by the way...i turned on Gi for mental ray...but when i rendered with final gather....it said no photon emitter in the scene...how i cure this?

and please please please answer to it!

[nebille]

Hi folical..

I have downloaded the rubber file on the first thread and noticed that its the same as the glass file when i render it. hmmm i wondered if you would not mind adding the rubber file to the thread again so we can check it out. I was also wondering if you could tell me how long the glass ss took to render on your machine

cheers pal

nebille

[JeffPatton]

Geoman: how many lights (and what type) do you have in your scene?

nebille: I can't find that file (I know I had it at one point in time). Have a look here: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104578&perpage=15&pagenumber=20

Cabbage created that file and you should be able to contact him and get it. Hey Cabbage, you may want to put that file on the MR-Uploader? If you do, let me know and I will update the link on the first post here.

Jeff

[nebille]

cheers , i found the file with the material .. Gonna see if i can recreate the effects that cabbage had.. Only way to learn.. Other than someone teaching you. Trial and error seem to be the only way i learn anything at the momment

Keep it up guys

[Iain McFadzen]

Nice thread lads, really informitive. I thought I'd better say thanks for all the pointers I've been reading over the past week or so, especially to BigRanS123, since reverse-engineering his skin mat gave me a great big head start in creating my own (especially since I had never used Mental Ray until last weekend, and the documentation that ships with Max is so... well... you know).

I'd love to contribute by posting my resulting mat file back here, but I can't since a) mine is model-specific and heavily reliant on huge bitmaps (which I obviously can't post) so it wouldn't make much sense, and b) it's a work project so doesn't even belong to me anyway.

So instead I'll just tell you that I simplified it quite a bit (fewer shellac levels), added some horribly complicated, masked, nested fall-offs to simulate that peach-fluff/short blonde hair halo you see around the ear and neck in direct sunlight, and integrated the subscatter shader (removing the partivolume shaders at the same time, obviously).

Here's a wip:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mcfudger/heidwip_1.jpg

1 Skylight + 1 shadowcasting mrArealight,
FG on@ 200-ish samples
Full geometry Shag Hair (so it's about a bazillion polys :) )
I have SSS and the peach fuzz turned off in this render (the peach fuzz because I haven't finished it yet, the sss because the effect is so subtle, yet the render hit so huge, that I won't use it for test renders, and I still yet have lots to do)
Rendered in about 14 minutes on a P4 3gig.

I thought you'd appreciate knowing that the effort going into this thread is being put to some real-world use :)

Thanks again.

[JeffPatton]

I'm not able to download your file Macrog. However, I've added a scene using the brick material to the MR uploader. Here's the render output (no post adjustements made)
http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/store/Bricks.jpg

Here's the file: Download brick scene (http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php?act=view&file=QnJpY2tzLnppcA==)

Some notes on the material:
To make the edges crisper, decrease the displacement edge length from .75 to .5 or lower (render times will increase). I kinda like the softer look of the setting I used in this file already though.

You can also increase the Max Level from 6 to 7 and it will give less artifact, but again render times will increase.

In the material itself, I also used the brick map texture in the direction strength slot (at a value of 500). If you lower this or take it out completely, then you will have a gap where the displacement meets a corner....try it and see.

Hope that helped.

[geoMan]

i am using a skylight with scene environment checked.....an HDRI map...final gather on.....and when i turn on GI....it says no photon emitters!

[Dark3k]

Aah.... Peachfuzz Iain! Nice to hear someone else is working on the same thing that I am. I've been trying to use a falloff shader in the extrusion strenght slot for displacement. But no matter what I do it won't show up. When I inverse the falloff I get some displacement but it won't show the other way around. All other maps that I've tried work for the displacement but not falloff. Maybe you can't compute a normal map for a mesh that's being displaced because then you would get a whole other set of normals after the displacement. Anyone that know why it's not working for me and maybe even some kind of workaround. (before you ask: I've even tried to render a "normal/falloff pass" for my geometry and using that as a screen map for the texture but still no luck). Maybe theres a problem with something else and not the falloff map (possibly me). I'm to tired for this right now, I need to get out and get me some inspiration = :beer:

Peace

[treed]

Hmm, I'm not sure if skylight will work with GI. Try and make a spotlight and right click it and go to properties then the mental ray tab. Make sure Generate GI is on.

[janmansilver]

I seem to be missing a file when I try to open up the ".MAT" file.

The error message says:

Missing Dlls

"FileName: mentalray.dlz"
"Class: mr_subScatter"
"SuperClass: 0xC10"

DLL Description
mental ray Renderer (Discreet)

What's wrong? And how do I fix it?

I can load the ".MAT" file anyway, but I don't think all the shaders work, because of the error.

[instinct-vfx]

Hi everyone,

as mentioned before, great work guys...and a truely great and informative thread!

Thought it would be time starting to contribute a little...

Started working on a Grass material myself. It´s completely procedural and includes the ability to do animated "waving" or "non-vertical" grass. Bowed Grass aint really possible....but hey...it´s a material, not a grass sim plugin ;p

following is a preview screenshot...still beeing worked on. Rendered without shadows for speed reasons. looks better with shadow of course.

Everything is procedural...so if you would be doing actual work with it, you could basically "paint" the grass on a surface.

Geometry used in this test rendering is 2 planes

So far and have fun. Comments and crits most welcome of course!



http://www.instinct-vfx.de/temp/grass.jpg


Thorsten

[deetee]

Wow, that's actually pretty cool! I've been dong some grass tests in PFlow but that turns out way to slow, I think it looks pretty cool!

[instinct-vfx]

Hi there,

small update before going to party :beer:

thx deetee...slow/fast is always a matter of the project hehehe...

anyways did a second test with the same material without masking the grass and without length variations..

The direction is variating, but hardly seen in this rendering...best seen by the repeating patterns of light and shadow :cry:

Anyways, Sampling and minimum length for the displacement would have to be adjusted for better quality in production i assume. This render took almost 7 mins, but it has a hell lot of grass strands lol

http://www.instinct-vfx.de/temp/grass_hills.jpg

Thorsten

[rohit]

I also have to create grass. Can you explain the procedure? And send the grass material files?

regards, rohit

[jucarojin]

This old grass material was created during the first few months release of Max6 and I have been meaning to optimize this but somehow never had the time. So I'm hoping you guys could help me out.

Its an MR displacement which takes so long to render.

http://gallery.cybertarp.com/albums/userpics/13711/grasslands.jpg

And, if anyone is interested, how can I upload the files?

[instinct-vfx]

@jucarojin : i assume we are basically using the same techniques. How long is "so long to render" in that frame you posted ?

@rohit : i´ll up the files as soon as am "satisfied" with the results :rolleyes:
The procedure is rather simple:

Max standard material
Use a noise in diffuse slot to create colour variance (two green/brownish tones)
Use a 3d-Displacement in the mental ray displacement extension slot
use a speckle as extrusion map
use whatever map you want in extrusion lenght slot to vary the length of the strands.

use any map in the direction slot to control the bending of strands if wanted /needed at all

That´s it...you´ll have to lower the minimum displacement length in the render settings to get it render properly...i used 0,5 un my renders

Hope that helps as a start,

Thorsten

[deetee]

jucarojin: Anyone that has any helping contribution can upload their material to the designated MR uploarder locatedHERE (http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php) :)

[Rich Joyce]

sorry for the delay guys - had a hectic end of week/weekend.

The ocean shader and scene is now on the uploader under the name of "Rich_Joyce_Ocean_Scene.rar "

if anybody can manage to transfer this material onto other projects, keeping the same look to it, i'd like to know how :)

cheers,
Rich

[JeffPatton]

Just incase you guys didn't know this already, you can use RGB colors to define the direction of the displacement.

Blue = Z Axis
Green = Y Axis
Red = X Axis

Naturally, just place the desired color in the direction map slot of the 3D displacement parameters map. I'm thinking you could texture map an object and use these colors to "paint" the needed displacement onto the object?

[instinct-vfx]

@folical :

You cOULD paint the directions, however i assume that´s a rather tedious task. The best solution would be painting onto the different chanels in PS i´d guess. Cause determining the mix colours for the 3 directions would be rather hard i think.

Another thing i am unsure of is how to do negative X or Y values...my grass only bended in one direction. Would i have to set the base direction to negative and use grey to get direction changing in both directions ??

[jucarojin]

guys from the mental ray shader mailing list said that the best way to change the vectors of the extrusion level is by nesting extrusion maps via the shader list.

I havent exactly tried this though.

The grass posted above used 3 bitmaps mapped in the MIX and NOISE material in the Displacement slot of Mental Ray shader.

[Rich Joyce]

Can I create a rainbow effect from my caustics using the modified diffraction plugin? if so how do i accomplish this - i've used it in XSI but not in max and it doesnt seem to have the same slot to go in. also - which is the best material type for it?

thanks for any replies in advance

[rohit]

Hello rich joyce

I downloaded "Rich_Joyce_Ocean_Scene.rar " but cloudy_noon.jpg file is missing. Can u post that too?

regards, rohit

[Rich Joyce]

its the environment map. just to make the sky look nice :) use anything it has nothing to do with the shader

[rohit]

Is the rendering information get stored somewhere? I mean time taken in rendering most importantly (if one missed to see it during the render).

thanks, rohit

[rohit]

hi rich joyce,

how to make it loop?

regards, rohit

[Rich Joyce]

Rohit - yes bottom left of your screen, next to the pink and white command boxes.

Rohit - yes you can make it loop. the two animation parameters are in the ocean shaders - you can set the number of frames it loops over, and you also can control the wavelength and phase of the wave modifier.

[rohit]

Originally posted by Rich Joyce
Rohit - yes you can make it loop. the two animation parameters are in the ocean shaders - you can set the number of frames it loops over, and you also can control the wavelength and phase of the wave modifier.

I already adjusted ocean shader parameters

but making a perfect loop using wave modifier phase etc. settings is a bit difficult & i can't try different settings & see the result because of long rendering times.

I still have to find the right wavelength & phase settings to make it loop.

thanks anyway!
rohit

[Rich Joyce]

you can always render in a preview mode.... the wave modifier is a geometry displacement so will show up.

alternatively, get rid of the wave modifier and see what the results are without it

[zomboxy]

Hi All,

Has anyone tried to tackle velvet or refractive/reflective anistropic shaders (like the ones on brushed metal that reverse direction from the center to form 2 "V" shaped highlights, with or without prism like colors) with MR.
Also wondering about peach fuzz...anyone?
It might be nice to work on before we actually Need them.

Zom
;)

[bobg]

Hi Rich,

I've been using the diffraction shader and I was also interested in trying to produce the dispersion (prismatic rainbow) effect in the output caustics. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, nothing exists (at least publicly available) that does that. Daniel Rind (who wrote the fixed Diffraction shader) told me that he is working on a photon output shader that is intended to accomplish this but it is not completed and I haven't heard from him regarding a projected date yet. This was within the past week so I'm not counting on anything too soon. (I'll never pressure anyone with programming skills who's creating anything that I'd like!)

If you look on page 52 of this thread, you can see the link to the crystal effect that I've been working on to this effect.

If you find anything before me, tell me, and I'll do likewise.

bobg

[rohit]

Originally posted by Rich Joyce
you can always render in a preview mode.... the wave modifier is a geometry displacement so will show up.

alternatively, get rid of the wave modifier and see what the results are without it

Preview mode only shows the nurbs. (i only see few lines when i use make preview under animation)

I disabled wave modifier & then rendered first & last frames to see if it's looping but the frames are not similar. that means not looping. Then decreased the wave speed in both the animation parameters & now, i'll see after render completion. But it should have looped when there are options to make a loop. There should not be any need of changing wave speed etc.
strange!

rohit

[Rich Joyce]

the wave has nothing to do with the shader. the shader will loop over 100 frames - or 250, can't remember what i last had it set on. that doesnt mean fram 0 to frame 100 it would mean frame 0 to frame 99, otherwise it would be 101 frames. are you sure you did this?

[rohit]

Originally posted by Rich Joyce
the wave has nothing to do with the shader. the shader will loop over 100 frames - or 250, can't remember what i last had it set on. that doesnt mean fram 0 to frame 100 it would mean frame 0 to frame 99, otherwise it would be 101 frames. are you sure you did this?

ofcourse! i know that frame number '0' is also counted. But even then one frame can't make much difference & it was showing big difference. The first & last frames were totally different.

regards, rohit

[rohit]

Loop is fine although not perfect. But now the real problem i'm facing is that the movie has started flickering : brightness gradually increases in the next few frames & then it gradually decreases in next few frames.

[geoMan]

my first Gi...has a skylight....with the HDRI given at the start of this thread......

[Rich Joyce]

the flickering will probably be the final gathering having too low a sample rate. Rohit - this isn't a thread on how make an animation though, its for development of shaders in mental ray, so unless its finding ways of translating this material so it can be used on different surfaces, for everyone to use, then i suggest you start another post about your animation and we'll sort out those issues there. when we've sorted it we can post the final version of the shader here. lets keep to the mr shader development.

[hv2]

Mental Ray is good Rendering....

[Chris Thomas]

A quick heads up here...

SME alpha 0.14 is now available from here

http://www.ibmr.net/sme/download/

There are a lot of improovements in this build with its support for Mental Ray in Max6. There are still some caveats with it i.e. Can't currently save MR shaders or render them in the Schematic view, but you can now chain together some pretty sophisticated shaders. Anyway, try it out and give us any feeback you have at...

http://www.ibmr.net/sme/forum/

I'll let Marsel fill you in on the other details.....

"Greetings !

I've just uploaded the new SME version to our website (http://www.ibmr.net/sme/)
This new version has many things changed and fixed. For an overview of the
changes, read below.

Please give it a try and let us know what you think at out forum
(http://www.ibmr.net/sme/forum/) Though there are still known bugs and issues,
many of the previous ones should be fixed or at least be at some stage of being
fixed.

Chris Thomas has worked the UI and scripted .rdefs for a lot of new materials
and maps, so working with them should be more comfortable and intuitive. Sergio
Muciño and Matt Clementson have also contributed to .rdef creation by helping us
with Mental Ray and finalRender files.

I've been trying to debug SME as much as possible. There are still bugs that I
cannot resolve but time will solve them. I've also been adding many scripted
interface access functions to allow more customization for both internal and
external parts of SME.

Here are excerpts from my log of progress since the last release in
chronological order:

- New node design implemented including new node structure and optional
anti-aliasing filters for wires. (Note: Because of box filtering for aa, the
refresh speeds could be up to 4x slower)

- Tweaked some things like icon resizing based on name length

- Some keyboard layout changed. Check out functionality of -[, =]. and
left-right keys.

- New (sme.getholder 0).includePrivateMaps command, which allows the inclusion
of all maps (hidden and visible) into SME

- ...new file "interface.init". This file will get called every time a blank
scene is opened. This way SME always puts up a fresh view when a scene is
opened. Feel free to add any other commands into this file.

- Some small GUI fixes. Oh yeah, and no more scrollbars in palettes.

- Alphabetical ordering in palettes
- Including hidden maps should be fixed now
- Minor GUI fixes
- Fix in loading/saving algorithm (now should load maps in their corresponding
windows as they were saved)

- The new tabsetup def file is changed to allow loading from multiple
directories. There is a comment in the code stating where you can add/remove
directory names from an array. The whole array is automatically traversed and
all directories are searched in. If the name contains illegal characters or is a
special case, the function just above that hadles them.

-SME node refreshing will now be disabled during rendering and then enabled
again after. This ensures that no funny business goes on in SME when the
renderer is updating materials before their evaluation.

- ...when in debug mode, right click on a node and select the dump tab info
option. This will print out the .def command for every param in the current tab
containing the type, and all the indices of the child. Should be handy for for
.def work.

- Now SME doesn't crash or give any reeval issues on opening the scene, saving
it, resetting it, or closing it.

- ...the "Dump tab data" option will now reevaluate the node, and use the
procedural TabMap to dump the info...

- ...fixed one crash, which was caused by the same material appearing in two
views...Now only the current (top) view will render the material, and all the
other views that have the material will cache it and render it only when they
become active.

- ...added a routine to allow SME display dynamic and static bitmaps in the
views. Static bitmaps basically mean that they will use the provided image in
.def file and will never change in SV.

- I've also changed the debug command to have an optional parameter.

- ...fixed the tabsetup file, which had a couple of things wrong with it. Now it
will search for special cases in all directories without throwing any errors.

- ...fixed the .setIconSize command for the Holder interface.

- ...note this change of format:
Instead of using ".entryGroup #mat/tex", we will now use ".entry
#mat_group/#tex_group".

- ...changed the clipping rect for the text in palette titles so it fits in
exactly, and there's no overlapping of text with the border.

- ...static icons should now appear in asset manager and in SV no matter how the
node is created in it. I've also fixed the nodes so by default they're one image
long, and can be expanded to text size using side arrow keys.

- I've cut down the size on the bottom of every palette by 30 pixels, so it now
should end right where the last item ends.

- Changed wire display algorithm to make them bend based on the adaptive length
of in/out vectors.

- One new change is the inclusion of material/texmap params from paramblock2's
into the rollouts.

- Also the controller nodes are now fully referenced by the anchor and can thus
be saved/loaded with the rest of the materials. This is just the first step into
implementing the unique controller nodes.

- I have added the ability to include/exclute material/map params from
paramblocks in the rollouts. By default they will always be excluded. Some maps,
like Material to shader, for example require them as their function depends on
them.

- ...changed the format for entry optional params

- ...fixed the numerous crashes when using MR renderer.

---------------

Thanks a lot for your attention and participation.

Sincerely,

Marsel Khadiyev"

Cheers ;)

Chris Thomas

[zomboxy]

What the heck is SME and why do we want to install it and try it?
Got anything to show us?

Zom

[Chris Thomas]

Yes. Distain....

Only kidding ;)

Nope, havent got any screenshots right now, but why not have a look and see what you think anyway. Its a Schematic Material Editor for Max and will be free when its completed.

Cheers

CT

[ToddD]

I think this thread is veering off course, please stick to discussing MR shaders, that is what this is supposed to be about.

[Chris Thomas]

It may be a little off topic, but not really. SME can be used to build MR shaders, so it has some relavence IMHO. However I would suggest any feedback specific to SME is posted to the SME forum, rather than to this thread. I would hope SME will become the defacto tool for building MR shader networks when it is completed. So MR Specific feedback and wishes would be most appreciated.

Cheers

CT

[Breinmeester]

The SME has been discussed in this thread before and as it is one of the biggest lacks of MAX I for one find this news very valuable.

[nebille]

Im going to put a spanner in the works... How do you use it... I have put the dlu file into my pluggin folder and have managed to open it in max but all i get is a grey screen with a yellow box in the middle.

Please dont answer on this thread if you have any knowledge about the above query. You could mail me at nebille@3dlaboratory.co.uk if you can be bothered . No worries if you cant. Its all about the Mental Shaders People.. hmmmm some help on this wouldnt go a miss though..

Arghh thats the trouble with freedom of speech, sometimes there can be to much freedom/ maybe that could be a thread to.. Better stop now had to much coffee..

sorry all

[zkydz]

You could always make an SME thread.....or could go to the SME forum?

[Texlon]

Is it possible to let the (S)ub (S)urface (S)catter shader affect the shadows? Because as you see below it doesn't look very realistic. The shadow is black but normally you would expect a slight color (like the object) in the shadow.
http://mitglied.lycos.de/newbow/sss.jpg

[wxyz]

Can anyone post a materail or scene which uses the diffraction shader in Max?

Thanks
:rolleyes:

[nebille]

Have you tried generating caustics. If you download the files on the first thread you will see " dont qoute me on this " that Mr folical has used caustics to generate the light patches under the object.

Also has anyone noticed that if you use the 3d displacement shader with anything other than generic units in the unit setup the results come out strange.. I have just been working on a project that is architecturaly based and needed some grass. I obviously crafted a suitable material from the one on the .mat file on the first post so the colours etc were right. Then i noticed while working in metres the 3d displace could only make mole hills instead of fine blades of grass. I then merged my intire scene into a new one with generic units and the shader responded as expected... weird ha..


Has any one else found this happening ?

[NBF]

Just wanted to see what you guys think about this
shader?:shrug:

[NBF]

can anyone tell me how to post a image or mat.

[zkydz]

???

[zomboxy]

Hi all,

It seems that all of the shaders for MR have a scaling issue. The sss and dirtmap shaders for example seem to work alright with the scenes that were supplied with them but if you use the same shader in another scene that isn't the same scale it doesn't work properly. I merged two scenes and the scale got changed and my neon shaders went dark...I resized everything and it worked again.
Is there some way to set up a scene so that the objects are properly scaled for MR or do you need to mess around with that everytime you start to apply your materials?

Zom

[Texlon]

Enabled caustics doesn't work, the ground becomes just a bit white but not blue as the object over the ground.

Did you notice that the SSS-shader has somtimes problems with aritfacts? even a sample rate of 128 (samples 1) and 128 (samples 2) won't give me artifact-free renders :cry:

[JeffPatton]

use a blue light. I think thats what I did on my original SSS glass render. Would have to find the file to confirm though.

[saiko]

i am asking a really stupid question,
mostprobably it has been discussed already, but somebody please answer to this question.

whenever i put a sky light in the scene it becomes black in the rendering, how to use skylight with mental ray, and how to turn on photon in it.


thanks

[matlock]

saiko: You have to turn on final gather.

[saiko]

thanks for the quick reply!

saiko

[Texlon]

Originally posted by Texlon
Did you notice that the SSS-shader has somtimes problems with aritfacts? even a sample rate of 128 (samples 1) and 128 (samples 2) won't give me artifact-free renders :cry:

What about that question? The freaky thing is, only once I got a artifact-free result, without changing anything, but the next render was full of them :eek:

PS: That caustics effect doesn't look good, I found another way to archive this light scattering effect on the ground by using Final Gather, but this is very slow and isn't good for animations and that's what I am going to make...

[NBF]

Hi everyone I have a few shaders that I want to share
but every time I try to attach a file it does not seam to
work my file size is under 20000 and it's a jpg. Also
how do I post a .mat file could someone plese help.

[NBF]

Just wanted to get some feed back on a few shaders.
This is a velvet shader and a velvet shader with fuzz,
which I hope in the future can be used for peach fuzz on
a persons face. Also I'm playing with the Ward shader and
trying to make anisotropic highlights but can't get the U and V
sliders to work correctly has anyone been able to get this to
work? The Images of the two shaders is here.

velvet still & velvet still with fuzz (http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php)

[zomboxy]

NBF,

You have some pretty good things going on with the velvet shader. I like it. It looks better than my attempts so far. The velvet w/bump seems a bit over lit maybe, but it's probably fine in a different lighting scheme. Something a little softer. Are you going to upload the shaders as well?

Zom

[zkydz]

It's looking good so far. The black in the middle of the highlights is a bit strong, but it's a great start!

[Mightor3D]

Hi,

How can i create a glow (arround a face) tht provide light ...
I think it s possible with the MR shader...
but i absolutely don't know the way to do that ...

Thanks for answer or links that can be helpfull for me...

[NBF]

Okay here is a max file with both velvet shaders and also
a metal flake paint shader that is all Procedural "for F9". Also I
uploaded a still of a metal with Anisotropic reflections
that I'm working on if anyone has any good tips please
don't hold back. Also I still have not been able to grasp
how the U and V highlight setting for the ward shader work
and any input on that would be great. If anyone can improve
on the shaders that I posted please let me know for I think
that they are far from perfect. Thanks for all the feedback.

Keep Maxing

file names are: velvet and paint shaders & Anisotropic metal

http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php


:thumbsup: :beer:

[KMAnStudios]

Could yiou possibly zip them? For some reason when I try to d'ld the max file I keep getting a microsoft word open and it keeps wanting to convert it. Thanks :)

[BigRanS123]

Here is something that I was working on for a renderable wire frame setup.

I would like to set it up with SSS, but I ran into some problems. Thought you all would like to look at it, and see what you could come up with.

http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/store/newwire.jpg

File:

Render Wire.max (http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/store/wire.zip)

Thanks

[JeffPatton]

"Could yiou possibly zip them? For some reason when I try to d'ld the max file I keep getting a microsoft word open and it keeps wanting to convert it."

Thank GOD I'm not the only one that this happens to. I don't know why people post unzipped .max files. They zip down to almost nothing when compressed. And I think it's safe to say everyone has some form of unzipping utility these days.

Appologies for going OT on this, just frustrated. :D

[NBF]

http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php


Velvet shader Zipped

[KMAnStudios]

Thanks! That worked so much better. :)

[NBF]

Hey BigRans123 cool shader I tried to get sss working
with it but in the process the look of the shader kinda
changed I'll post a still if you like it I'll post the max
file "ZIPPED of corse". Thanks

file name: wire with SSS
http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php

[monkeydonut]

Here's a kind of waxy looking shader.

I was toying with sub surface scattering fakery to try and make an interesting blood material, but then I ended up playing around a whole lot, and came up with this.

http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php?act=view&file=bW9ua2V5ZF9yZWR3YXh5LmpwZw==

Trouble is, I played some more and lost it :O
Anyone have any ideas? Pretty sure it was parti volume shaders in the photon volume and volume slots.

Alex

[2big]

I've been browsing these forums for a long time now, and I'd like to say that I'm truly impressed. I consider myself by far a "newbie" at 3DSM in general, but can someone tell me exactly what HDRI is, and what the .hdri file is for? What MR is, shaders, etc. I know these are professional forums, but everybody starts off at the bottom. I've been trying hard to learn. I don't understand a lot about a lot in the thread that most people take for granted. If this is too off topic, can you just PM me some tutorials or information on all of this?

[nebille]

Hi everyone

I have been playing around with the lume.mi and found that if you delete all the "hidden" statements max crashes when you try and do certain things. Before i edited the original i made a copy just in case this scenario occured. If you plan on changing your .mi files always backup the original. Dont want to sound like a nagging mum , just concerned about you guys losing work and stuff like that.

If you need a copy of the mi file just give me an email and i will send it to you.


take care

nebille

:bounce:

[deetee]

@2big : HDRI stands for High Dynamic Range Radiance Imaging and I believe its a way to add radience to an image. Quickly described, when you setup a HDRI scene, the models gather light/color from its enviroment, and given you have a HDRI map in your enviroment, it will use that as a Radient source. This way, its easy to light a model perfectly into videofootage etc if you have a HDRI map of that spot. Donno if what I said helped you or was all wrong tho.. hehe :)

[nebille]

Hi people

I wondered if anyone could help me out of a little jam that i am in. I have to create a shader for some teracotta tiles in mental ray for a university building project. everytime i try and create this shader the results come out weird . The colour is totally off. I wondered if any of you guys with more experience with the mental ray shaders could give it a go.The link below shows the tiles that i need to replicate.

hope you can help

nebille
http://www.jamesandtaylor.co.uk/m1/m1_s1.htm

[BigRanS123]

can you post an example of what your final image is looking like.
that way we can see what your problem is looking like.

[nebille]

Sure .. i will also try and upload the .max file. Having trouble uploading at the mo. everything is to big. i will persevere

[nebille]

i have uploaded the files to the mental ray uploader database . the pic is called tera.jpg and the file is affordablehousing.zip

Im not to sure if i have done something bad.. I used a previous link on page 58 from monkey donut to access the uploader facility. Sorry if i have taken the piss doing that.

Not to sure how to get back to the files i have uploaded either without going back to this link..

Any ideas on uploading would be much appreciated.. God im a pain in the arse

Cheers

nebille

May be you guys can use the building in the file for something

hmmmmm

[geoMan]

i always wanted to know how are there light shades(caustics, as now known) when ii filled water in my bath tub....

now i got to make it myself....thanks to Mental Ray
http://kurupt.xapss.com/MentalRay/test_caustic_poolbed2.JPG

[zomboxy]

Nebille,

Turn off the exposure control. I had the same problem with a scene i was working on the other day. For some reason the color went way off while it was on. It only affected the objects with an image map (.jpg) in the diffuse slot. Turn it off and re-render. Should be good to go.

Zom

[nebille]

Cheers for the advice.. Why is teracotta such a hard material to replicate.. It has driven me absolutely mad. I have no problems making look good on interior scenes , just exterior daylight.
I think i have it worked out now. I am using the oren-nayer shader for the material with a few sub maps.. To light the scene i am using a sunlight and skylight. Turned off the exposure control and voila.. seems ok.. will post the material now.. Must add it totally depends on the light so if it looks crap in other peoples scenes then create the lights listed above with standard settings and it should look ok.. Was going to put a 3ddisplace shader on it but could not be arsed... To much rendering time..

If anyone can add to the file to make it better or create another then please do so.. I must admit that im not to good with materials so dont be disappointed if the bloody thing is useless to you. Just feel i need to contribute something after all this time.

Going to try and replicate zinc cladding now... see you in a few years when its done..

[Bercon]

http://www.vantaa-vaskivuori.fi/~jerrylil/gallery/Candle.jpg

mental ray with md_subScatter LightEngine3D (http://www.lightengine3d.com/downloads.html)

AA: 1/4 & 64
SSS Samples: 64 64
1800+ xp atlhon render time 1.12min

Pretty fast imo, isn't it? :)

[geoMan]

wow...this is some cool stuff....tell us more about this shader please?

[zomboxy]

Nebille,

I know that you used Mental Ray to render the scene, however this is thread is about creating and learning more about Mental Ray shaders. Let's try and keep it to that.
You can always start a new thread about shaders in general or shaders specific to Max if it doesn't already exist.

Regards,
Zom

[philipbruton]

zomboxy,

most of the shaders created by people on this thread and shared among this community are not mental ray shaders (although a few are, mostly unlocked and implimented from other packages via apply statements) but standard, raytrace, shellac etc.., max materials rendered in mental ray. it's all a learning process of materials used in mental ray, this seems to be the common grounding throughout this thread.

Phil b

[nebille]

I kind of agree on that.. I would also like to add that its all very well creating a thread about shaders but it seems strange to not talk about the things that effect the shaders like lighting ... Materials would not exist in the real world without light so with that in mind how can you try and create a shader / material without having a discussion about how light effects it.. I agree that this should be a mental ray shader thread and have found it most beneficial but if you are to look at the mental ray shader / material as a standalone entity i feel we are going to end up in trouble. The idea of forums is to learn about things and i dont see the harm in asking for help in creating a mental ray material ie the teracotta . for use with the mental ray renderer..

I suppose the i could have framed the question or request in a better way such as

I need help replicating the teracota material with a mental ray shader . Does anyone have any examples i could use that share the same properties as teracota. Which is a material that requires a great deal of depth before it can become realistic.. If mental ray shaders is the way foward does anyone know how?


Anyway dont mean to go on about this or fall out with anyone here ..

Kind regards

Nebille

[zomboxy]

Well, if I mis-uinderstood the the purpose of this thread named:
Mental Ray Shader discussion then it's my mistake and apologize.
However, the new functionality in Max6 and Mental Ray is what I think we are here for. I thought that this was specific to that. I for one need the information found in this thread to learn how the Mental Ray Connection and the Lume Tools work. Rendering a Max shader ball out of Mental Ray is not any different or involved than switching the "Current Renderer" to MR and hitting "render".
The real value here is in that information. Folical9 and others have set us on the right path. There is a lot of information here about MR and the MR connection/Lume etc. Let's keep that going.
There really isn't any detailed info. supplied by Discreet that will allow you to learn the advanced features of this renderer.
Hope I haven't ruffled too many feathers....

Zom

[nebille]

No featheres ruffled at my end, and you are right about the lume tools and the mental ray connection... i too have learned alot from this thread and would like to keep it specific if thats the intention of the thread.. Maybe we can start a thread about how materials should be put together and ideas from other people outside mental ray ... I must disagree with the simplicity of just swithching renederes from default scanline to mental ray.. They are completly different ways of creating gi and so on.. Even the colours turn out different with mental ray gi in relation to radiosity as default scanline method..which i used to use.. bloody hated it..
Any how i will start a topic on the site somewhere and hope it doesnt die a horrible death.. thing is how are people going to know what to use and when if we seperate the threads.. Oh well maybe we should set up a thread for discussions about relevancy..;) I will keep to lume tools and the mental ray connection from here end.. If anyone feels that they need to post advice about materials and lighting then hopefully a new thread will start soon.

Kind regards and respect to zomboxy

nebille

[saiko]

1.Is there any area light in mental ray? the area spot or the area direct Mental ray has looks like the normal spot lite only!

2.Folical had posted a reply about photon sheder, it was about how the same max standerd material can be enhanced in global illumination, when used with photon sheder, there was something about 'material to sheder' , i tried doing it few times but it did not work.
Could anybody who is clear about it please explain it again?

thanks.

[nebille]

hmmm you may get told off for asking that question here and i should for giving an answer but...if you look in the help files it will explain all about the new area light in mental ray.. If you bought the product have a look in the help book supplied with the package. Basically if you create a light you can convert that light using max script ... go to the utilities panel with the light already selected . Choose max script . at the bottom of the panel you should see convert to MR light.. Press that and it should do the job for you.. I think there is a drop down list that allows you to choose from certain lights.

Or you could just use the new MRomni or MRspot to do the job if you are creating a new light.. The tutorials are in the help files and are great.. If you dont have the help files let me know and will describe how to do it...

Not in this thread though

Over email so this thread stays about mental ray shaders

As for the photon tracing you will have to ask folical because he/she understands allot about that stuff..

Hope that was helpfull

nebille

[philipbruton]

zomboxy,

sorry, you were right in saying that the info discussed in this forum with regards to lume tools, physics, base and other shaders is greatly beneficial to us all. no feathers ruffled, just don't see the point in not answering basic/ standard shader queries when the arise.

Peace to y'all

Phil b

[bubba_989]

I a question dejour,
Could someone explain how to access the Dirtmap.dll shader in Mental Ray.
I placed the .dll and .mi files in the spropriate directories, I think :)
and when I load the occulsion scenes I am informed the files are missing.
Cheers
Mike K

[Rockachew]

Hi Guys ,

I'll toss my vote in with bubba_989. If some kind soul could go through the steps on installing and using the dirt map thingy for us lower end max useres that would be great.

Thanks in advance.

- S

[nebille]

Below is a description and file

[nebille]

well here goes an attempt on the description on the dirtmap

firstly unzip the dirtmap files

the dirtmap.mi goes in C:\3dsmax6\mentalray\include

the dirtmap.dll goes in C:\3dsmax6\mentalray\shaders

reboot your machine.

start max

should be ok

Create a plane

create a sphere centre to the plane and let the plane disect the sphere..

open the material editor

make sure you have a standard material with default settings

go to the mental ray connection rollout

click the padlock by the surface parameter

add the dirtmap here( dont change any settings)

apply the dirtmap to the sphere and the plane

go to the environments panel and make your background white
rendering menu/environment > color swatch

create a skylight with default settings

create a sunlight with default settings

hit render

you will see the dirtmap working

For a more detailed method of using the map i suggest reading the help.txt file that unzips with it

kind regards

nebille

I have attatched the max file with the above settings if you have trouble

[Rockachew]

when I put those two files in those folders and start up Max (6) I get this error message:

"MI 0.0 warn 122001: standard startup file ray3rc not found
MSG 0.0 error: Shader declaration 'Dirtmap' has no apply type. This shader cannot be used in 3ds max until it has at least one apply type."


Am I missing something?

[KMAnStudios]

You could try moving the .mi file to the lib folder. I've had to play with location on a few shaders. Dunno why, but it worked.

[philipbruton]

rochachew, (obvious nessy lover)

the dirt map originated from maya, or another piece of software. the dll that goes in the shader folder is correct but the .mi file that goes in the include folder needs an apply texture statement for the gui control ni max, this is what you should have in the dirtmap.mi file



# MI declarations for Daniel Rind's Dirtmap 1.2 Mental Ray shader
# by Horvátth Szabolcs (szabolcs@impresszio.hu)
# corrected for MAX by javier info@internarte.com
declare shader
color "Dirtmap"
(
color "BaseColor", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
color "DirtColor",
boolean "BentNormals",
boolean "ProbeGeometry", #: default 1
boolean "UseEnvironment",
boolean "m_IllumInvis", #: default 1
scalar "RaySpread", #: default 88.0 min 0.0 softmax 90.0 max 180
integer "Samples", #: default 16 min 0 softmax 128
scalar "NearClip", #: default 0.1
scalar "FarClip", #: default 10
scalar "FalloffGain", #: default 1.0 min 0.0 softmax 1.0
vector "BasisVector",
scalar "VectorBlend" #: min 0.0 max 1.0
)
version 1
apply texture

gui "gui_Dirtmap" {
control "BaseColor" "color" ("value" 1 1 1)
control "DirtColor" "color" ("value" 0 0 0)
control "BentNormals" "boolean" ("uiName" "Bent Normals", "value" 0)
control "ProbeGeometry" "boolean" ("uiName" "Probe Geometry","value" 1)
control "UseEnvironment" "boolean" ("uiName" "Use Environment","value" 0)
control "m_IllumInvis" "boolean" ("uiName" "Invisible to secondary illumination","value" 1)
control "RaySpread" "scalar" ("uiName" "Ray Spread", "value" 88.0,"range" 0.0 180.0)
control "Samples" "integer" ("value" 16,"range" 0 128)
control "NearClip" "scalar" ("uiName" "Near Clip", "value" 0.1)
control "FarClip" "scalar" ("uiName" "Far Clip", "value" 10.0)
control "FalloffGain" "scalar" ("uiName" "Falloff Gain", "value" 1.0,"range" 0.0 1.0) control "VectorBlend" "scalar" ("uiName" "Vector Blend", "value" 0.0,"range" 0.0 1.0)


}

end declare

[philipbruton]

rochachew, (obvious nessy lover)

the dirt map originated from maya, or another piece of software. the dll that goes in the shader folder is correct but the .mi file that goes in the include folder needs an apply texture statement for the gui control ni max, this is what you should have in the dirtmap.mi file



# MI declarations for Daniel Rind's Dirtmap 1.2 Mental Ray shader
# by Horvátth Szabolcs (szabolcs@impresszio.hu)
# corrected for MAX by javier info@internarte.com
declare shader
color "Dirtmap"
(
color "BaseColor", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
color "DirtColor",
boolean "BentNormals",
boolean "ProbeGeometry", #: default 1
boolean "UseEnvironment",
boolean "m_IllumInvis", #: default 1
scalar "RaySpread", #: default 88.0 min 0.0 softmax 90.0 max 180
integer "Samples", #: default 16 min 0 softmax 128
scalar "NearClip", #: default 0.1
scalar "FarClip", #: default 10
scalar "FalloffGain", #: default 1.0 min 0.0 softmax 1.0
vector "BasisVector",
scalar "VectorBlend" #: min 0.0 max 1.0
)
version 1
apply texture

gui "gui_Dirtmap" {
control "BaseColor" "color" ("value" 1 1 1)
control "DirtColor" "color" ("value" 0 0 0)
control "BentNormals" "boolean" ("uiName" "Bent Normals", "value" 0)
control "ProbeGeometry" "boolean" ("uiName" "Probe Geometry","value" 1)
control "UseEnvironment" "boolean" ("uiName" "Use Environment","value" 0)
control "m_IllumInvis" "boolean" ("uiName" "Invisible to secondary illumination","value" 1)
control "RaySpread" "scalar" ("uiName" "Ray Spread", "value" 88.0,"range" 0.0 180.0)
control "Samples" "integer" ("value" 16,"range" 0 128)
control "NearClip" "scalar" ("uiName" "Near Clip", "value" 0.1)
control "FarClip" "scalar" ("uiName" "Far Clip", "value" 10.0)
control "FalloffGain" "scalar" ("uiName" "Falloff Gain", "value" 1.0,"range" 0.0 1.0) control "VectorBlend" "scalar" ("uiName" "Vector Blend", "value" 0.0,"range" 0.0 1.0)


}

end declare



okeydokey dude

Phil b

[Rockachew]

I got it working!

Thanks for the help guys. Works and looks sweet.

- S


Rockachew - (obvious nessy lover) ?

That's a pokemon thing right? ;-)

[philipbruton]

no, it's an old british cartoon, based on the lockness monster, rockachew is part of the tune. I wont sing it though, i'll get told off for waisting forum space !!!

Phil b

[bubba_989]

Thanks for the help with the MI file, it did the trick!
Cheers
Mike K

[philipbruton]

hello all,

I know the glare shader has been discussed in brief before, but has anyone got their head around the object specific yet.
It seemed before that the shader didn't work with quality values of less than three, and no matter how much i fiddle with the settings, setting object g-buffers, effects channels to correspond to the shader object specific settings, i just can't get it to shade a specific object. i'm trying to create a light bulb effect glow with this, and when using a streak image with just the bulb unhidden, it works fine but obviously with the rest of the scene is visible i want the glare to be specifically for the bulb. can anyone help ?

Phil b

[3D_Mike]

How about using a lightmap like feature like Maya uses to render to texture? Is there a way to do this?

[MikeKaplan]

Hi All. This famous thread helped me a lot in understanding mental ray rules.... anyway, some things stay quite "obscure" for me...
When opening the lume help file, switching to glare, they are talking of a feature which seems very usefull.... Illumination shader. it seems it can be used in conjunction whith glare shader, to improve contrasts etc....
The problem is : how to use the illumination shader ?
glare, i put it in camera output slot, but "illumination", where can i put it to see its effects ?

Thanxx



Bye All

[JeffPatton]

Place the illumination shader into the light shader map of your light source (under the metal ray light shader roll out of your light source).

Now with that said, I personally haven't had any luck with this. It turns my light source red. I suppose an adjustment lume shader in the camera output shader slot may correct this, but it would adjust the whole scene.

Which leads back to philipbruton's problem with the glare shader. These shaders are looking for a "tag" on your scene objects. I personally have had no luck in finding info on how to make the "tags" work.

anyone else?

[nebille]

Not to sure if this has anything to do with it

I copied this text from

http://vbus.rulez.pl/index.php?la=en&pg=431

Hmmm havent read it fully but it explains tags for games and objects..

May be someone with more brains can work it...


* PLACING OBJECTS *

to put an object into game world you have to use M1 tag.

example:
M1 596,1589,0,90,1,1,1,"scene\st_1.3ds"

line has to start with M1 tag,
1st, 2nd and 3rd parameters are position of the object
4th is rotation around vertical axis, in degrees.
5th,6th,7th are scale factors.
8th is name of file which contains the object.
(in example - 'st_1.3ds' is file with bus stop)
you can use 3DS files (3d studio, 3ds max and many others).
textures should be put in the same folder that contains 3DS file.

you can also put flat rectangular object using P2 and B2 tags.

example:
P2 787,1734,0,22,4,7,"scene\drzewo.bmp"

parameters 1-3 are position ,
4th parameter is rotation about vertical axis,
5th and 6th are dimensions of rectangle.
last is name of file with picture to be displayed.
B2 puts opaque rectangle, P2 puts fragmentary transparent one. (transparency is set by topleft pixel)

* ROADWAYS *

to put a roadways object file you have to use U1 tag.

U1 0,0,0,0,1,1,1,"scene\ulice.3ds"

Parameters are same with M1 tag parameters.
There should be only one U1 tag in *.ms1 file.
NOTES:
1st - shape of the roadways has to be FLAT.
2nd - game is scaled in meters, so one unit in modeler equals one meter in the game
3rd - DO NOT put any other objects in this file besides roadways. Object like builings and busstops chould be put in a *.ms1 file.

*BUS STARTING POSITION*

You can set bus start position with A1 tag.

example:
A1 10,200,90

1st and 2nd parameters are position, 3rd is rotation around vertical axis.

* SETTING UP THE TIMETABLE *
most of information about map and route is stored in *.ms1 files in game main folder. first part of the file contains information about object like buildings, trees etc. then goes part that sets up positions od bus stops. these lines begin with 'ST' tag and look like this:

ST 2,798,1748,0,0,"os. Swoboda 02"

first parameter is unique number of this bus stop.
2nd,3rd,4th is position of the bus stop.
5th is rotation about vertical axis.
6th parameter is name of the stop.

ATTN :4th and 5th parameters are ignored in current version
ATTN2:ST tag DOES NOT put visible object into game world , you have to put in other way (i.e. with M1 tag)

then you have to define a timetable.
timetable begins with RB tag, with parameter - start of simutation time.

every stop in the timetable starts with RS tag
1st parameter is number of busstop (previously defined with ST tag) 2nd is arrival time.
3rd is number of passangers who want to get out at this stop ('-1' empties the bus)
4th if number of passangers waiting to step into the bus.

ATTN the programm does not use equal numbers from 3rd and 4th parameters but numbers from range 50%-150% of them.
timetable ends with RE tag




Ostatnia aktualizacja strony 16.10.2003

[philipbruton]

hello,


i did post some info on the mr tag feature on this thread, i don't know if anyone looked at it but it's all french to me !

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104578&perpage=15&pagenumber=37

phil b

[nebille]

I asked the question on the discreet forum and some one replied the below..


Object Labels are tags, their function in MR is somewhat like max g-bufferIDs. The problem is how do you access this tag number, since there is no gui for this or maxScript interface. Yet, there is a way, which I have yet to test, you can export the scene to a .MI file and upon searching for "tag" you'll find that every Mesh has its tag clearly listed. Look in the MR manual, 1.28 Output Shaders.

[ODIN_6]

What up everyone ..

I haven't been in here for awhile.

I just graduted and finished my demo reel :::

here is the Link :thread (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=135053)

[sireel]

what the....? what does this have to do with Mental ray shaders?

[nebille]

There is some nice work on the website odin.. Looks like you had fun at university. I really like the Dragon that looks like its made from papper. That could have been a great animation. Sorry if you have done the following because i am down loading the animation as i right to you... I thought it would be good to make the dragon breathe fire and then watch it burn from the mouth backwards untill just the black outline is left and then the outline collapses like bones.. Just an idea not something that is supposed to be better than what you have done already ...By the looks of things you are very talented.. Need i ask but are you trying to get into the games industry by any chance?

You will do well if you are...Also i wondered if you could email me your email address so that we can talk buisness if possible..

kind regards

Nebille

[deetee]

New shaders out on sparks.discreet.com

Quote :

" Mental Ray 3.2 Shaders for all platforms

Here are the mental ray shaders for all platforms that will match those that ship with 3ds max r6.

We have also included the source code for all the public shaders that ususally come with mental ray. "

[zomboxy]

Say, does anyone know what to do with this - (Mental Ray 3.2 Shaders for all platforms) from Sparks? There's no info. doc included in the zip file. I'm not sure which files go where etc....

Thanks,
Zom.

[deetee]

In the /common/ folder, copy the .mi files over to your /3dsmax6/mentalray/include folder. Havent tried them yet myself, just got back to my flat.. And its so damned cold here, cause I forgot to set the oven on before I left. Anyways. Should work :)

[spiralof5]

Hey folks its been awhile since I have been here. Last time I looked at the thread there were some people trying their luck with a hair/fur shader. Did you guys happen to figure something out? I'm kinda thinking it might be best to get shag/hair or something but I just thought i'd be lazy and ask.

Scott

__________________________________

"overthinking, overanylizing separates the body from the mind."
-Maynard James Keenan (lead singer of Tool)

[jucarojin]

Anyone know what these shaders are and how to use them in 3DS Max MR implimentation? The help file that comes with Max is anything but helpful.

[zomboxy]

Create a couple of torus's or something with some definition and an omni light.


Expand the mental ray Connection rollout.


Click the None button next to Contour. From the Material/Map browser, choose Simple (Contour). This shader renders uniform lines with color and width that you can control.


Set the Width to 0.25. At this time, you still need to tell Mental Ray to render contours defined in the Material Editor. This is done in the Render Scene dialog.

In the Render Scene dialog, go to the Renderer tab.

In the Camera Effects rollout, enable the Contours option, leaving the default values in place.


Render the Perspective view. Once the render pass is complete, Mental Ray creates the contours. Notice all contour widths are the same size.


In the Material Editor, select the objects material. Expand the mental ray connection rollout and click None next to Contour.

From the Material/Map Browser, choose Width From Light (contour). This allows you to control the contour width based on the direction a particular light hits the object. The darker areas result in wider contour strokes.


Leave the Minimum Width value to 0 and set the Maximum Width to 0.75.

Click the None button next to Light and select the only light in the scene (Omni01).


Render the Perspective view to see the results. Notice the wider contours in the shaded areas of the other object.

[jucarojin]

That simple?! It worked! Thanks dude..now I can continue with my NPR exploratios with MR.:beer:

[instinct-vfx]

@spiralof5:
BE aware that Shag Hair/Fur isnt compatible with MR...so if you´re doing a scene to be rendered with MR shag wont do the trick.

i did some experiments with Grass, not hair...unfinished example :

http://www.six4one.com/temp/grass.jpg

The Geometry in this Scene is 2 planes only, the rest is done via displacement. Displaced Hair is rather Timeconsuming concerning rendering.

[eloop]

Originally posted by jucarojin
Anyone know what these shaders are and how to use them in 3DS Max MR implimentation? The help file that comes with Max is anything but helpful.

It looks as though they are just the shaders you already get with MAX6, and the shaders for other architectures are only of use if you have licenses for standalone mental ray. I guess the reason they released them is to assist people who have puchased standalone MR from other vendors like Alias and Softimage to render .mi scenes exported from MAX.

-Drew

[nebille]

Hello all

instinct-vfx talks about hair displacement.. Is that a new shader or is it just using the displacement rollout and applying a map to it .

kind regards

nebille

[instinct-vfx]

@nebille: i've been talkin about standard displacement. all i did was using an inverted speckle map in a 3d-displacement slot.

i HEARD that it is possible to use geoshaders in max now...that could enable one to use the hair-primitive that mr provides (renders hair as splines or lines basicallz) if anzone gets that to work...gimme a shot

Thorsten

[Q_B]

(ears perked) :surprised :surprised

Hair primitive??? humm?
Anyone?

[Trolldeg]

I'm working on a leather mat at the moment. anyone else get these strange artifacts when using a hdr in the environment slot of a mr material?

http://www2.idp.mdh.se/acn99005/upload/fg-art.jpg


when using a global env. map, the artifacts disappear:

http://www2.idp.mdh.se/acn99005/upload/fg-noart.jpg

[Bercon]

It might beacause you use (?) fg from file. Check "Rebuild" from FG settings and see if it helps. I had similar problems when I used fg from file and I had turned one light from scene off after rebuilding fg.

[Trolldeg]

nope, that's not it. rebuild is checked.

[ToddD]

Trolldeg maybe try the min max radius settings in the final gather panel. F9 had discussed earlier how when using an hdr splotchy shadows would occur unless the min max radius were ticked on(and adjusted). Render times will be longer if that is the case, but it should help. Not sure if this is your problem 4 sure, but the info might help.
:)

[layer10]

great thread

[Trolldeg]

Originally posted by Tbonz816
Trolldeg maybe try the min max radius settings in the final gather panel. F9 had discussed earlier how when using an hdr splotchy shadows would occur unless the min max radius were ticked on(and adjusted). Render times will be longer if that is the case, but it should help. Not sure if this is your problem 4 sure, but the info might help.
:)

nope, that's not it either... :)
min and max radius are ticked on both renderings. it's the exact same scene, the only changes made are unchecking the env. slot and adding a global env. map, and that makes the artifacts disappear.

I can get rid of the artifacts if I increase the min radius value, but then the shadows look "washed out". The objekt doesn't seem to be resting on the plane, but floating in the air.

[JeffPatton]

trolldeg, can you post your settings on lighting? I don't know what type of lights or shadows your using, or if your using GI ,etc..

[philipbruton]

Hello Trolldeg

i've had a problem like this before. It seemed that the hdr image wasn't a high enough resolution for the scene size and detail. The way i resolved my issue was to use gi and fg together, with slightly increased samples of gi, and to slightly blur the hdr image. Give it a whirl, might sort your problem. You could always increase the no. of lights in your scene and not use fg, maybe a little self illumination and be sure to add photon basic shaders to the materials as this greatly increases photon emission when rendering with large amounts of lights. Also a sphere with normals inverted, encompassing the scene stops photons from not storing and casts them back into the scene for extra illumination.

Phil b

[saiko]

For the past few days i hav been trying to use photonshader, but could not find it!
could u please show how to use photonshader with max material,
which slot should be used,
a screen-shot would be really nice!


thank u..

saiko

[JeffPatton]

@saiko - http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=117519&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

There's a test scene using the photon shader, is that what your referring to? Or something different?

[saiko]

yes thats what i want !


i think this is the best and certainly the most informative thread i hav ever seen !
thanks a lot folical9 for starting the thread and guiding so many 3dmax6 user to use mental ray.

i myself can't even imagine eploring mentalray without this thread !

now i am waiting for ur guidence about indoor scene in mental ray.

i also think if u could compile a documentation from this thread about how mentalray could be used for the basic needs like what the renderers like brazil, vray ,finalrender come with. i mean a compilation of basic materials like glass, crome, carpaint, skin or SSS material tutorials and some indoor photon mapping tutorials.
it would really help the new mentalray users to use it as a subsitute of all those renderers.


thanks once again ....

saiko.

[Trolldeg]

Originally posted by folical9
trolldeg, can you post your settings on lighting? I don't know what type of lights or shadows your using, or if your using GI ,etc..

here are my render settings:
http://www.mds.mdh.se/~eki99acn/3d/render-settings.jpg

perhaps I need to explain some more, I'm not using the hdr map for lighting, just for getting reflections in the leather material.

Additional info: Skylight with solid color, and one mr Spot (or omni?).

[Bercon]

Have you tried increasing trace depth? I tried setting up enviroment, in material and in global, both were working fine without artifacts like you have. Have you tried making a new scene and starting it from scratch?

And btw, this thread is getting a bit too long. It doesn't bother those who have been along since the begin like me, but what about those who are just starting to read this huge thread. I check the first pages of this thread and some of the images have already started to disapper, but thx to folical9 who still has all his picts up, the thread is still readable. But I belive somebody should gather all important and usefull information of this thread and write a "tutorial" about it. Something like "mental ray in max6 for beginners".
If nobody else wants to write it, I could try, yet I'm not the best choise because I have bad spelling and my skills with mr aren't near as good as folical for example.

[JeffPatton]

trolldeg,

What does your render look like if you turn off the min and max radius, and turn off use falloff? Also, what type of shadows are you using on that omni?

[The chosen one]

Hi.
Where I can find diffraction "mr" & "dll" files.
I use 3d max 6.

[Trolldeg]

Originally posted by folical9
trolldeg,

What does your render look like if you turn off the min and max radius, and turn off use falloff? Also, what type of shadows are you using on that omni?

the artifacts are still there but are a little more blurry. shadows for the spotlight (it turned out to be) are the standard shadows you get when you create a mr Spotligt, the dialog says 'raytraced shadows'

[Killerbee2]

Hey guys, great thread, it actually made me use MR as favourite render now. I'm looking now to remake a visualisation i did of a lamp i rendered with vray. But the problem i get is to simulate glossy refractions, i tried several things but i can't get the same effect i had with vray, here's a link to the vray rendered version, anyone knows a solution ?

http://www.feniks-cg.be/modular.jpg

[Killerbee2]

Hey guys, great thread, it actually made me use MR as favourite render now. I'm looking now to remake a visualisation i did of a lamp i rendered with vray. But the problem i get is to simulate glossy refractions, i tried several things but i can't get the same effect i had with vray, here's a link to the vray rendered version, anyone knows a solution ?

http://www.feniks-cg.be/modular.jpg

[Killerbee2]

i'm just plain stupid, just figured it out : glass(lume) material with transparency blur on :)

http://www.feniks-cg.be/modular2.jpg

not exactly the same but i'm happy with it

[zomboxy]

I have located a MR Diffraction shader that was written for Maya.

http://animus.brinkster.net/index.html

I have edited the .mi file as follows:

# MI file for Diffraction Mental Ray utility
#
# Version: 1.0 for Mental Ray Diffraction Shader 1.2 by Daniel Rind
# Created: 12.05.2003
# Author: Robert Mehofer
#


declare shader
color "Diffraction"
(
color "input", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
color "refract", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
color "filter", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
scalar "glossy", #: default 0.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
integer "samples", #: default 0 min 0 softmax 1000
scalar "ior", #: default 1.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 100.0
integer "max_depth", #: default 1 softmin 1 softmax 10
scalar "aberration", #: default 0.0 softmin -10.0 softmax 10.0
scalar "saturation", #: default 1.0 softmin -10.0 softmax 10.0
scalar "transpose", #: default 0.0 softmin -1.0 softmax 1.0
scalar "absorption", #: default 0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
boolean "absorption_enable", #: default 1
integer "exhaust_mode", #: default 0 min 0 max 1
color "exhaust_color", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
scalar "normal_blend" #: default 0.0 softmin 0.0 softmax 1.0
)
version 1 apply texture
end declare

All i did was add the "apply texture" to the line above end declare.

If anyone figures out how to use it maybe they wouldn't mind posting a scene? There is an .jpg at the Upload site that look interesting does anyone know where that scene file is? lol

Zom.

[philipbruton]

hi zom,


Like most shaders coming over from maya, ie. dirtmap, they have scaling issues within max. I've tried this shader out myself and it always seems to be speckled, like it was painted by a pointelist. I did see this image you're talking of (the diamond with diffreacted colors on each face) but can't seem to replicate it. In fact, at first i thought it was a sampling issue within the shader params and bumping them up helped a little but soon became unrenderable and still no-where near like the image i saw. This surely can't be the way, so i too would like to see that scene file, if it's about ?

Phil b

[philipbruton]

hi killerbee,

can you post your scene setup to see if we can get it looking similar or is it commercial, not for others to touch stuff ?

Phil b

[herbert west]

Howdy, all. Just bought Max 6 a few weeks ago, and I am very pleased. Especially since I was using (don't laugh) trueSpace (stop laughing) before. I've been following this thread, as I've been involved in making shaders for trueSpace. Awsome topic, and thanks to everyone for posting. I'm loving the parti volume sss effects. I've been experimenting for the last week. I've come up with either warm cheddar cheese or Dial soap. What do you think?

http://www.mediasprout.com/misc/cheddar.jpg

I've found it's useful to use the logarithmic exposure function to get a good balance of light, as without it I get good sss, but overexposed surfaces. I'll try and post a scene later if anyone's interested.

[Rich Joyce]

certainly would be! :applause:

[KMAnStudios]

that's pretty nice. I think with a little surface roughness it make a great cheese, as it is it a great bar of soap. I'd certainly be interested in seeing your setting or post of a file.

Eric

[herbert west]

Thanks. I'll post a file this weekend. Right now I'm still working some things out. I don't remember if this has been discussed yet, but scale seems to play a big part in the sss effect (and indirect illumination in general). In my scene, I was working in decimal feet, and realized my main block of cheese/soap was about 3 foot cubed. Well, since I'm not planning to feed an army of mice or wash an elephant, I thought I'd scale the meshes down to a smaller size. Here's the reslult:

http://www.mediasprout.com/misc/cheddar_scaled.jpg

HUGE difference! I'm pretty sure if I scale the settings on the material down as well, things will go back to normal. Also, this means if you're using others materials, and their system units are set up different, you may get different results.

[herbert west]

Well, I scaled the settings for the material, but I had to tweak some other settings as well to get it close to the original. Here's another render of the scaled scene with changed settings:

http://www.mediasprout.com/misc/cheddar_scaled2.jpg

Not exactly the same as the original, but better than the last render I posted.

It seems adjusting only the extinction and min/max levels in the pari volume shaders isn't the only thing you have to do. Doing that still leaves some transparency. I had to up the IOR as well as engery and decay values, and caustic radius in the indirect illumination panel.

[Rich Joyce]

could you say specifically what you changed within the material and whether it follows a logical route or just trial and error. cheers - would help us understand the shaders better

[Breinmeester]

Oi, Herbert, I really like that waxy look. The SSS is just right. Realy looking forward to a scene or material. Did it take long to render?

[Q_B]

Need a lill help, lets see if someone can gimme a quick pointer here :)

I need a shader for a water surface. Now i'm using the Reflect base shader, wich has the great advantage of generating a clean and precise alpha just for the reflected areas.

But the downside is no blurry reflections.

Any idea of what shader to use?

[herbert west]

Here's the scene file for the cheese/sss:

Cheddar SSS Scene for Max 6 (http://www.mediasprout.com/misc/cheddar3.zip)

The rendering time (on a P4 2.66GHz system) is about 3 minutes, and about less than half that with AA sampling turned down.

If you leave AA sampling at default (1/4 min, 4 max) you get these wierd line artifacts:

http://www.mediasprout.com/misc/cheddartifacts.jpg

The cheese material is a shellac material with a standard material as the base and raytrace as the surface (for the sss effect). Let me know if you have any questions about the scene. :)

[fabriciomicheli]

hi there...
Im just starting with MR and I want to know how to use Sub surface scattering with a material, using MR as renderer.
Do I need to use special shaders or what?
I was looking at your works and those are really cool renders, but I don't know how to get that effect...

:eek:

[Bercon]

Maybe you should start reading from the begining of this thread, fabrizzzio. Because this thread starts by explaining how to make SSS material. And if you have downloaded the material library from the first page, it also contains few SSS materials, how about studying them?

[fabriciomicheli]

yeah buddie, you're right...:blush:
I saw more than 60 pages and I didn't know how to begin but I will... I think...
The material study is a great idea...:thumbsup:

[bobg]

Hi to zom and philipbruton,

I did the diamond(s) on the upload site as a test. In a previous post I indicated that it is a composite of two images. One done with the diffraction shader that daniel rind built (I wrote my own front end for it since I didn't realize that others already had) and a separate pass for the caustics which are not handled by the diffration shader. It's a kluge approach with only moderately satisfactory results since there is no rainbow dispersion in the caustics.

BobG

[philipbruton]

hi bobg,


Sorry, didn't remember what u'd said in that post, now i understand how you got those results.
Pitty the same qaulity of image can't be produced through the shader alone, o well !

Phil b

[Trolldeg]

anyone have an idea for frosted glass?

[zomboxy]

Trolldeg,

This has probably been covered in this thread already.
Lume Glass has a couple of blur funtions that will achieve a "Frosted" look.
There are also some "sanded glass" shaders in the CGTalk shader library. Try there for starters.

Zom

[nebille]

Speaking of glass... does anyone know how to get a bitmap image onto the glass shader in mental ray.. i would like to use a cloud jpg on the glass to simulate the reflection of clouds .. Dont even know if this is the right way to go about it but it sees logical.. Hoped to use a fall off map as well so that the image is not solid along the glass pane.

Any ideas would be welcomed

regards

Nebille

Hey pholical you still alive... you didnt reply to my last mail man...hope ur ok.

[Rich Joyce]

cant you use the mentalray environment slot in the mental ray extension of the material?

[nebille]

will give it a go and let you know

cheers


nebille:bounce:

[GrahamHRoss]

Noticed on some older postings they were talking about using a greeble plugin. What exactly does that do?

[philipbruton]

Hi kungfu hampster, ( crazy name! ) ;)


greeble works on individual polygons, building blocks ontop of the selected polys, to create a death star surface effect. It can be used to create quick city scapes by only layering one set of blocks ontop of the selected polys to create skyscrapers of differing heights. I think it's probably been used used in a few sci-fi films to generate a quick, random city scape or space ship hull. Give it a go, mind, be careful not to select too many poly's to start or have sub-d's on as the poly count can rise quickly !

Phil b

( p.s. all geometry added by greeble is welded to the original geom', therefore if you sub'd afterwards, everything stays together. )

[GrahamHRoss]

thanks for the info. Here's some stuff I did while messing around with mentalray...

http://www.imps-clan.org/upload/rippedMentalBigger2 copy.jpg


http://www.imps-clan.org/upload/rippedMentalps2 copy.jpg

[GrahamHRoss]

Oh! Know where I can get a copy of greeble? The previous link in the post is a dead link.

[JeffPatton]

A quick google search result:

http://maxunderground.com/archives/greeble_for_max_6.html

[GrahamHRoss]

Thanks. Don't know why that didn't come up when I searched google.

[Trolldeg]

Originally posted by zomboxy
Trolldeg,

This has probably been covered in this thread already.


really? because I've read the whole thread and I can't recall seeing anything about frosted glass.

[Rich Joyce]

try some of the extra features of the photon basic map in the volume slot.

[zomboxy]

Trolldeg,

Sorry if it wasn't covered specifically in this thread. I did see some info. on frosted glass in the texturing section of the 3ds Max forums. Not specific to MR.
After reading this entire thread did you figure out what you wanted to know?
There is also a scene file with objects that have frosted glass materials on the 3ds Max "tutorial and scene files" CD that ships with Max6. In the scene is located in the Version6Features/scenes/Mental Ray dir.
Their frosted glass uses the Dielectric material. An interesting way of doing it.

zom

[cris castro]

Originally posted by fabrizzzio
hi there...
Im just starting with MR and I want to know how to use Sub surface scattering with a material, using MR as renderer.
Do I need to use special shaders or what?
I was looking at your works and those are really cool renders, but I don't know how to get that effect...

:eek:
hi fabrizzio apart from reading all the threads wich can be very tedious check this tut its a good sss tut for max and mr:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/ronchin.basket/umxprime/tutorials/index.htm

[Mariano]

Hi im new with shaders, and id like to read about it , i mean theres a tutorial explaining what is a shader itself?, how it works, etc, thanks.

this was the best thread ive ever read, full of info.

saludos
Mariano

[zomboxy]

I have uploaded a frosted glass scene and image file to the Upload site.

Zom

[Sir_Vuclan]

Hey, first of all I would like to say that this forum has been really helpful. and I give my thanks to all who have contributed.

Im not sure if this has been dicussed yet but im trying to make a laser beam reflect off some mirrors using mental ray. I can get the light to relfect using final gather and GI but I dont know how to get the light itself to be visible. I tryed adding a light shader to the light but that did nothing and there are no photon emitter shaders to pick from. I also tried adding Parti volume photon to the material of the mirror but also no luck.

an info would be great or a link if someone else has already brought up the issue.

thanks
sir vulcan

[Bercon]

What you need is volume caustics, there was something about that in the begining of this thread...

[Xlars]

Thank you all for this thread (that I now has read all the way) ..

I have only just started looking at MR and was wondering about Dirtmaps. I know that Markus wrote an interface of Daniel Rind's Dirtmap Shader for max6, and that is working fine, but what I am looking for is a way to use simple bitmapped dirtmaps in my texturing with eg. a glass (made with the MR glass phenomenon) with some dirt added.

MR does not seem to allow use of glass phenomenon as part of a normal blend or similar. So if someone could tell med how to use bitmapped dirtmask in MR context I would be very glad.

Lars

[JeffPatton]

Im not sure if this has been dicussed yet but im trying to make a laser beam reflect off some mirrors using mental ray.

Personally, I wouldn't waste the time trying to do this with volume caustics...unless your goal IS to make it work with volume caustics, then I understand.

I would slap some direct lights in there for the beams and either assign a beam shader to the camera output or just use an atmospheric effect and be done with it.

Just my .02

[Mariano]

Hi i have a question, i downloaded the interior building scene http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104578&perpage=15&pagenumber=19 , but the original one who post folical , then to that scene i tried to add dirtmap just like that to see what happends , and its took about 6 hours and comute the final gather about 30 times and go, it was like looping , any idea why?

thanks

[nebille]

hey pholical hows things

wondered if you could post the parti volume shaders file that you did a couple of pages back.. They seem to be missing. You know the ones with the glowing spheres on a spline

regards

nebille

[JeffPatton]

nebille, I'm not sure I know which one that is. I think you may be talking about the blue and red (or orange) spheres that are animated along a spline path? If so, that was posted in the lighting thread, not this one.

Here's the link (towards bottom of page):http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=135785&perpage=15&pagenumber=2

If that's not the one your talking about, let me know.

Jeff

[nebille]

Your a good man


thanks for the link. im so stupid. i have been searching this thread for days and did not even think about going to the lighting one.

regards

nebille

[fabriciomicheli]

hi guys...
just a question about shaders...

I've been using (till max 5) the very useful Blur Studios shaders (there are a couple very useful... I like electric shader, dirt shader, shadow material, etc.)...
The problem is that I think that MR 3.2 doesn't support this blur shaders. They are MAX 6 compatible, but doesn't work with MR.

That's because I opened an old scene I rendered some time ago with VRAY to render now with MentalRay, but when I initiate the render, a popup window opens up and says something about NOT SUPPORTED SHADER... (the blur shaders)...

Is it right? what could be happening?
Aren't they compatible with MR? :cry:

[neutronrobot]

I'm just starting to play around with MR, and downloaded the CGTalk MR material library.
When I load up the material library file I get this error:

Missing DLL
Filename: mentalray.dlz class:mr_subscatter

Is there somthing else I need to download to use this library?
Mental Ray seems to work fine on my machine as far as Max tutorials and all.

I searched this thread and someone else asked this question earlier but there was no response.

Incredible thread though, I've never seen such great looking stuff in Max before!

[JeffPatton]

You need to download all the various .mi files that we've used. They are in this thread somewhere. I won't go back and search the pages for you, but I do know that they have been listed here several times and I even posted all the .mi files from my own pc on one of the pages.

If your unsure what a .mi file is or where to place them, that too is described in this thread.

Please don't take my comments as abrasive, thats not how I intend for them to sound. I need to get motivated and try to organize this thread a bit better and maybe even write up a FAQ.

Jeff

PS, the specific error you have is because you need to download the mr_subscatter.mi file from lightengine3d.com

[neutronrobot]

Hey Jeff-

No offense taken.

I tried to find the info going through the posts, but it's quite a lot of info to sort through!
It's really great that all this is being put together.

Thanks-
Steve

[hjalle]

For all newbies.

This is an old massage from markus.

dirtmap interface

Hi,
I wrote an interface of Daniel Rind's Dirtmap Shader for max6.
It now appears similar to the one in XSI.
You need the latest version of the shader.

You can download the .mi file (interface only)here:
http://jechtech.de/XSISTUFF/Dirtmap.mi

(this is the dirtmap file with UI, and you can use it without mentalray error message. My writing)

If you don't already know the shader you can get it here:
http://members.chello.at/thebigmuh/Dirtmap/Dirtmap.zip

About the lightengine3d shaders I noticed some problems:
It was originally designed for Maya. Objects created in maya are usually 100 times smaller than objects created in max.
The shader works with Maya-units, so most times it's better to scale down your max scenes to about 1 percent(depending on the size of your models) to get no strange artefacts(facetted surfaces e.t.c.).
Another problem is the selfshadowing of the shader that can't be switched off. Maybe in future versions.
Third problem: The shader works best being plugged into the "incidence" channel. Unfortunately there is nothing like that in max(or I couldn't find it).

(I hope this is OK Markus)

Tommy Hjalmarsson
http://hem.bredband.net/tomhja/

[fabriciomicheli]

hi there... it's me again.
Im still with the Blur plugin question... this is what appear when I render the scene...

:blush: take a look...

[hjalle]

MENTAL RAY DO NOT SUPPORT THIS BLUR SHADER.
You can't use it in Mental Ray.

It's hard, I know:shrug:

[cris castro]

Originally posted by fabrizzzio
hi there... it's me again.
Im still with the Blur plugin question... this is what appear when I render the scene...

:blush: take a look...
your answering your question
bye see you in samantha fox lagoon

[Bercon]

mental ray supports nothing. If your procedural/shader doesn't support mental ray then it doesn't work. As simple as that.

[philipbruton]

hello all,

you're right in saying mr doesn't support blur shaders which is a bitch, cause the are quality tools supplied for free. however, dark tree shaders (using "simbiont 2.5x" the plugin for max that's free) do work with mr and have specific .mi and .dll files to encorporate them into mr. Unfotunately you can't view them in the viewport or adjust them as you can in normal max mode, but if you pay for dark tree then it comes with the schematic editor, so you can build and save them for your desired results in mr. This is a bit of a bummer having to pay, but some of the free shaders give good results as they are, try em out @

http://www.darksim.com/html/download_simbiont2.html

-- it involves setting up some environmentals in windows and it's not just a case of opening a file (instead typing a path and shader name in the mat' ed') but they are free and quite usable.


Phil b

[hjalle]

http://hem.bredband.net/tomhja//link_image/scatter_test3.jpg

I use a mask to get Scatter where I want it.
The mask is not deep black, it have an grey noise in the black field.

http://hem.bredband.net/tomhja/

[60WE]

Hi hjalle, you did a great skin shader!
Bravo!

[asomma]

Hi all!
I originally posted this in the general 3dmax forum, but was told to post it here instead so here it is. The problem described below may have something to do with the "Glass (physics_phen)" material... Can you help?


http://home.broadpark.no/~asomma/lamperender.jpg

This is a Caustics and GI render of a lamp I've created...

I keep getting these dots in the renders. Does someone know WHY?

http://home.broadpark.no/~asomma/dots.jpg
the dots I'm talking about


Indirect Illumination settings:

One area omni emmiting
200 000 Caustic photons
500 000 GI photons
energy set to 900 000
decay at 2

Caustic and GI samples are set to 100,
and I'm not using any radius.


Render settings:

sample pixel min 1
sample pixel max 64
flitered through mitchell (4x4)

I'm also using Logarithmic Exposure Control with the physical scale set to 1000


here's the scene file:


Maybe it will help reveal the problem, so here's how I made the floor lamp:
an mr area omni light with ray traced shadows inside a punctuated metal tube, the glass comes out one end of the tube and goes in the other. The glass has a thickness created with the shell modifier. Both ends of the tube are closed with a pink translucent material.

For the glass I've used the Glass (physics_phen)

The pink translucent material is created with parti volume and parti volume photon

The metal uses the metal lume shader

[dissidently]

asomma, have a read of this, see if it helps

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=169506&seqNum=29

If that doesn't help (changing the contrast) you can increase the number of final gather samples significantly, like triple or quadruple the figure you're currently using. Also setting the min/max of the final gather to fairly small numbers can help further.

Like really small numbers, in one of my scenes I've pulled them down to .5 and .002 to get rid of hashing in shadows underneath a small object.

[asomma]

But I'm not using Final Gather... Only GI and Caustics
Anyway, I tried adjusting the contrast but it only got worse.

I tested with some other materials. One standard raytrace material, and one mentalray material with the "glass lume" shader on surface and shadow, and the "dielectric material" on photon. The dots dissapeared but the glass does'nt look so good anymore...

Have anybody else experienced problems with this material?

Does anybody have another good glass material?

please help!

[yoni-cohen]

hi,
I did a couple of test for motion blur since I wasn`t seeing it when flying the camera around.
it seems like mental ray is reading only the objects vector without noticing the camera motion vector.
animated camera yields no motion blur on objects
animating both camera and objects to move together take into count only the objects...

any solution?

[yoni-cohen]

it seems it has to be scripted in order to get the extra lines of options under the render motion blur panel.
http://www.impresszio.hu/szabolcs/MentalRay/lm_2dmvMayaFiles.htm

http://www.alamaison.fr/3d/lm_2DMV/lm_2DMV.htm

I tried getting the maya translation to work, I see the shader but since I haven`t exposed those needed options I get black when rendering.

any ideas?

[yoni-cohen]

well I finaly cracked the way mental ray calculates the object motion blur:
1.each element in the scene get measured against the scenes root.
2.in order to get correct MB you need to feed the system with the camera vectors and the objects.
3. in max, cameras can`t interactivly switch on motion blur since it is adressed in the render tab (scanline).
4. since we need EVERYTHING to have MB object turned on we need to overlap the UI problem by either choosing everything and pressing object motion blur this way the camera is being set without limmiting ui or choose camera and type $.motionblur = #object

#please notice that a flying camera produces motion blur but its not true since it passes the camera vector (reversed) to all object so if one of them is flying next to the camera it would get the same amount of blur.

put it on every thing!

[aliciaCunnie]

thanks guys you really help me all with your experiment, i found a really great way to improve and impress my friends, hard to be a woman in a world of men

[asomma]

So does anyone know how to solve the spotty render problem with the Glass (physics_phen) shader I described on the previous page?

Just read it.. Maybe you know the solution

[yoni-cohen]

simply install the shader and the mi for maya in the apropriate folders.
add object motion blur to all the objects and the camera.
render tab> processing> put an overde material with self illumination 100 and the new lm2d shader in the diffuse.

parameters:
target- should be changed to 1 for realsmart motion blur support.
normelise- should be set acording to the fastest object in the scene (like color range for motion vectors)

render it and use it to control the realsmart motion blur on top of the non blured pass (combustion/aftereffects)

[loran]

Hi everybody
I just discover that thread and I try the differents way to render SSS.
I alway have the following error when I use mr_subScatter material in files like "hand_subscatter" (founded in the MentalRay Uploader)[http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php?act=view&file=aGFuZF9zdWJzY2F0dGVyLnppcA==]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"mental ray has encounterd a fatal error and the application will now shutdown. the error is : DB 0.2 fatal 041052:accesing unknown tag 0xd8"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

any idea?
thx for help

[philipbruton]

hello loran,


i don't mean to sound obvious but do you have the mr_subscatter .mi and .dll files ?

the links to these files can be found earlier on in this thread,,,, somewhere :hmm:



Phil b

[AdrianWilliams]

can some one tell me if the .mat is upto date now?
todays date is th 21th of may? just checking if im missing anything?

[amir elhossiny]

does mental ray work with hdri gl shadow ????
i tried and no shadow .....please help