Mental Ray - Shaders

[shserge]

Hi, All!
How to use dielectric shader for 2 surfaces - glass with water for example? What type of material and what normals must have polygons which belong to 2 surfaces both? I'm searching any help about it. Also can be created fresnel reflections for dielectric shader (may be combination with some another material)?

[manaddi]

Final output is excellent:thumbsup:

[Arxangel]

Okay guys

Ive been working on this scene and want to use mr_subscatter. Im no sure how to, what slot to put it into, or how to use.

http://www.arxangel.net/newwebsite2.htm

Arxangel

[JeffPatton]

Check around page 73. I posted some sample files around that time.

[3Drawer]

@ArxangelUse a "metalray" material and put it into the first slot. Then u have to test with the setting. But its easy...trying it is the best

hope that help u a little bit

3Drawer

[3Drawer]

After A LOT (about 20) Tests with MR+ the GI (also the Photon(base) mat) i found out ... that MentalRay is a S.H.I.T for GI. I just get the most unrealistic things I´ve ever seen on GI!

If somebody has a good tut about GI in MentalRay Plz post... because I can cry:cry: !

Shaders and Caustics= super in MR; GI= worse thing ever!

Plz help!!!


thx

3Drawer

[Raffi_1]

yes 3Drawer, I agree with you . . . :cry:

4 years ago (even 3 years before I used max), I've seen some commercials that were made using mental ray, it was soooooooooooooooo realistic, so why it is so difficult now ???

Maybe the shaders or the materials can help ?? ??
or maybe descreet people aren't prepared yet for such a heavy duty ?! ?! ?!
or maybe some professionals could help the beginners like me ?! ?!

[JeffPatton]

Please post a scene that illustrates your point. That would be the first step in either resolving the problems, or verifying them.

Jeff

[JeffPatton]

OH, and if you guys do post a scene be sure to post it out in the main 3dsmax section and we will tackle the problem there. I don't understand the logic behind posting comments on the GI system here in the shader thread. :shrug:

I'm sure there are quite a few people that are experienced with MR that don't visit this shader thread frequently (since technically we should only be discussing shaders here). So you'll probably get more responses about the GI system from posting out in the general 3dsmax section anyway. :)

I'm not trying to be an @ss or anything, just trying to keep the thread on topic here. As I've mentioned before, I'm guilty too of going OT in this thread. So I'm in no way casting stones at anyone. Heck this very post has nothing to do with shaders technically...but I felt it needed to be said...again.

Jeff

[externe]

Jeff, I'm very newbie in MR and just want to know the result of a sharder (how it appears) is not closely related to the setting of the GI and Photons you use ? No ?

Also, I have a MR shader question about your wire test :

http://www.jeffpatton.net/Postings/MR-wire.jpg

In this thread : http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1610845#post1610845

The system used to obtrain the wire effect is a Vray Sharder :sad: . I try to obtain the same by studying your scene. But I have no good result.

Can you tell me if with MR contour it's possible to have no crossing edges like :

____
|\ /|
| \/ |
| /\ |
|/ \|


but obtain only the exact poly contour like :

____
| |
| |
| |
| |

( I know I do really beautiful illustrations, thanks thanks :bowdown: )

[JeffPatton]

Affraid the answer is no. I've tried many different settings to make it exclude those inner lines with no luck. However it is easy enough to do by making a copy of the object and applying a push modifier (very low setting), and then add a lattice modifier to the pushed copy.

I too wish there was a shader that could handle this without the extra work. Someone made a wiremat material, but unfortunately, it hasn't been ported to work with mental ray yet.

Jeff

[externe]

:sad:
And I never heard about MR 3.3 who's coming with MAX 7 other sharder than SSS
No luck...

[3Drawer]

thats live... hard....


ok nevermind i made a new thread called: MentalRay GI-Help post...

here is the link : http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1611424#post1611424

i also add it to my signatur

plz help with us to help others with their GI + realistic light probs.
For a better world:D HEHE

ok this is a little bit advertisment but hehe thats live....

and it and how it has begun

cu

3Drawer

[Arxangel]

3D Drawer, first slot of what material, a Raytraced material, in the difusse setting?

sorry new to this type of rendering, I'm a low poly RTS modeler, starting to do highpoly. I want to make a tight azz 3D website interface, here is a test render.

http://www.arxangel.net/newwebsite2.htm

Thanks

Arxangel

[3Drawer]

no Arxangel.

Use a "mentalray" material and put the mr_subscatter into the "surface" slot.
Oh and yes there is a better sss... called "diffusion" . Downloadable here: http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php?act=dl&file=bXJfc3ViU2NhdHRlcl9taV9hbmRfZGxsLnppcA==

i hope its the right file because i didn´t check it

cu

3Drawer

[Arxangel]

okay I dont have a Mental ray material its greyed out.

[Arxangel]

okay, I had reset max, and forgot to load the mental ray renderer. I found the Mental ray in the material library, and its yellow, I load this and place mr_scatter inside that and it crashes max every time.


Arxangel

[3Drawer]

@ Arxangel
Here a link to download a better sss-shader called "diffusion"...
the *.mi: http://w1.702.comhem.se/~u70208061/files/Diffusion.mi
(PLZ SAVE AS "*.mi" file(NAME : diffusion.mi!!!))


and the *.dll: http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php?act=dl&file=RGlmZnVzaW9uX2RsbC56aXA=


save the "diffusion.mi" to max6 root_mentalray_include
the "diffusion.dll" goes to max6 root_mentalray_shaders

_______________________________________________________

here is a HDRI rendering I made: http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/store/HDRI_TESTmr.jpg
click here :http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1611424#post1611424 to view the full theard( also the download of the file...)

cu

3Drawer

[Arxangel]

3DDrawer I downloaded that HDRI and nothing renders, its all black

[Druid_Ctba]

Hi friends!

Jeff thanks for all.

I'm live in Brasil, and I'm a newbie in MAX6 & MR.

I got it this fabulous work in Mental Ray site, is a MR with CATIA V5, and I would like to know if is possible create that same effects in MAX6 & MR?

Thanks a lot,

Druid®

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/druid_ctba/Industrial.Design.with.CATIA.V5.jpg

[3Drawer]

@Arxangel
U have to select the hdri on YOUR harddisk...

@Druid_Ctba

Where is the problem? Its a hdri and a "glare" shader. And then 2 different materials... the ring is also very easy... i´ll make a sample for u.... plz wait...

cu

3Drawer

[Arxangel]

nevermind.

still mr_scatter does not work

[3Drawer]

ahm yes... and u put the files in the right folder? You have to select the "Diffusion" shader NOT the mr_subsurface! And the put it into the "surface" slot unter the MR-Material (it has an yellow sphere next to it).


3Drawer

[Arxangel]

Okay I used a mental ray material and placed the diffusion in the surface slot. Correct?

What is the Mr_Scatterer for then, and where does that go?

Arxangel

[3Drawer]

its the same like Diffusion Shader, but the Diffusion shader is better.... I think


3Drawer

[Druid_Ctba]

Thanks 3Drawer

I will stayed the model ring.

Thanks a lot,

Druid®

[Raffi_1]

Hi again,
This is my first real work with GI, so tell me please your opinions about it ..
I've used the diffusion shader for the plants and the statue and the blue thing on the left :) :) , also some metal (lume) reflections and dielectric and Glass (physics phen) materials & architectural glass, but guess what was the rendering time ??????? 8 hours :eek: :eek: :eek: ,,, with Fast lookup, Preview & rebuild checked...

GI 1000
photons 1000
FG 2000, max radius=10 cm

Maybe someone could help me tweaking the settings or the shaders & materials or the BSP settings please !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

http://www.3e6r.com/upload/uploads/mr01.jpg

[Cryptite]

Is it normal for max to crash everytime I try to apply a Glow(Lume) MR shader on any of my material slots. I am unable to mess with glare settings (after unlocking it) as everytime i do, max craps out...

[fabriciomicheli]

it seems that MR 3.3 make some things easier, specially if we talk about SSS. Take a look at this article on CGNetworks (http://www.cgnetworks.com/story_custom.php?story_id=2420&page=2) where a complete MAX review is showed, and take a look specially at the MR section where they talk about the new MR 3.3 SSS shaders (SSS fast, SSS skin and SSS physics phenomenon).

[JasonCamp]

well im stuck on detachment right now , im on land but i have no room to work , that and they have me on a jacked up schedual right now noon to 8pm so when i wake up im tired as hell and when i get off work the last thing i want to do is work in the crappy rooms they put us up in.. anyways ive been stuck doing 2d textures , its difficult to get lables off the net that are high qual so i ended up takeing a pic with my digital cammera and now im touching them up with my wacom pen... unless anybody knows bottle lable site ? heh i must find a bunch of old school bottle lables from the movie the shining, from that golden room bar scene heh ... all i have left to model is the cash machine and the rest of the bottles. shouldnt take me long... i just dont want to get into it much here because i dont have much time.. ugh

[depleteD]

man, ivew learned so much from this thread i finnally found the time to contribute.
Scince this is all about happy shader makeing i decided to give it a go.

I have no place to upload tho if anyone has a place i can upload a pic of my skin shader (faked sss) i can contribute the mat lib file as well.

The gist of it is just useing gradient ramps in "lighting" mode to reveal the layers underneath.

[depleteD]

nm here we go and here is the matlib http://people.uleth.ca/~andrew.melnychukosee/skinshader.mathttp://people.uleth.ca/~andrew.melnychukosee/skin%20test2.jpg

[vander]

Hello again.
I know that this question is old, but I edited the lume.mi to activate the GLARE material. I deleted the " hidden" but the GLARE continues not appearing in my list of Shaders of Mental Ray. I use Max 6.
I get to open the scenes with GLARE that I download here and edit the parameters, but I don't get to create a new scene with GLARE, because he doesn't appear in my list.


Am I making something wrong?


Thanks

[ToddD]

"Glare" is a camera shader found in the render dialogue rollout. Once you select the glare camera shader, you can drag it to the material editor to make adjustments. ;)


Todd

[fhodshon]

recently aware of mental ray.

struggling, but unashamed to share my weak attempts.

pointers most welcome!

http://www.hodshon.com/mray_lw3.jpg

[vander]

Yes... Thank you. 103 pages readed to learn how to applicate Glare Material.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you... and thank you.

[Druid_Ctba]

Hi friend 3Drawer (http://www.cgtalk.com/member.php?u=96194), do you fogot me :) ?

Druid® vbmenu_register("postmenu_1611808", true);

[hjalle]

About the skin shader in R7.
It's lock like rubber, vax.
Somthing for the sex toys business maybe.

[3Drawer]

ahhh SH*T!
I´m so sorry Druid_Ctba!

I totally forgot it! I´ve have to to so much... ahr.
I´ll post the scene in 1 or 2 days! I SWEAR!!!

one more time sorry....

bye

3Drawer

[Traker]

Anyone knows how to make rust\damage\peeleing paint on metal at rough angles on a mesh..something similar to the attached image?
Or maybe something based on vertex color/weight where i can select my locations where i want rust\damage\peeling paint to appear.

[AdrianWilliams]

this might seem a little old now - but i have a small question, how would you get volumetric light to move under water with the waves? i know how to make the scene (thx to jeff) but i would like the light to move with the waves? and ideas?

[JeffPatton]

use an animated noise (or caustic) map on the light...or you can setup a plane like a water surface with an animated noise map (or caustic map) in the opacity slot and let the light shine though it.

I think this is moreso a general 3dsmax question, and not a mental ray specific shader question though.

JP

[Jayson]

First of all, my Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread. I have spent the better part of today reading through and learning what I can.

I have been given the enviable task of learning Mental Ray and incorporating it into our companies work. The lack of tutorials or manuals itself is quite daunting.

A quick question to anyone who can point me in the right direction. I'm trying to achieve a blurry reflection on a plane, but have been able to only produce shadows, or blurry reflections, but not both. Here's my test images:

http://www.amdrendering.com/Shadows.jpg


Is it possible ( I assume so) to get the blurry reflection on the right, with the shadows on the left?

Thanks in advance!
(http://www.amdrendering.com/Shadows.jpg)

[JeffPatton]

Yes. Here's a render & the scene:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/CG-post/b-floor.jpg

There's DOF on this image, but only because I was answering another question about DOF with this same post (trying to multi-task...). Just disable it in the render setup.

Here's the scene:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/CG-post/b-floor.zip

Jeff

[Ls3D]

I have been given the enviable task of learning Mental Ray and incorporating it into our companies work. The lack of tutorials or manuals itself is quite daunting.
Definately get the MR books availible on Amazon and the MR website, also you might want to send generous bribes to Jeff for support. :deal:

-Shea

[Jayson]

Thank you Jeff! :thumbsup: We had gotten as far as making a Shellac material with the metal(Lume), but your Mix material works much better. I can see that my Max/Viz material knowledge is a bit outdated here.

I'm going to try and get the books off Amazon, I'll take any help that I can get! And I'm sure I will be back soon with more newbie questions....

[digtlpete]

can anyone point me in the right direction on finding out how to create a blurry reflection that also has a fall of. I have tried to use the metal lume shader in conjunction with the max fall of map but cannot seem to get it to work. When I attemted this with mental ray it would crunch or scale the reflection instead of deliniating the reflection. Any ideas? I appolagize if this issue has already been discussed earlier in the thread.

thanks for any comments

[vander]

Hello. Please, does anybody know if exist the Lume shaders (Lume tools) for Maya and where can I find them?

Thank you

[JeffPatton]

@vander - A search of this thread or google would've provided the info you need (www.lume.com)

[vander]

I know, I know Google and also the Lume site... I already made the two things, but not found anything on Lume Tools for Maya, I already ordered e-mails for Lume also and I didn't have answer.

I thought would not be so difficult that somebody answered me that question without having to answer with a certain Noth American arrogance (like, we are the best ones, don't ask us stupid questions).

To purpose, I already read the 104 pages of this thread, but I didn't find anything on Lume Tools for Maya.

But thank you for your answer.

[JeffPatton]

North American arrogance? :shrug: Are you serious? I'm amazed that you would say that if you've read through this entire thread. I think I've been more than helpful and courteous to everyone.

Let me give you a direct quote from the lume.com website:
"Also look for a Maya version in the future"
and they even give you a Maya contact name, email and phone number:
Maya
Lightpoint Laboratories
Contact: Etienne Taylor
etienne@lightpoint.com
407.560.8250

In your original post you did not mention that you were already aware of the lume.com website, nor that you had searched google, nor that you have already contacted the lume.com people. Now I ask you, how was I suppose to know that you had done all of that from your simple question?

Maybe you'll have better luck in the Maya forum? It's possible that some individual has taken on the task of converting them? But I would guess it's a bit complex since the company that makes lume tools hasn't done so yet (and you'd think they would do it quickly to make more money from sales)

JP

[ToddD]

In Jeff's defense, he has created/contributed more to this thread than anybody. Furthermore, he is not obligated to answer, nor is he a replacement for support you can get by simply contacting your vendor(alias,discreet, mental images). I thought with the info provided his answer was perfectly acceptable, while your attitude in responding was not.
This is a productive, informative thread, let's keep it on track, and follow the forum rules about being courteous and polite.

[vander]

But my answer would have been: Vander, Lume tools doesn't exist for Maya.
But what seems arrogant for a Brazilian one it cannot seem for an noth American.

thank you.

I promise not to do more questions here.

Thank you again.

[hjalle]

Vander, get some sleep :sad:

[vander]

Take it Easy... talk about shaders again.

Jesus loves you.

[JeffPatton]

Yes, lets just drop this before it ruins the thread and a MOD has to come in here and clean things up. Good luck on your search vander. :thumbsup:

JP

[Jimbo65]

I finally did it... I read this entire thread. When I started there were only fourty pages... work and life in general have gotten in the way though!

I want to say thanks to everyone who contributes on this thread, it has helped me learn more than I can say about MR and max as well.

I have been working through the files, links and shaders in this topic for weeks, and now Max7 ships! So I guess the Mental topics will grow and develop further. I am working on a project in MR right now and I am sure I will be more active on CGtalk in the future...

thanks for the help!

[Osaires]

If you alredy got the lume.dll file you can download the mi file for maya here (http://w1.702.comhem.se/~u70208061/downloads_MR_shaders_meny.html)

and lot's of other shader to :)

[vander]

Thank You, Osaires. :) http://www.cgtalk.com/images/icons/icon13.gif

[3Drawer]

max 7 IS OUT!

I´ll post some SSS test with the new mr_ shader!!!

bye

3Drawer

[JeffPatton]

If you haven't seen this Max7 SSS Tutorial, you may want to have a look:
http://www.3d-palace.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2863

I'm holding off on installing that demo for a couple of days in hopes that I get my copy in the mail soon. Don't know that I'll be able to stand it much longer though. :argh:

JP

[SimonReeves]

I'm holding off on installing that demo for a couple of days in hopes that I get my copy in the mail soon. Don't know that I'll be able to stand it much longer though.

lol Jeff, same here..

[Jayson]

Well so far so good with Mental Ray and it's integration into my office. I've made some good progress in the last few days. I'm also up to page 25 in this thread, out of 105, boy you guys write alot...:) I've run into some situations that I'd like to run by y'all.

First caveat: I'm technically using AutoDesk VIZ 2005, which is pretty much identical to Max 6. But maybe its not.... ? :shrug:

-The Glare Shader (I hear a collective groan from the forum members) I've edited my lume.mi file, and can open existing files (from Jeffs site) and grab the Glare shader from there. However it does not show up in my shader list. Either do any of the other shaders I've unhidden in the lume.mi file. Any ideas? I'm willing to continue to grab those shaders from existing files, but it does seem a bit odd...:shrug:

-Blurry reflections with falloff. Jeff did a great job helping me out earlier with this. I'm creating a floor, with a concrete map, and blurry reflection with falloff. In order to be able to adjust the amounts of reflection, bitmap, etc, I've had to put them all into mixes. So I've got a mix of the concrete and a gray color (to subdue the concrete), and that mix is mixed with a metal (Lume) material with falloff. The end result is great. I'm just wondering if there is a simpler way to do it. I played around with Brazil a while ago, and they had a simple reflection shader that allows one to control all of that from within the standard material.

If you've read this far, congrats, your patience is appreciated! :thumbsup:

[JeffPatton]

Just a thought, if VIZ allows you to save materials into a .mat file (like max), could you save the glare shader and similar into a .mat file and then open in the material editor of a new file? I'm not familiar with VIZ, and so I'm not sure why if you edited the .mi file the shaders aren't appearing.

JP

[Jayson]

Thanks Jeff, if all else fails, thats probably what I will end up doing. As far as I can tell from working with both Max and Viz, the people at AutoDesk basically took Max, disabled lots of animation options and other stuff, repackaged it, lowered the price, and called it Autodesk Viz. But the lume shaders do work, it just looks like I'll have to have a .mat file up and ready when I want to use them.

Muchas Gracias! :thumbsup:

[monkeydonut]

Hi guys, I wonder if I could get some help with a problem.

A friend of mine is designing some architecture, and she wants to recreate the effect whereby the walls are made of many slices of acrylic or glass sandwiched together (thereby creating lots of reflections and refractions through all the surfaces). I doubted the timely feasibility of actually building hundreds of slices, and raytracing for real (if the slices were actually touching, presumably max would treat it as a solid piece of glass anyway?).

I then wondered if a similar effect / cheat could be put together via mental ray and a suitable texture map.

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/monkeydnt/detail?.dir=/5ac5&.dnm=fa9a.jpg&.src=ph

This photo is the kind of thing we're talking about - can anyone suggest an approach (I've not got much texture/shader creation experience)?

Thanks for any help at all,
Alex

[JeffPatton]

Alex - Do you have any links to other examples? That link you posted doesn't work for me for some reason.

JP

[depleteD]

umm, max 7 brings new mr shaders. werd.

heres the skin shader on default i hope to expand on it later today. did this last nite just to see what it looks like. lit with hdri and daylight. dont laugh i was short on time.

http://people.uleth.ca/~andrew.melnychukosee/sss4.jpg

[monkeydonut]

Jeff, try again - I forgot to make the folder viewable to the public.

Thanks
Alex

[JeffPatton]

It's difficult (for me atleast) to see how the glass is stacked (looks like vertical length wise?). At any rate, I would think you could get by with a glass shader and a bump map? Displacement would work too, but I think it would take too long to render when used with glass.

Theres a map that comes with 3dsmax called ammo.jpg. Have a look at it and try placing it in the bump map slot of a glass material and see what you think. You may have to rotate that map based on the direction of the stacked glass.

There's also the blur option on the glass lume, but render time increases with that option too.

JP

[depleteD]

pease critique my blood sss shader. i didnt have a refrence and i wasnt that desperate to make a refrence if u know what i mean. O wait... here kitty kitty kitty.....
http://people.uleth.ca/~andrew.melnychukosee/blood.jpg

[Druid_Ctba]

Hi friends.
I'm searching in the NET by finalRender Shaders but I'm not found these :sad:
Why is very difficult found this shader's, I found VRay a lot, Brazil and MentalRay, but finalRender nothing, I found in site cebas finalRender Shaders, but it is a package from Cebas :sad:

Do anyone help me please?

Fine thanks for all,

Druid®

[3Drawer]

FinalShaders are the shaders of CEBAS. There are no "shaders" like for mr or v-ray (v-ray has no shaders but nevermind).


bye

3Drawer

[Matt-Bortolino]

Hi, sorry if this post is needlessly bulking an already huge thread, but I didn't think this question warranted its own topic.

I'm using XSI v4 & Max 7, both of which use the latest MR v3.3, & was wondering if the XSI Toon shader could be used in Max 7?

I've already tried the usual approach of putting the MR shader .dll & .mi files into the relevant directories, but I'm not getting any new material/map options in Max.

Max does of course already have lots of options for MR contours, but the SI Toon shaders add some extra stuff like the option to use texture maps to control ink lines, or more control over how depth-based line thinning is controlled.

It might be something that isn't compatible with the Max-MR connection, since the SI Toon shader has some odd XSI specific things, like a 'Toon Host' node that works as a connection to the contour lens shaders (I think), but I just thought that someone might have an idea for getting the shader working.

Thanks.

[Druid_Ctba]

Hi :)
So, i go to change my question: I would like to get it finalRender Materials, equal mat lib CGTalk.MR :thumbsup:

Fine thanks for help me,

Druid®

P.S. 3Drawer don't forgot me, please...

[JasonCamp]

well im back home again for a short time.. i was gone for 3 weeks and i opened my scene file like 2 times.. hopefully this next trip will be a lot better for time wise . i did how ever get a lot of work on touching up my textures for a bottle , 1 bad thing though is i had to take a picture of the bottles lable to get it , my scanner has been de-comed for a while now sence i cant find the power cord to it , and even if i were to i cant seem to get any xp drivers for it , it sucks too because it was a 4800x4800 res scanner and most new scanners dont let you set the resulution to what you want anyways ... i once set it to like 10000x10000 and er i ran out of hard drive space ... heh well anyways taking a picture with the camera makes it a lot more harder to touch up .. thats where my wacom tablet comes in .. i use the magic wand but it never pics the correct colors .. i hear max7 is out now .. its going to be a while before i get a chance to get it maybe next year ... so how is it everybody ? and how is the new ver of mr ?

[shserge]

I'm searching way of doing amber material. I try do this with sss_physical shader which goes with max7. But i'm interesting in any possible way. Do you know Any links?

[depleteD]

Try what patton did with the raytraced volume shaders. U would get something really close to amber that way. Long render times tho.

Heres another test with the sss skin shader.
dont laugh at my textureing job plz.
I plan to do one where i paint maps to control all the spec and colors of everything in that material to achieve better results and control.
I found out to use HDRI with skin the option scatter indirect illumination in the advanced rollout has to be clicked.
Crit please.


http://people.uleth.ca/~andrew.melnychukosee/headsss5.jpg

[JeffPatton]

I have an amber material in the .mat file on my website (link at the bottom). It's called JP-Amber. It's based around the glass(lume) material. Here's an example render:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/cg-post/mr-amber.jpg

JP

[depleteD]

thats a nice amber dood,
when u gonna break out the skillz on max 7? :D :D
The new SSS physical shader is pretty ownij, hard to get to look right.

[shserge]

depleteD, Jeff - thank you!
Jeff, please, can you say, what shader have you used for this great rendering?
http://www.jeffpatton.net/Gallery/SSS-Seahorse.jpg

[Vudra]

Hi to all :).

Can some tell me how to made material for closer (top) like in picture ?Also need to made good looking plastic render (like cube-picture) botlle . Botlle is for natural water.Render should be clean with no background (white) but botlle need to look like real one.How to made this with MR in max 6. I was finished model but don't like renderings.

Tnx

Rgrds
Vudra

[JeffPatton]

shserge - The seahorse was rendered with Brazil R/S. The shader is a mix map using Brazil's wax shader and Brazil glass with glossy reflections.

Jeff

[depleteD]

Hey Vudra,
Here is a suggestion for your bottle. Use a dielectic material. It is excellent for simulateing mediums against mediums. i/e glass against water.

I will try and make an example of that today and post it. Pretty busy tho.

I have a quick question of my own tho.
Is there anyway to make beam filter with shadows?
Beam is incredibly fast volumetrics but rather limited.

[Druid_Ctba]

Hi Jeff :)

Can you post here this scene please: http://www.jeffpatton.net/Gallery/brz-mats.jpg

Fine thanks!

Druid®

[Druid_Ctba]

Ah Jeff, I loved this ghost material: http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=1154694&postcount=618

Please, Is it possible put here this scene fot my study?

Thanks for all!

Druid®

[JeffPatton]

Druid - I've just added those Brazil materials to the Free Materials thread here at CGtalk. Here's a link:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1650540&posted=1#post1650540

I don't think I have that ghost shader scene any longer. However, it was very simple to make. The ghost material is already included in the cgtalk.mat file.
Just create a basic scene with a torus knot and a single omni light. Turn the omni light off. This step disables the default lighting. You can skip this step if you have already disabled the default lights. Now apply the ghost material to the torus knot object and enable final gather. That should be it. :thumbsup:

JP

[depleteD]

hey, just a quick question. Can I bring the new shaders in max 7 mental ray over to maya 6?

both are mental ray 3.3

[depleteD]

sry double post

[shserge]

Thank you, Jeff! But i hoped sea-horse was rendered with mental ray :D

[shserge]

Thank you, Jeff!

[machadoj]

Jeff thanks for all the good stuff you have been posting in your forum.
They helped me a lot in my illustrations...
You helped us to walk in the mental ray world.....http://www.cgchannel.com/forum/viewthread?thread=11908

[Druid_Ctba]

Fine thanks Jeff :)

Druid®

[nebille]

Hello all

Having a bit of a problem trying to replicate the glass below and wondered if anyone new of any shaders that could possibly replicate the effect.

regards

nebille

[digtlpete]

Can anyone point me in the direction to find out how to use the translucent shader to create a lamp shade, I have seached through this thread and could not find anything that pertains to this problem. I want the shade to diffuse the omni light correctly and also be able to see shadows cast on the shade by the shade frame. I saw a thread that was posted by jeff patton on the subject some time ago with a file, but it did not seem to come to any conclusion on how to do it. The help file that comes with lume tool was of no help. Any ideas.

thanks,
brian

[ToddD]

@nebille, have you tried making 2 glass materials, 1 with more opacity than the other, and using a blend material and mask to create the effect? I assume the striped stuff is the glass? It doesn't look very glass like ;)

@digtlpete I may have a thread with info on this over at cgarchitect, I will post the link in a few minutes.

EDIT:

There is a little info here:

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=6521

[JeffPatton]

@Nebille - I think the glass(lume) shader should handle that pretty well. Enable the blur transparancy and blur reflection. You may have to mix it with a dirtmap or some similar technique if you want the darker sections to show up too. Maybe a noise map in the surface material slot of the glass(lume)? Dunno, just thinking out loud.

@digtlpete - I think I gave up on that translucent shader. Never had much luck with that lamp example. TBonz816 recently made an interior scene with a lamp that looked really nice. Maybe he can....shed some light on it (I know, that was a bad one :D )

JP


EDIT - Ummmm, looks like he posted a reply the same time as I mentioned his name....I guess he's kinda like Candyman, you say his name and he appears... :p

[ToddD]

Hehehe Thanks Jeff! Posted the thread link ;) I will post a test scene if you need

Candy...... Candy....

[Druid_Ctba]

Hi Jeff!

Two problems...

1. Ghost not work, I attached scene with parameters that you send in above thread! What is wrong?

Scene:

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/druid_ctba/JP-Ghost.zip

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

2. The Brazil R/S material scene crash my 3DSMAX6 SP1. I has installed Brazil R/S 1.2.21, and three times crashed my max at open file "Brazil-materials.max". I was thinking, Do you can post material library from this scene for me (.mat)?

Fine thanks for your attention,

Druid®

[JeffPatton]

Druid - The Ghost blue scene you posted renders fine here. The only thing I noticed was that you had the material render set to scanline instead of MR which caused the material to show up clear in the mat editor (instead of blue). But that obviously wouldn't keep it from rendering blue (which it did btw).

It's been a while since I used that material and I thought you needed FG on for it to work, but you don't really. Only turn on FG if you need the object to actually emit light. So to speed up the testing, disable FG. Then for the final render, you may want to turn it back on..and maybe even add the glare shader to boost the glow a bit.

On the Brazil mat scene, did you try merging those spheres into a new empty scene? If not, give that a go first.

Jeff

[JeffPatton]

Oh, and I keep forgetting to post this (sorry):
@shserge - You're welcome :)
@machadoj - I really like that rendering in the link you posted. Looks great! :thumbsup:

JP

[rlph.]

nebille, to me the reference image you posted looks like there's some panel curtains or something similar behind the glass, so it's not just one material. Lume glass is the way to go as it has been said already.

[Static_Fiend]

Ah cool, that's a nice blurred reflection Jeff (referring to page 103), I managed to do something pretty nice a while ago with the Metal (lume) shader myself. Here's my result using your reflection, and the Glare (lume) shader:

http://static.circa1984.com/shots/teapot-reflect.jpg

[machadoj]

Oh, and I keep forgetting to post this (sorry):
@shserge - You're welcome :)
@machadoj - I really like that rendering in the link you posted. Looks great! :thumbsup:

JP
I used the scene, that you posted in the forum for us: light-me test, as a starting point for all the illustrations that are in that link....thanks again

[digtlpete]

Thankyou Tbonz816 and Jeff for the info on the lamp shade. From the post on Cgarchitect it look like the best option for this lampshade problem is to use the arch material. I really appreciate the help and time saved from your research.

thanks,
brian.

when finished I will post a result

[digtlpete]

@Tbonz816_ could you please upload a test scene of the lamp shade, I am having some trouble getting this arch material to work properly? I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Brian

[BrianHarbauer]

Hey all! Been faithfully reading this thread since it's started and WOW. BIG thanks to jeff and everyone else, can't begin to say how it's helped me. Anywho, I just got max 7 and heres a Fast SSS test that came with the package, the model is from the tutorial but i textured it and played with the SSS settings. Enjoy.

Brian H.
-Geronimo!

[ToddD]

Ok DigtlPete, here's the scene, I had to refresh my memory as well took me about 20 minutes to sort it out. Settings can be changed (a little splotchy, samples and radius settings will fix that), but it renders reasonably quick the way it is(around 2 minutes on a dual xeon3.06).
It's an arch material, the values from that thread on cgarchitect were not what I ended up using, although the idea is the same.

The render...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/tbonz/lamprender.jpg

[Druid_Ctba]

Hi Jeff :)

OK, I install Brazil v1.2.52, and not problems now, but your version from scene Brazil Material is 1.2.48 (I opened max file with notepad and see it) and version 1.2.21 from Brazil R/S crash max6!

But, I yet would like, if possible, that you did one scene equal to thread that I posted above, please!

Fine thanks for all attention,

Druid®

[PiledotNET]

Guys, sorry to bother you with "old thread questions" but I'm starting all over again my tests with mental ray something is confusing me.

I was reproducing the first SSS tests in this thread and they use both Volume Channel (Parti Volume shader) and Photon Volume Channel ( Parti Volume Photon shader).

My question: is necessary to use both channels to scatter light into the material or is just to use the Volume Channel with caustics on?

I'm asking this because I'm able to use just the Volume Channel with caustics to do SSS. So what's Parti Volume Photon does in this case?

Heres a render without the Parti Volume Photon shader aplyed to the Photon Volume Channel:
http://67.15.28.3/~redpixel/outside/partivolumetest01.jpg

Tnks!

[Druid_Ctba]

Hi friends :) !

Sorry for my question here, but I have downloanding any materials for Max, ones in Russian Sites, and I have asked which to render (VRay, MR, fRender, Brazil) these materials belong :sad: , How to know?

Exists some program or script to know?

Fine thanks for all attention :thumbsup: ,

Druid®

[shserge]

I use parti_volume and don't want it affected by fg, because of time. Can i exlude it from fg?

[monkeydonut]

Hi,
I'm doing an intro to a music video where the camera flies across a moonlit ocean, and so far I'm using Max/MR with:

surface : water surface(lume) and DGS material for the water material (with an MRareaspotlight designated as the light)
Bump and Displacement: ocean(lume)
Volume: submerge(lume) [Technically unnecessary I guess, as I'm just using a plane surface right now]
environment: none (with a darkish grey blue set in the max env rollout).

To simulate the moonlight glittering in the water (something like this: http://www.usswisconsin.org/Association%20Trips/Panama%20Canal%20Cruise/108.jpg
or this
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SilkRoad-ocean/3026/photo/myfavorite/IMG_5163moonlight.JPG
)
I then place the area spotlight in the distance angled over the water.

Now this gives the effect I'm looking for, but the 'moonlight' reflection on the water is too thin for my liking. It seems to me that due to the physics going on, I may not be able to change that via the shader variables, and that it might just be a function of how low the camera is to the water.

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/monkeydnt/detail?.dir=5ac5&.dnm=9961.jpg&.src=ph

Can anyone suggest a way to do that, or even, just a way to improve the quality of the render - for example in the DGS material used for the water, there are shader slots for glossy highlights etc, that could be a way to go?

Thanks for any help/criticism, I'm looking to make this intro as photoreal as possible.

Alex

edit: maybe I should use glare to soften the reflection, or is there something else I can incorporate into the water surface material?

[eldany]

Can anyone tell me what's the best way to create
a GEL material with bubbles inside with mentalray? :)
TIA!!!

EL |) /\ /\/ )/

[Raffi_1]

eldany, the best way to a create a GEL material is to create the GEL, and then you can create the bubbles inside it . . . and you are done . . :) :) :) :applause:
:beer:

[Raffi_1]

ok,,, maybe you can try a dielectric material (bubbles) inside another dielectric material (GEL)with bump and displace . . . I think ...

[shserge]

So, to exclude shader from fg i have found this node RayType for maya's mental ray and after i tried to integrate it with max:
http://www.impresszio.hu/szabolcs/MentalRay/RayType.htm
In .mi file i added string apply material, but i'm not sure at 100% that it's right. I use it as surface material in mental ray slot. And after i attach my material to the raytype. The problem is that emitted photons don't store and i don't know what to change. When i use my raytrace material with parti_volume shader without rayrtype - photons are stored. May be materials with photons at the volume can'not be right converted by MaterialToShader for RayType. Some help need. :lightbulb

[BrianHarbauer]

eldany, maybe make the gel a mesh object, invert the normals, and put a particle array inside and set to deflect off of the mesh? just an idea. then do a SSS, like with the diffusion shader mentioned in previous threads, then with fall off for transpancy? Don't know exactly what kind of gel you want, something like a clear gel like soft soap? or a thick gell that isn't transparnt, such as grease? haven't had a chance to try my idea yet, but when i do, i'll post. Good luck man.http://www.cgtalk.com/images/icons/icon11.gif

[ToddD]

About the Gel material: Why not try using Jeff's amber material as a base, maybe make some bubble shapes inside, invert normals if necessary? I haven't tried that material myself, but looks like it could work with some parameter adjustments:shrug:

[crissy]

Hello, I have the follow problem...

Sorry I wrote it here...

I rendered a transp. Objekt with the Architecture Materila "clear glass"
it´s perfect... but there is no transp. in the alpha channel ?
the alpha is filled (complete white)


please help


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

Sorry for this bad english

[Eugenio]

Hi all!

Anyone knows if the way MR 3.3 renders it's shaders has changed? Because I've opened a file created in max 6 that reproduces the SSS with parti_volume shader that seems to be quite fine, but in max 7 the result a very different, and I didn't change any parameter...

Another question is the same then PiledotNET asked, that is what is the meaning of using a parti_volume_photon if it renders just fine without it...in fact, I cannot see any difference when turning on caustics...

And the last one is that I notice that in Max 7 with MR I cannot pause the render anymore...:sad:

Some help please!

Thanks a lot...

Jr.

[Raffi_1]

is this a good GEL .. ?? :)

http://www.3e6r.com/upload/uploads/gel.jpg

[JeffPatton]

Parti-Volume-photon questions:

Well, I used it in the original Blue-glowing-SSS-thing at the front of this thread because back then I wasn't sure which parti-volume shader I needed to use. So, yes you guys are correct, generally you don't need to use the parti-volume-photon shader. Ok, I hear the next question coming..."so when do we use it?"

I THINK the only time you would use the parti-volume-photon shader is when you want MR to trace out volume caustics.

I've switched over to Max7 now, but due to work I haven't had the time to test any previous scenes in MR3.3. I have been getting a bunch of emails regarding my test files looking different in Max7 than in Max6. Once my workload lightens up a bit, I'll dig into those and see what's changed.

JP

[PiledotNET]

Great Jeff tnks!!!

[Zgame]

Could anyone be so kind as to post their settings for a skin shader using the Diffusion shader? Im trying to use it and having an extremely hard time controling the parameters. I have the shader at 94 Diffuse, 100 Intensity, and a buttload of shaders in the surface for coloration stuff.

[jwilson02]

this is a cool little mental ray shader i produced the other day..if ud like to know how its made let me know
Edit: dont you love geocities hosting?? lol should be back on soonhttp://http://img79.exs.cx/img79/6422/crazytext.th.jpg (http://img79.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img79&image=crazytext.jpg)

[jwilson02]

http://http://img88.exs.cx/img88/2072/shaders.th.jpg (http://img88.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img88&image=shaders.jpg)some cool shaders

sooner or later it will show up;)

[Bercon]

Jeff, is it possible that you'd post the material you used with that Seahorse? I tried recreate it but I just couldn't figure out how to make good SSS effect using Diffusion shader.

Anyway. Here is some free models for material tests and such. They are NOT for comercial use.

http://www.vantaa-vaskivuori.fi/~jerrylil/resources/

http://www.vantaa-vaskivuori.fi/~jerrylil/resources/Horse.jpg
http://www.vantaa-vaskivuori.fi/~jerrylil/resources/Seahorse.jpg
http://www.vantaa-vaskivuori.fi/~jerrylil/resources/Skull.jpg

They are all rendered with mental ray in 3dsmax 7. Horse uses Metal(lume) shader, skull and seahorse use SSS Fast material.

Notes: Seahorse material uses Dirtmap. Horse reflection map ships with max7 and is not included in zip.

[externe]

Anyway. Here is some free models for material tests and such. They are NOT for comercial use.
Let us be serious. How can you imagine that a professional uses your models or your shader.
I am astonished by the lack of sharing in the 3d world, people want to keep their secrets for them. Look at the quality of the Jeff's scenes places at the disposal on its site :
http://www.jeffpatton.net/Mental-ray.htm

And you can read this preamble :
I've learned much of what I know about 3dsmax from kind people sharing ideas, techniques, and scenes online. This page is my contribution to the 3dsmax community in general. I hope others will learn from and expand upon these small tests of mine.

Be humble on the work which you share, some tests are not secrets. And, definitively, more you give, more you receive.

ciao :)

[PiledotNET]

Let us be serious. How can you imagine that a professional uses your models or your shader.
Take it easy man, relax :)
They are very nice models and shaders for anyone who want to learn, so you don't need to be ofended if he doesn't want anyone using for comercial propourses.


Anyway, I wan't to share this scene:

http://67.15.28.3/~redpixel/outside/dodgesss02.jpg


http://67.15.28.3/~redpixel/outside/dodgesss2_download.jpg (http://67.15.28.3/~redpixel/outside/dodgesss2.zip)

NOTES:
- Original render will be blue, 800x600 and with blured edges.
- Go to Photoshop, change the color to whatever you want and use the Sharpen Filter to sharpen things up.
- Do not look directly to the credits, it's to ugly :argh:

[externe]

Take it easy man, relax :)

Sorry if I seemed irritated, I did not want to appear bad. :)

[marktsang]

hi all,

just wondering about the sss skin shader in max 7. is it possible to block the transmission of light with geometry inside your sss thingamajig?

for example i have rendered my character with sss - and it turned out quite good except that inside his mouth is also recieving sss - i know i can paint it out with black painted on the area the overall diffuse colour but i want to know if i can build geometry in the shape of bones to block out the transference of light.

i have tried it and it doesnt seem to work - maybe it doesnt work?

mark

[Bercon]

Well. It probably would work if you use SSS material for bones and set same light scattering group for them and then put all values to zero (disabling sss effect). However if you dont want to use SSS material for bones then I have no idea. You'd again had to set same light scattering group to that material and I doubt it is possible to set any other material than Fast SSS *.

[marktsang]

hi masterbeacon,

use SSS material for bones and set same light scattering group for them and then put all values to zero (disabling sss effect)- this works -
thanks
mark

[blotov]

it seems that MR 3.3 make some things easier, specially if we talk about SSS. Take a look at this article on CGNetworks (http://www.cgnetworks.com/story_custom.php?story_id=2420&page=2) where a complete MAX review is showed, and take a look specially at the MR section where they talk about the new MR 3.3 SSS shaders (SSS fast, SSS skin and SSS physics phenomenon).fabrizzio who's on your avatar?

[blotov]

Well... nothing.

Thanks again.you're welcome the invisible man

[ToddD]

This thread is so informative, please think before posting senseless posts that don't contribute anything and convolute the useful information. :shrug:

[ayama]

Hello,
i need GLARE effect on several objects in my scene - like GLOW in scanline render.
I've seen some words about assigning in LUME TOOLS help:
"By default, all of the image is affected. Enabling Specific Objects causes the effect to apply to only those pixels whose tag matches the values in the Object Labels list.
The label image and any user defined frame buffers of type TAG are used by the selection process."
it seems that TAG is similar to Effects ID in scanline...
HOW can we assign an Object LABEL to some object?

maybe someone knows other ways to get GLOW effect in Mental Ray?
(scene doesn't contain GI or FG)
thank you in advance

[Eugenio]

Hi all!

How to increase the quality of the blurred reflections of a DGS Material?

Other thing is that I was reading the MR Shader library help that come with max, and I've read that the DGS Material is capable of doing anisotropic reflections, and mentions the parameter shiny_U and shiny_V of the shader. But max doesn't have this parameters, and I could not to achieve real anisotropic reflections. Anyone has an answer for this?

Thanks a lot...

Jr.

[ToddD]

In another forum someone had posted a question about creating a sphere with fissures. So, I made this quick example- thought it might be applicable here to since it incorporates a couple of things learned here. Jeff's neon material(with the levels boosted up a bit) and the glare camera shader.
Just a note, the frames will take progressively longer to render as more of the illuminated sphere is visible. The glare effect is calculated at the end of each frame, that is the part that will take longer as the animation renders.
short animation (http://zneekinround.250free.com/fissureani-01.avi)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/tbonz/mentalrayfissures-01.jpg

[depleteD]

Hey can anyone tell me what pages u guys disccused on how to unlock the glare shader and the lume metal material (phong) shader? My max 6 can use materials with the phong metal from the cgtalk mat lib but i cant create a new one. what gives?

the lume metal phong seems to have more control that the regular metal lume id like to know how to use it

[JeffPatton]

http://www.jeffpatton.net/Tips-page.htm

The process is the same for all hidden shaders.

[stefan]

Looks like new mental ray in max7 can not work with lm_2dMV shader. Or lm_2DMV shader can not work with new maxt7. I am so sad.

But rapid motion blur looks good. It is faster and imiges looks OK. Does enybody know how does it works?

[dunker]

my first post, please be gentle :)

this is my attempt at some 2x2 weave carbon fiber that i'll be using to map some in-car cockpits. started off using Jeff's great car paint as a base to start from. i tried using only procedurals but could'nt figure out how to do a 2x2, a 1x1 was possible with checkers/gradient ramps/noise but would still need alot work on scaling. i guess this is showing off MR's ability to bump very well even at levels of 300+ as there wasnt much difference doing a proper MR displacement than using bump/spec color fake. what you guys think?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/dunker/cf2x2weave.jpg
this thread is awesome i'm only half way through reading it! :buttrock:

[neods]

I read the current issue of 3dworld, and there was an article about the Shark Tale movie. There was an some talk about theyr rendering, and they said that when they did an ambien occulsion pass, it was baked in to the geometry, is this possible in max7 and the new mental ray?

[SimonReeves]

you certainly can do a AO pass, and I do think that mr now supports baking

/me goes off to try

sounds good it does

[neods]

In the magazine they said that a scene took 1 - 6 hours to bake the ambient occulsion, and after that rendering it was very fast. Please tell me if you get any results, I need to go to sleep,.

[rizob]

http://www.cg-academy.net/pages/free_tutorials/tut_ambient_occlusion_shader/tut_mentalray_ambientocclusion_shader.htm
heres a link to someone threw up the other day. mr 3.3 definitely supports ambient occlusion, i haven’t really used it yet but ill run some tests if i ever get time, work work work ,and mental ray does bake too, pretty nice but alittle slow, nothin to camplain about really.
work work work.

btw nice carbon fiber
robb

[shserge]

Nice link, rizob.
Can anyone give a link on how to do transparent blinds on the windows to achieve soft brights areas?

[nebille]

can you post an image of the blinds that you are describing

regards

nebille

[shserge]

Here what i'm talking about. This is 3dsmax work, i have seen at one lightwave site.
http://serge_shevelev.gorodok.net/post-1-1099462654.jpg

[SimonReeves]

I couldnt get it to bake the AO :(

it just didnt render the ao beacuse it was on the objects material, I think

wait a min... someone said you could put the AO shader it somewhere else I think..
sorry, thinking outloud there

I mean.. typing..

[JeffPatton]

For curtains, try the architectural material. There's one template called "paper-translucent" that may just work like a charm for you.

Jeff

[March4Revenge]

Disclaimer lol!: Talked with Jeff about this but forgot ask him the process for installing the .mi and .dll files! I also searched for this topic and quite a few people had the same problem but not many clear answers (that I saw anyway:sad:)

The Problem:
Loading up the CGtalk-MR.mat in Max I get this message:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v428/m4r/error.jpg

So I went to the Lightengine link on page 9 of this thread to download the required files.

Here is what I did:

- I extracted "md_subScatter60.mll" to "D:\3dsmax7\plugins"

- "md_subScatter.mi" to "D:\3dsmax7\mentalray\dev\include"
NOTE: I also put "diffusion.mi" in here. Is that ok?

and

- "md_subScatter.dll" to "D:\3dsmax7\mentalray\dev\lib"

Can anyone tell me if I left anyhthing out or whatnot? I followed the "installation/html" as best I coulod but that fact that it was made for Maya users was a little confusing. For instance, they ask you to modify some of the code ofr the files and I didn't do that.

Thanks guys, and like I said, I searched for this but couldn't find anything, but I am going to do another sweep regardless :)

Thanks!
M4R

[JeffPatton]

Trust me, it's been covered...But since the process is a bit different for max7, it should probably be discussed again.

There's multiple sub-folders now in the MR folder. It looks like this:

Mentalray
__dev
____include
____lib
__shaders_3rdparty
____include
____shaders
__shaders_autoload
____include
____shaders
__shaders_standard
____include
____shaders

I would think a 3rd party shader (such as diffusion.mi) would go into the subfolders of the shaders_3rdparty folder. You can also put it into the subfolders of the shaders_autoload folder....(Just don't put it in both)

Now, the actual placement of the .dll and .mi file is the same as in max6, .mi files always go into the appropriate include folder and the matching .dll will go into the appropriate shader folder.

Also if in doubt, do a search of your 3dsmax root folder for *.mi and you will see the layout of the existing shaders and get an idea of what goes where.

[March4Revenge]

^Thanks Jeff. I put the files into the appropriate folders and I am still getting the "missing mentalray.dlz" message.

I put the .dll files in "D:\3dsmax7\mentalray\shaders_standard\shaders" This is wheren all the other mental ray .dll's are son I figured it appropriate.

I put the .mi files in "D:\3dsmax7\mentalray\shaders_standard\include" with the rest of the .mi files.

Also, do I even need "md_subScatter60.mll" since you didn't mention that? I put that in the plugins folder.

Soooo...sorry for being a pain in the but, I just want the fog to clear on this. That error message keeps coming up.

Thanks again! I'll comb through this thread as well :)

[Zgame]

Could someone please help me out with the mr_subScatter shader? I just cant seem to figure out what the spinners are exactly controlling. The documentation is for XSI or Maya I think and not all the the same spinners are there, what is HSV Diffuse? (Im trying to make skin and having very little success) Please, if you know what any of the settings do. Thanks so much.

[JeffPatton]

March4Revenge
I put the .dll files in "D:\3dsmax7\mentalray\shaders_standard\shaders" This is wheren all the other mental ray .dll's are son I figured it appropriate.

I put the .mi files in "D:\3dsmax7\mentalray\shaders_standard\include" with the rest of the .mi files.

Also, do I even need "md_subScatter60.mll" since you didn't mention that? I put that in the plugins folder.

Soooo...sorry for being a pain in the but, I just want the fog to clear on this. That error message keeps coming up.

Thanks again! I'll comb through this thread as well :)

No problems man, but, I wouldn't put downloaded files into the standard material folder. Put your downloaded 3rd party shaders in the 3rd party sub-folders. I'm not sure if it matters that you put them in the standard folder, but Discreet purposely put the other folders there for a reason, that's why I recommend using them in my previous post.

Correct, you don't need a .mll file. Since MR works with Maya, XSI, etc, you will find often find many different files in these .zips that you download. The only ones we (3dsmax users) are concerned with will be the .dll and .mi.

Zgame - HSV diffuse is the diffuse color.

[JeffPatton]

Ummm ok. We were able to get the MR-subscatter shader to work. Had to use the Maya5 dll file instead of the maya6 for some reason. Also had to put the shaders in the autoload folder. They didn't load in the 3rd party folder.

[Zgame]

Apologizes for my panic and ignorance asking how the parameters worked, I somehow missed all the information in this thread when I hit search...

[rlph.]

I couldnt get it to bake the AO :(

it just didnt render the ao beacuse it was on the objects material, I think

wait a min... someone said you could put the AO shader it somewhere else I think..
sorry, thinking outloud there

I mean.. typing..
You can put AO shader in the mr light shader slot and make the light ambient only. I just tried to bake that light map and I think it did it but the result was pretty damn ugly, maybe it just needs more samples or bigger map size.

[Thewiruz]

my first post, please be gentle :)

this is my attempt at some 2x2 weave carbon fiber that i'll be using to map some in-car cockpits. started off using Jeff's great car paint as a base to start from. i tried using only procedurals but could'nt figure out how to do a 2x2, a 1x1 was possible with checkers/gradient ramps/noise but would still need alot work on scaling. i guess this is showing off MR's ability to bump very well even at levels of 300+ as there wasnt much difference doing a proper MR displacement than using bump/spec color fake. what you guys think?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/dunker/cf2x2weave.jpg
this thread is awesome i'm only half way through reading it! :buttrock:
Thats a nice looking shader,can you tell me how you did it? :/ becuse i need to do carbon
for my project,i use photoshop and Max ,Thanks!

[dunker]

the textures are rendered from a pattern made from planes like this.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/dunker/textures_scene.jpg

the materials on it were self illuminated and rendered flat so they auto-tiled. diffuse texture was light grey/dark grey with stretched noise streaks. same with the reflection mask but with some gradient ramp at the ends to help the bump illusion. the bumpmap was made giving each plane a gradient ramp and faint noise streaks.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/dunker/bump_small.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/dunker/reflect_mask_small.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/dunker/diffuse_small.jpg

the base carbon material is using a bumpmap at 400 but you could use the texture for displacing, would be more accurate. for reflection on the base material i used a mask, the texture above for the mask and "Metal (lume)" for the map, heavily blurred to mimick what the fibers do to light/reflection i guess, and no specular.

that material then goes into the base of a Shellac material and for the shellac its just a falloff reflection, nothing else.

the scene in the pics is using a hdr image for a background environment, which was in Jeff's materials on page 1 of this thread.

here's where i am with this material at the moment, its still a wip and moving towards mentalray only, the method of course can be used for any other though.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/dunker/cf_mr_lume.jpg

the previous material looked okay and rendered really fast but was faking reflection with specular maps, this one is doing it properly i think, but renders about 4 times slower argh.

how can i de-saturate the lume blurred reflection? that would be an improvement?

[Zgame]

Why not just put the shader in an Output map and change the color curvy thingy (I'm the best at terminology)

[auvn]

HI all,
Could you please let me know why and how i can fix that?
When I use glare shader, the image have artifact of blue, red, yellow... dots as you seen in the following link.

http://www.3dvn.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1245

Thanks
AUVN

p.s: how could i post image directly from here?

[lehthanis]

I tried to open the CGTalk-MR matlib file...and when I open it it says there's missing DLL's.

mentalray.dlz Class mr_subScatter

What am I doin wrong? I have max 7 now.

Edit: Got it

[rizob]

hey auvn,
i have had the same prblem, i was going to trouble shoot but ran into some crunches and deadlines. i will test some things soon, question? are you using global illumination, i noticed these effects when i activated global illumination, and have noticed the effects when i turned up my final gather samples to a very high rate.
i think it only happens when glass is in the scene but im not sure, it looks like the color is being split into a spectrum, but not before or after it passes through the glass, it is also not relative to the photons or shadows.....looks like a good time to expiriment with the mental ray diagnostic tool. anybody else run into this or have any clue please let us know
ill do my best to figure this out too
robb

[JeffPatton]

Would the spots be similar to the ones in this thread:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=170630&highlight=spots

Maybe the scale is different in your scene, hence why they are smaller?

[auvn]

Hi Rizob,
you are right,
I used Global Illumination (20000 photon) with very High Final Gathering (1500). there is Archectural Glass material in the scence.

( I will try Mental Ray glass instead of Architectural Glass to see whether problem fixed).

I hope this problem can be figured out. Light glow from Glare shader is much nicer to use diffuse glow in Photoshop.

AUVN

[auvn]

Hi Jeff,

Yeah, the dots are similar to the post. I read through the thread but not really get what can fix the problem. However, that thread is great for getting to know the problem with dots

I use Max7, Mental 3.3
I use 2 area photo metric light, no sky light, no flipped sphere.

Thanks
AUVN

[auvn]

Hi Rizob,
you are right,
I used Global Illumination (20000 photon) with very High Final Gathering (1500). there is Archectural Glass material in the scence.

( I will try Mental Ray glass instead of Architectural Glass to see whether problem fixed).

I hope this problem can be figured out. Light glow from Glare shader is much nicer to use diffuse glow in Photoshop.

AUVN

[JeffPatton]

Well, I was going to ask about your materials...but you just answered it. Not sure if you noticed in the link I posted above, the resulting problems were either directly or indirectly (we don't really know) related to architectural materials. I thought it was becuase they were used in a multi-subobject material...Are you by chance using a multi-subobject mat with your architectural materials?

[joske]

I use Max7, Mental 3.3
I use 2 area photo metric light, no sky light, no flipped sphere.

Thanks
AUVNdid you try with the sphere ? if you are using photons you should... it will save u from alot of extra rendertime
are u sure that your units and your system units are set up in a scale that you know how big your radius from photons and Fgather are ?

usually those are the most obvious things to overlook...

if you would like that i have a go at your scene, just send me a private message and i'll give you an email or so that you can give me your scene in archive :shrug:

[lehthanis]

Might be way off, but I posted this about the dots:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1728375&posted=1#post1728375

Edit: Yeah I was way off, I was looking at somthing different...but the problem happened on my work too.

[zzelig]

I tried to open the CGTalk-MR matlib file...and when I open it it says there's missing DLL's.

mentalray.dlz Class mr_subScatter

What am I doin wrong? I have max 7 now.

Edit: Got it
I had the same missing .dlz message. The file is into the folder \stdplugs , so any class inside it should be loadable. How can it be we miss the subscatter class?
Is subscatter a mentalray external implementation?ç
Thanks

[auvn]

HI Jeff,
your caustic tutorial for Max6 is great.
But it seems not working with Max7.

Could you please make one similar to that for Max7
Thanks
AUVN

[JeffPatton]

AUVN - Indeed. I just added a Max7 version file. Really the only thing I had to do was increase the energy levels. So, I didn't change the tutorial for that, instead I just added the file at the bottom of the page. Guess Max7 handles the energy levels differently.

Also of note, I've done a bit of house cleaning at my website. Organized the older Max6 files into their own section and started a Max7 page (not much there now, but as time goes on I'm sure I'll add more).

Anyway, here's the link to the Max6 page:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/Max6/index.html
and here's the link to the Max7 page:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/Max7/index.html

Be sure to let me know if you guys find any errors on the pages.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Zgame]

Once upon a time a saw this MR post filter similar to glare that created the real effect of refracted really bright lights inside the eyes. Really good for making oceans glimmering...If anyone knows what im talking about could ya please give me the link? Thanks

[dave-3d]

Hi Guys,

Great thread.

I was just wondering seeing as almost everyone here is using Mental Ray if any of you have encountered the Mental Ray error "MEM 0.1 fatal 031005: cannot free memory" as outlined here :

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=185820

Caused when you try to render the scene at a larger resolution. Have any of you tried rendering your scenes out at something approaching 3000x2250 or 4000x3000 ?

I know of a few people who are experiencing this on a well-specced machine, but then find the scene renders fine on another lower-specced machine ?:shrug:

Thanks for any help,

D.

[hjalle]

Yes,Yes we have seen it before.
Less memory limit, try 250 MB (Render/Prossing/Memory Limit)
If it crash in rendering mode:.....
Try also smaler Bucket Width (Render/Common/Bucket Width, 22..12....)

If nothing helps...................edit your'e scene...render i region (puzzle in photo Shop)

The same problem is in R7.

One more thing if you have R6 and komplex material, load scen, but do not open the Material editor before a rendering.



:banghead:

[dave-3d]

hjalle:

The thing is that the scene I try to render on a machine with 2 x 2.4 GHz Xeons and 2 Gbs memory and crashes, runs PERFECTLY on my 1.2 GHz laptop with 720 Mb.

So I don't think it is the scene that is too complex (or physically NEEDING more memory).

I am using Max 7. And others have had this problem.

Now investigating my memory simms.
D.

[externe]

Hello all,

Could someone tell me how to create an material like that (velour) ?

http://jerjer1.free.fr/velour1.jpg

I found it here :
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=185807

Thanks !
Bye :)

[JeffPatton]

I'd try a falloff map (dark blue/light blue mixed by light...or maybe fresnel?) and of course add noise.

[hjalle]

dave_3d:

Windows Virtual memory are maybe smaler on the 2 CPU computer.

[bindyeye]

Gday all, i just wanted to say that after spending the last six hours reading this thread, i must say thank you to all of you who paticipated in it.
It has been the most informative mental ray shaders discussion i've ever seen.
Just a few quick things...
Jeff, The links to your ICEBERG shaders are down, and i was wondering if anyone had a mirror up as i'm currently working on an arctic scene and wouldn't mind checking your work out.
Also, about thread 75 or so Raffi_1 (member.php?u=89698) posted a FLYEYE shader and the link to the uploader he loaded to is now blown.
If anyone has a copy could they post it for me to check out?
Thnx all

[JeffPatton]

Sorry Bindyeye, I checked and I don't have a copy of those files on my HDD's. DeeTee had to take his server down because people started abusing it by posting p0rn and crap on it. I thought I had made backups of everything just incase his server ever went south, but looks like I missed a few files. Maybe someone else has copies of those files and can upload them.

Jeff

[hjalle]

ice

http://hem.bredband.net/tomhja/ice-1.zip

[treed]

Alright kinda off topic but ohh well. I made this simple animation just for fun really. Playing around with the parti volume shader in MR and got some really good results, but damn it's CPU intensive! :p Just one spotlight, and 120 teapots and the scene is about 270k polys. If you're wondering the rendering time, it took all night starting at like 5pm and went into the next night and ended at like 8pm. Heres two versions, the original one and one I did some color adjusting in combustion. BTW, I'd like to thank Jeff Patton for his method on this effect, without him it wouldn't be possible. :) Ohh yah, when the spotlight reaches the end of the anim, it doesn't quite get the the end of the screen. I didn't realize it would still be shown so thats a flaw I'll have a fix.

http://www.3dluvr.com/treed/my%20stuff/images_animations/MAXOWNZ.mov

http://www.3dluvr.com/treed/my%20stuff/images_animations/MAXOWNZ1.mov

[bindyeye]

No worries Jeff... Thnx for responding so soon.
I just wanted to say to you too, that your work... is nothing short of astounding.
It's great to see individuals like yourself & the guys here ,dedicating their time, skills & knowledge to growing this great community.
Great job champ.

And thnx Hjalle!!!... your a godsend. ;)

[marktsang]

treed,
any chance you could share that scene?

thanks
mark

[neods]

Hey, I'm using the MRSSS skin shader for a character. I need to have a opacity map to use with the skin shader, can this be done somehow? Thank you.

[castelle]

Hi, I am trying to recreate something i saw on CNN FN, its like a glass material with full transparancy on the face but a gradient on the inner parts

here's is something i did to explain what i am saying

http://www.postboxx.tv/download/render.jpg

Can i do this with the Mental Ray Glass Lume Shader, if so, can someone explain how..thanks

[shserge]

Big question:
How can be used bump maps with fast sss shader in max7? Do i need to add displacement instead?

[ILS]

castelle

why don't you just use a multi-material and assign 1- to the front faces and 2 to the side faces where you want the gradient.

[Ayzek]

Hi all


First thanks to Jeff Patton and others for this lovely thread.
i just play with glass-sss scene metarials volume and results.
http://aydinbuyuktas.tripod.com/imagelib/sitebuilder/misc/show_image.html?linkedwidth=actual&linkpath=http://aydinbuyuktas.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/glass2.jpg&target=tlx_new
http://aydinbuyuktas.tripod.com/imagelib/sitebuilder/misc/show_image.html?linkedwidth=actual&linkpath=http://aydinbuyuktas.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/alacali.jpg&target=tlx_new

[maxmanjake]

the links don't seem to be working...

[fhodshon]

thanks everyone for such a great thread!!!

http://www.hodshon.com/back3.jpg

modeled in Pro/Engineer.

fred

[depleteD]

Hey this sill prolly seem like a dumb question. But is the best way to learn how to use these mental ray shaders to their fullest is by reading the maunal?

[BrianHarbauer]

LOL...I'm sorry... What manual?



(lol, at the time for max, lume has like, nothing on how to use their stuff, that's why this thread is so popular. in max 7 there is a little documentation, but is explained much better on here.)

[philipbruton]

depleteD,

Documentation on Mental Ray within £dsmax is limited and the most concise info is aimed at users of the stand-a-lone mental ray package which isn't that useful for using with max as for most users max and mental ray is gui based.
The best way to learn is trial and error and ofcourse making use of such threads liek this one. I would suggest looking at each mental shader and trying them out, if u get stuck post a question. Also work with basic materials testing out, Global illumination, Caustics and final gather with different settings ( preferably low, optimised to start ). When you're feeling a little more comfortable try mixing some shaders using a mental ray material and throw in some nice caustic water/glass effects and even some displacement.
It is always advisable when trial and error working to keep things well optimised to get an idea of the result without a great render time. For example, low sampling rates ( 1/4 - 1 ), low photon count, low photon sampling, make use of the "basic phton shader", low poly count, low levels of refl/refract on gi and caustic sampling, model to correct world units as some shaders have settings based on real world units, with displacement especially always keep the settings only to that of which u need to displace no need setting the displacement length higher than it needs to be as this'll take extra processing for the same job and keep things simple as most of the work can be done to give you an idea of what the final result will look like with overall lower increments. Also be patient, there's alot of settigns all in all so when you get indepth and find yourself with problems like "why my caustics aren't showing up" remember not to go changing every setting at once but use a system of elimination by changing one thing at a time. Goodluck and remember there's already a great wealth writen in this thread alone that'll answer most, if not all of your priliminary questions, happy reading

phil b

[depleteD]

Thx guys,
Yea im just gonna spend more time on it. Use refrence photos to replicate real world phenomena ect.

Quick question, what does that basic photon shader do exactly? Ive seen it used with dgs materials.

Furthermore, what do photon shaders do in general and why should i use them?

[hany-land]

how i can rendr gi passes with mr ??

[samhodge]

Hi guys,
I am working on a humanoid model at the moment, and naturally wish to use the Fast SSS + displace.

everything is working well but......

I need to use a multi/sub material, one for the face one for the rest of the body, both will use Fast SSS + Displace, but once I put the materials into a multi sub the displacement dissapears and the frustration begins, anybody got anyhints?

I think I have encountered diplace doing wacky stuff with multi/subs in the past

Sam

[JeffPatton]

Furthermore, what do photon shaders do in general and why should i use them?

When you apply a standard 3ds material to an object. It's pre-programmed with a diffuse color..it knows how to handle shadows, etc.. Now, if you apply a Mental Ray material to an object what do you get? Black. This happens because the mental ray materials are blank templates. You have to assign a color or texture, you have to tell it how to handle shadows, reflections, how to handle photons (which is what the photon shader is for), etc.

Does that make sense? philipbruton is correct, experimentation is the best way to learn. Start with one setting and tweak it to see what it does. Atleast that's how I've learned to use MR, and I'm sure many others here are in the same boat.

Jeff

[Ionex]

I have read most of this thread (which is awesome btw) but I didn’t see anything about Binary Alchemy Shader Collection. I was wondering if anyone had ported these over to 3dsmax?



Link - http://www.binaryalchemy.de/develop/shader/index.htm



Hope there is a port :)

[alicia_cunnie]

just a stupid question, i was wondering is it true that my scene have to be very small so it will speed up my rendering?
if not then do u know a way to speed it up, i am now at a average of 1h38 minutes per frame, which is very expensive
thank u guys :P

[Bluplet]

I'm not sure if it's been posted in this thread yet (search says nothing, and my connect's a bit too cruddy at the moment to trawl through the pages) but there's a glass shader called l_glass that seems pretty nifty for download from here (http://home.broadpark.no/%7Erslettli/lob_glass.html)

I've also whipped up a replacement .mi file so it's nicer in max. I've not done any extensive testing so things may break!

gui "gui_l_glass" {
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiName" "l_glass",
"category" "Material"
)
control "filtercolor" "color" ("value" 0.990 0.990 0.995, "range" -1.0 1.0)
control "filtercolor_outside" "color" ("value" 1.0 1.0 1.0, "range" -1.0 1.0)
control "diffuse" "color" ("value" 0.5 0.5 0.5, "range" -1.0 1.0)
control "diffuse_back" "color" ("value" 0.5 0.5 0.5, "range" -1.0 1.0)
control "diffuse_irradiance" "color" ("value" 1.0 1.0 1.0, "range" -1.0 1.0)
control "transparency" "float" ("value" 0.0)
control "specular_intensity" "float" ("value" 1.0, "range" 0.0 2.0)
control "specular_decay" "float" ("value" 80.0, "range" 1.0 300.0)
control "ior_inside" "float" ("value" 1.5, "range" 1.0 3.5)
control "ior_outside" "float" ("value" 1.0, "range" 1.0 3.5)
control "attenuation_inside" "float" ("value" 5.0, "range" 1.0 100.0)
control "attenuation_outside" "float" ("value" 1.0, "range" 1.0 100.0)
control "caustic_irradiance" "float" ("value" 1.0, "range" 0.0 1.0)
control "enable_outside" "boolean" ("value" 0)
control "RR_depth" "integer" ("value" 4, "range" 1 16)
control "invert_alpha" "boolean" ("value" 0)
control "diffuse_illumination" "boolean" ("value" 1)
control "fast_fg" "boolean" ("value" 0)
control "mode" "integer" ("value" 0, "range" 0 2)
control "lights" "array lights" ("lights")
}


declare shader
color "l_glass"
(
color "filtercolor", #: default 0.990 0.990 0.995
color "filtercolor_outside", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
color "diffuse", #: default 0.5 0.5 0.5
color "diffuse_back", #: default 0.5 0.5 0.5
color "diffuse_irradiance", #: default 1.0 1.0 1.0
scalar "transparency", #: default 0.0 min 0
scalar "specular_intensity", #: default 1.0 min 0 softmax 2
scalar "specular_decay", #: default 80 min 1 softmax 300
scalar "ior_inside", #: default 1.5 min 1 max 3.5
scalar "ior_outside", #: default 1.0 min 1 max 3.5
scalar "attenuation_inside", #: default 5 min 1 softmax 100
scalar "attenuation_outside", #: default 1 min 1 softmax 100
scalar "caustic_irradiance", #: default 1 min 0 max 1
boolean "enable_outside", #: default 0
integer "RR_depth", #: default 4 min 1 softmin 2 softmax 16
boolean "invert_alpha", #: default 0
boolean "diffuse_illumination", #: default 1
boolean "fast_fg", #: default 0
integer "mode", #: default 0 min 0 max 2
array light "lights"
)
version 1
apply material
end declare

[revelaciones]

how set up the sssphisyc shader on a mental ray material because its dificult

[AdrianWilliams]

has any one tryed that shader with max yet? the L-Glass one?

[depleteD]

"how set up the sssphisyc shader on a mental ray material because its dificult"

paton droped some cool shit here

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1751639#post1751639

[luma clark]

hi. i'm rendering a scene with a glass object (physics_phen) and dof (not physics). i figured this would be the place to post since this is all about mental ray materials. ok. when i render the scene at high resolution (1600 x 1200) i get graininess in the area where the glass is. when i remove dof the graininess goes down but is still there. when dof is on, all areas away from the glass object render nice and smooth. logically, one would think, "lemme up the samples". and doing this works but it takes a whole lot of samples to get a decent result and takes forever to render. and it's only the glass that is under-sampled. everything else is obviously over-sampled. how? how? how? i optimized the bsp settings and get decent rendertimes in the previews. right now i'm rendering this thing at 1600 x 1200 with 64 min x 64 max and it is taking forever. especially compared to the previews. it's taking at least a minute per bucket at 32 bucket size. and it's not even rendering any objects yet. just the background and some sparse participating media (dust particles in the air). i'm using the physics_phen glass cause i want a physically correct simulation. so changing the shader is really not favored.

is there any way to get a smooth result with decent rendering times?

pleeeeeeaaaaasssssse help,

luma

ps. this is my first post. hi!

pss. also, what is the lock samples checkbox for?

psss. also, i'm on the max 7 platform

[alicia_cunnie]

hi again, not sure if somebody notice my message...
anyway
i am currently rendering an interior with mental ray and the time of processing take two hours, is true that i have to reduce the size of my scene or do u know any trick to speed up the rendering , thank a lot guys...

alicia

[luma clark]

well, you should post a more descriptive text regarding your scene. generally, interior scenes should be quick so long as there are no caustics. if you're using final gather, you can try reducing the samples. sometimes the default is too high. start with something reasonable like 50 and move up from there. also, if your scene has raytracing, it's vital to make sure the bsp settings are optiomized for your scene. it can reeeeeeaaaaaaalllllly make a difference. hope i helped.

peace,

luma

{^_^}

hi again, not sure if somebody notice my message...
anyway
i am currently rendering an interior with mental ray and the time of processing take two hours, is true that i have to reduce the size of my scene or do u know any trick to speed up the rendering , thank a lot guys...

alicia

[Druid_Ctba]

Fine thanks Blupet for ported this shader for MAX :)

Druid®

[luma clark]

you should post a more descriptive text of your scene. we'd be able to help better. now, indoor scenes should be a breeze if you there are no caustics. if you're using final gather, you should try lowering the samples. sometimes the default of 1000 is too much. start with something small like 50 and work up if you need to. also, if there is raytracing in your scene, you should really optimize the bsp settings for your scene. it can reeeeeaaaaallly make a difference in render times. i'm new to mental ray so i don't know if shrinking the scene will be beneficial. but i am interested in finding out.

hope i helped. :-P

peace,

luma

{^_^}

hi again, not sure if somebody notice my message...
anyway
i am currently rendering an interior with mental ray and the time of processing take two hours, is true that i have to reduce the size of my scene or do u know any trick to speed up the rendering , thank a lot guys...

alicia

[alicia_cunnie]

thank u so much luma, big hug :)
i will try it now

alicia

[luma clark]

cool. the final gathering optimizations should be easy but do you know how to optimize the bsp settings on the render tab of the render dialog (assuming you're using max. any other soft has the same settings. i just don't know where to find them). mental images recommends the rendering with mental ray handbook (driemeyer). it covers pretty much everything there is to know about mental ray.

peace,

luma

{^_^}

thank u so much luma, big hug :)
i will try it now

alicia

[alicia_cunnie]

i am not sure for the bsp settings but your advice paid off, my rener time dropped from 2 hours to 15 minutes now :P

big kiss :P

by the way my hotmail adress : ayumi_tanako@hotmail.com

[Element]

hm i`ve used the search function, and i found some posts in this thread, but they cant help me. i`ve got max 7 mit the mental ray 3.3 but if i load these materials from the first page, i get these mentalray.dlz missing error, and i cant find out, how i can fix that...

uff my german english... :)

[bindyeye]

Just found a cool MR resource site

Los Angeles mental ray® User Group (http://www.lamrug.org/resources.html)

[Druid_Ctba]

HI friends :)

How to ported Maya MR Shaders .mi to 3dsmax, anyone to know step by step, one tutorial?

Fine thanks,

Druid®

[virtuALER]

I guess, it's time (at least, for some of us - m.r. shaders newbies) to find out how to
"nice'n'easy" port Mental Ray (maya//XSI...) shaders.
And, I know, there's shaders' documentation, but it's "not-for-newbies-version"...
so... any simple example(shader) to start from?
P.S. I didn't quite get: does every MI-file had to have it's DLL ?

[Druid_Ctba]

Yes my friend virtuALER, for one mi one DLL, but my idea now is not write shaders, but ported shaders wrote to MAYA (XSY not have mi file, it's very much strange for me your format), then if anyone had one tutorial for ported MAYA mi files to MAX mi files, please, talk to us.

Fine thanks,

Druid®

[JeffPatton]

Garry - I tried to respond to your email, but it was rejected and said I need to sign up for some kind of "friend network?" I generally don't sign up for stuff like that (I get enough spam already). Sooo, I'll respond here. You can find my edited .mi files in this thread.

Here's a quick link:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1136678&highlight=edited+lume#post1136678 - Post #510.

Jeff

[ILS]

i'm in need of some stainless steel material or just a material with anisotropic reflections.

i found a tutorial on cg architect

http://www.cgarchitect.com/resources/tutorials/smoke3d/tutorial5.asp

but i can't make any scense out the last one the one supposedly without reflections

[slobodan_h]

Hi Jeff and everybody else,

I had chance to read some of this forum, since I'm interested in MR rendering, and I can say that it is excelent source of information.
I know this is not probably right place to ask but this is where I got your file so if I may ask:
How did do you setup your light in the light-me test.max file without getting famous
"no photons stored after emitting 10000 photons"
I tried a simple sceen with Walls, a window, roof and floor but as soon as I add directional light as simulation of sun I get that message.
It even doesn't help to check that box beside " All object recieve and generate GI and caustics".
I'm not sure what am I doing wrong.

Regards,

Slobodan

[MikeNash]

Im having same problem with "no photons stored after emitting 10000 photons"
Cant fix it either.

Does anyone know hnow how to get physical sss to work ???? realy wanna use it.

Jeff like to know if you can get it working ??? , since you know Mental Ray pretty well.

Here is scene file:
www.mikenash.webstrikesolutions.com/sss_scene.zip (http://www.mikenash.webstrikesolutions.com/sss_scene.zip)

This best im getting, just isnt working
http://www.mikenash.webstrikesolutions.com/sss(1).jpg

[skinnee]

Hi Jeff and everybody else,

I had chance to read some of this forum, since I'm interested in MR rendering, and I can say that it is excelent source of information.
I know this is not probably right place to ask but this is where I got your file so if I may ask:
How did do you setup your light in the light-me test.max file without getting famous
"no photons stored after emitting 10000 photons"
I tried a simple sceen with Walls, a window, roof and floor but as soon as I add directional light as simulation of sun I get that message.
It even doesn't help to check that box beside " All object recieve and generate GI and caustics".
I'm not sure what am I doing wrong.

Regards,

Slobodan


On your light look at the mr Indirect illumination rollout. I was forgetting to tweak the settings of the light, but trying to control it all with render settings.

[JeffPatton]

Kravit - I posted a link in this thread:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?p=1751639&highlight=SSS+mental#post1751639
that taught me how to use the SSS-physics shader. The biggest thing is scale. I think I read that MR defaults to CM? (dont hold me to that since I've been up for two days straight now working). So I had to use the right scale before it looked "right".

If you've already been through all that info, let me know and I'll post a sample file.

Jeff

[MikeNash]

Hey Jeff, I tried it, still cant get it right

Can you put up example scene of it ? very much apreciated :)

[machadoj]

You need a geosphere envolving your scene in order the photons to bounce and and be stored.

http://www.cgchannel.com/gallery/viewimage.jsp?imgID=5919

[JeffPatton]

I've added a physics-sss test scene to my Max7 MR page here:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/Max7/index.html

JP

[MikeNash]

Hey Jeff, Thanks alot :)

But i was wondering how you worked out settings for Absorb coeff, they seems different then from ones in the documents.

Im trying to do skin 2 and im just getting clear colour, would you know settings for those for your scene ?

I tried doing scale etc, just cant get it right, little more info on how you work out scales and settings be good :)

[hjalle]

Respect Jeff.
Thanks :thumbsup:

[JeffPatton]

As with everything I've done in MR, those settings came from trial and error. I started with the default jade settings then slowly increased the amounts (.005 at a time), until I found the look I was after. There's so many factors that come into play here, scale (of scene and of the objects), the settings of the material, the settings of the light, the settings of the photons, etc.. I don't think there's a single "receipe" that will work the same for every scene. I think it will be trial and error everytime. I'd start with a basic setting (like jade), then work from there.

edit: as far as the settings on the scale goes. The LAMRUG.org info that I posted a link to earlier explained the 25.3? setting I used on scale (it converts it to inches). In a nutshell, I started with a regular scene, changed the scale to 25.whatever on the material then scaled my scene down to 1% of what it was at default (generic 3dsmax units). I could instead setup my scene in inches now and it should work....should.

[MikeNash]

Hey Jeff, I tried doing what you said but still nothing close to skin :(
If you could post skin one be very much appreciated :)

[JeffPatton]

Hey Jeff, I tried doing what you said but still nothing close to skin :(
If you could post skin one be very much appreciated :)

Why can't you just use one of the sss-skin shaders instead of going the difficult route?

[slobodan_h]

machadoj,

Actually I found what is the problem but have no clue why.

When I change my Global Lighting to ‘black’ color I get that ‘no photons stored’ message, but when I change it to ‘white’ color I don’t get that message. Does anybody know why??



Regards,



Slobodan

[hjalle]

Simple, lights=photons, no light=no photons
Black light=no light

Do you have any created "lights" in the scen?

[francescaluce]

nope is not that simple. no photons stored after... it means that no photons are stored after 10000 or more just because only fews have reached geometry that actuallly have a photon shader attached to it. this happens when you use a point liight and/or when you have not a dome to 'contain' your photons... and generally when your scene has a wrong 'setup' for the photon sim.


ciao
francesca

[slobodan_h]

Yes, I have target direct light. That was whole purpose, no other ilumination but my target light.

Francesca, thanks for explaination but I'm still puzzeled with what tint of global light has to do with it??
Also, it is everywhere recommended that you keep ambient light black because of shadows. Shadows will never get any darker then the color of ambient light. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[JeffPatton]

Yes, I have target direct light. That was whole purpose, no other ilumination but my target light.

Francesca, thanks for explaination but I'm still puzzeled with what tint of global light has to do with it??
Also, it is everywhere recommended that you keep ambient light black because of shadows. Shadows will never get any darker then the color of ambient light. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

If you post your scene someone will be able to point out what's wrong. If you can't post the scene or don't want to wait, a search for "photons stored" will return plenty of results. This question comes up very frequently. Here's a recent thread (there many more like it):
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=188793&highlight=10000+photons

[slobodan_h]

Thanks Jeff,

Here is the scene: http://www.granatech.com/Autobak1.zip

[JeffPatton]

Looks like I misunderstood your problem. I thought you had a scene that gave you the "no photons stored" error. But the scene you posted does not give that error. I re-read your posts and found you were asking specifically about how the global lighting tint affects the photons...and I have no idea. I've never adjusted that color, and I can't find any info in the help file that explains it's relationship with MR photons.

Soo, you might want to post this out in the regular forum (since this particular thread is really supposed to be a discussion about MR shaders..but yes we do go OT quite a bit). Or try posting over at the Discreet web-board and maybe one of those guys can explain how that works. Sorry that I misunderstood your question. :shrug:

JP

[Zgame]

http://69.137.226.112/asdf.jpgHi, im using the subScatter shader as a node in the skin shader im currently working on Everything appears to be okay except that I get gray where there are "shaddows" from being traced out and absorbed by SSS... any ideas? Thanks

(please ignore the many GI artifacts and the crap shadow map. and look at the green gray on his right side and below his neck)

[Zgame]

Okay forget that post. More importantly, does anyone know of an SSS shader that supports Indirect Illumination for MR 3.2... (I cant get my hands on max7)

[Eugenio]

Is there any way to achieve real anisotropic reflections with mental ray?

I've read in the MR manual that comes with max that the DGS Shader is capable of doing this, however we need that "shinyU" and "shinyV" parameters that are not available by default, than I edited the 3dsmax.mi (don't remember well the name of the file) and unhide them, however I could not to achieve this feature anyway.

There is a lot shaders for creating SSS, but I've never heard of one for anisotropic reflections, and it seems easier to create (just a thought). Is there a shader out there for this? No one wants to create one?! :)

Regards,

Jr.

[ILS]

neil blevins was able to create it with brazil i think , but since this is not a thread about brazil, and i also don't have , i need that effect in mental ray, preferably for 3.2.

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

[matlock]

For the anisotropic shader try Deriver found on this website.

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

I haven't used it but it should be what you want to create.