Mental Ray - Shaders

[whtnoise]

ok... so i'm wondering what are the difference between maya specific mr shaders, and max ones? i found this mr vevet shader:

http://www.highend3d.com/files/readme.3d?group=mayashaders&file_id=3012&file_loc=madVelvet-v1.0-.zip

- over at highend3d, and figured since maya's implementation of mr seems very similar to max's, i could just adjust the shader's mi file to work with max's ui and wah-lah... but that's not the case, after including the shader in the standard.mi file mental ray doesn't even seem to work anymore, mat editor's empty, black renders... :shrug:

so maybe it's the shader's dll, the way they're compiled or written? any ideas??? and if it's just version conflicts, how hard is it to recompile the shader?

thx :D

[cpan]

no, maya's mr looks like max's one only at the base things (FG, GI, blabla) but under the hood maya's mr it's much better and faster.

[psv]

gresit prietene.....maya, and max are almoust the same more exactly mr 3.3 is the same ,,almoust every mr shader for maya work in max, the phenomena are compatible, and so on....the same scene , a simple cube on a plain surface ,with the dirtmap shader aplied get`s similar rendering times in maya and max..as an example...maya 6.5 have mr 3.4, that`s suposed to be a diference..

[psv]

and whtnoise,,you should coppy that mi file in mental ray/shaders autoload/include

the dll. goes in mental ray/shaders autoload/shaders

that`s the place where mr3.3 search for custom shaders..

then edit the 3rd party mi file found in mental ray/shaders_3rdparty

like that> add two more lines
# link "madVelvet.dll"
# mi "madVelvet.mi"

save and that`s it..
if `madVelvet` it is that shader for velvet ...
it should work for every custom mr shader

[whtnoise]

psv - i tried both the standard and autoload folders with no luck, all the mi includes are there etc... bummer... :sad:

here's the modified madVelvet mi file if anyone wants to give this a go:

declare shader
color "madVelvet" (
color "ambience",
color "ambient",
color "diffuse", #: default 0.1 0.1 0.1
scalar "backscatter", #: default 0.1
scalar "edginess", #: default 10
color "sheen", #: default 0.25 0.25 0.25
scalar "roughness", #: default 0.1
integer "mode",
array light "lights"
)
version 2
apply material
#: nodeid 13140101
gui "madVelvet" {
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiname" "madVelvet",
"category" "madVelvet Shader"
)
control "ambiance" "color" (
"uiname" ambiance",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "ambient" "color" (
"uiname" "ambient",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "diffuse" "color" (
"uiname" "diffuse",
"value" 0.1 0.1 0.1
)
control "backscatter" "scalar" (
"uiname" "backscatter",
"value" 0.1,
"range" 0.0 100.00
)
control "edginess" "scalar" (
"uiname" "edginess",
"value" 10.0,
"range" 0.0 100.0
)
control "sheen" "color" (
"uiname" "sheen",
"value" 0.25 0.25 0.25
)
control "roughness" "scalar" (
"uiname" "roughness",
"value" 0.1,
"range" 0.0 100.0
)
control "mode" "integer" (
"uiname" "mode",
"value" 0.0,
"range" 0.0 3.0
)
control "lights" "array light" (
"uiName" "Lights",
# "hidden",
"nonConnectable"
)
}
end declare

[psv]

for me works like a charm....



declare shader
color "madVelvet" (
color "ambience",
color "ambient",
color "diffuse", #: default 0.1 0.1 0.1
scalar "backscatter", #: default 0.1
scalar "edginess", #: default 10
color "sheen", #: default 0.25 0.25 0.25
scalar "roughness", #: default 0.1
integer "mode",
array light "lights"
)
version 2
apply material
#: nodeid 13140101 # Maya binary node ID == 110010001000000010000101
end declare



that`s my mi file straigh out of maya give it a try, and don`t forget to link the shaders

[arachnophobia]

i know this is not the thread for this but i have been searching for where to ask this question but haven't found any place, do any of you do mray renders at print res. and what are your render times like?.....anyway beyond that i am looking for a frosted glass shader could anyone help me out. thanks

[Mariano]

Hi guys, im trying to do a good realistic plush shader .. :shrug: , any ideas?

thanks.

Mariano

[hjalle]

How big? 5000x4300?
Reflection?................

Imposeble to ansver, but................

2-16-50-1000 hour

Hove long is a string?

You getting probably problem with Mental ray memory crash.
So render in region if you have problem, for comp in PhotoShop later.
Mental ray Displacement take a lot of memory and probably make Mray crash with high resolution rendering.

If you have information from costumer 5x7cm 300dpi.
Go to Photoshop and create a image/file with that size.
And get you're pixel information for renderig with "Canvas size" or "Image Size"

[JasonCamp]

thats a good idea ... i think i had set the fg up to high either that or way to many photons.. rendering now for 650 fg and 25k photons... rendering again accually forgot to turn on a light doh ! there goes 10hrs of render time.. anyway its rendering and from the 6% i did see even with the light off its looking good , damn i think ill use my tax refund to buy a new machine lol 10hr render time and thats on my home machine hell on my 1.2ghz laptop 2 days and i gave up and i need a good solid machine to render while i still have all the goodness of my home machine lol ..

[Rigged]

I did some architectural renders for paper: ISO A3 on 300 dpi. approx: 4000x3000 pix or such.
It took 4 through 6 houres to render with mentalray. The thing is, when you use final gather for illumination you have to increase the amount of photons to 5k or such. Otherwhise you'll get blurry spots of the incomming photons. But increasing this amount of photons will increase rendertimes rapidly.

[stefan]

To =HELLION=

Hello. U probably won't remember but U tried to help me with spider back shader a while ago. I coud not use fast SSS becouse it ignore nonSSS objects inside. U must have thous objects behind SSS.
But I think I found the answer. May be it will interest U. I can not do the shader in one pass. But I created one shader with glass in surface slot and Mist in volume slot. Glass blurs objects far from surface and mist dims them. It is possible that are other way but this is quite fast and U've got control over effect. After compositing:

[dave-3d]

Rigged: I have also been experimenting for a long time on getting a good balance between speed and quality, at a high-resolution (~4000x3000) for printing.

I, too, find some small splotches using Final Gather as global illumination.

The best compromise I have found to date is to put the FG up to 6000 AND also bring the Maximim radius down to 1.0 and even 0.1 for super hi-res (This will vary accoring to your scene dimensions). But for sure adjusting the Maximum radius will beat the standard settings. I find that changing the Maximum radius settings will greatly slow the render down, so try to increase the FG amount first - that seems not so sensitive to changes.

I have a scene that I was testing with different FG settings on my laptop and rendered a few comparison images. I'll post them later if you are interested.

I have a problem that when I push up these parameters it crashes my main workstation :banghead: but runs fine (albeit MUCH slower) on my laptop !! WTF.

D.

[hjalle]

3d developer must give us some calculater/converter from low to
high resolution.
Early in the projekt you must do test high resolution rendering.
To avoid ghastly surprises, and it take a lot off time.
Some effect are in pixels, stupid

Architectural work is for the most for paper presentation, I guess.

Since I left the game industry, its been high resolution rendering
for all my 3D commission

[JasonCamp]

dave- thx ill have to try that , i now think its the HUGE ammount of polys i have , it has to be around 2 million, but ill need to have about that many for the project im working on, at least its rendering now

stefan- well im working off the tutorial on 3dluvr
http://www.3dluvr.com/content/article/129
i had some really good tests until i stumbled on my perfected glass i have now
im pritty sure that the 1st parti volume is the overall ammount of density "color setting darker more dense , lighter - less dense.low levels of extention and low number of min and max for partical size. 2nd parti volume is the color of the density
anyways i could be wrong because its 1:40 am and im still at work and tired.. but if you follow that tut you should end up with some good sss efx, and im sure i was testing with a green slime shader that looked well.. like a nasty slime and i had some bubles in it that was doing sss, and i think i had some rocks that were sticking out of it that i could see depth of the volume ,, try puting a noise map in the bmp slot and seting it to like 10 and in the settings put the size to like .1 and fractual ... that should blur it more like the one you renderd... parti volume is a lot better then mist once you get the hang of it . mist is like a quick way... but you can do much more with parti volume .. ill try and let you know more when i figure or more myself hhe

[Rigged]

Hellion: How about this perfect glass shader. Can you explain how it works.

I'm focussing on architectural renders mainly. I'm using a very heavy, and rendertime consuming, self made glass shader of phong and fallof stuff, or the Physics penn shader, it's faster, of mental ray. But it seems like when I use this physics penn material it get a more grey result when im using a pure white color as background.
When im using a background image it works fine and no extra gray, or less transparant, results.

Is someone else having these problems ?

I can post some images if anyone is interested.

[sampson]

rigged... it sounds like the phys phen is just reflecting the white backdrop, hence it disapearing when you change the background image. .. i've had similar happen to me when making glass with the phys phen and using a white backdrop. ..... could be wrong though.

[JasonCamp]

sorry bout that guys ,, er i typed up a huge summary last night then something came up and then i clicked on another windows and it poped up a differnt page in the iexplorer window so i lost it all. k here goes again ahem...

to start you will need a basic layout ... a box with a texture for the ground with recieve caustics.. (right click on object / properties / mr)
a sss object that you want to be the glass like object... size matters so the more thick it is the more numbers you will have to work with density wise so think about that when you chose an object for the sss - enable all the mr properties like recieve generate... all 4 of those in there
next you will need a raymarcher and a spotlight -

for the raymarcher , create a plane with the face normals pointing at the sss object (raymarching cast photon rays further then orginonal) the normals will control the direction of the raymarching so make sure they are lined up to point at the sss object... the distance between the raymarching plane and the object and the spotlight (or light) makes a difference also ... (hard to tell you how to set it because i dont know how big you create things ... but play around with it when your done with all this crap and you should see the efx)
texture the raymarcher with a mental ray texture
in the surface shader set it to a transmat photon
shadow is optional
on the photon volume slot put a parti volume photon and this will be the density of the marching photons that that the raymarcher gathers from the spotlight (light) so you can set this to be as you want really .. useually try to stay graytone and have it be more light then dark to gather more photons... set extention to a low number useually .011 - .001 low = more photons show up... - if your having truble you can play with the files on fakeing sss on the 3dluvr.com site this is how i got my results..
as for the spotlight just put the spots' target on or near the sss object and set the falloff to be inverse square and set the start distance to show enuff light in the viewport to your liking for caustic's you can bump up the caustic photons a bit .1.2+ should start displaying caustics depending on your sss textureing ..
at last the sss object texture set it to raytrace material - phong is useually good .. unless you have a better basic shader in mind - in the defuse slot set it to a useually dark color ... the very very most darkness you want to see in your object - transparency set to the amout of light you want to see through your object / and color of the tint of the sss (in my case glass tint) specular and glossy defines your objects softness and shiny as you probably know . next you goto the bottom of the raytrace mat in the mr connection goto the photon slot put a dielectric material photon (phisics blah spelling) this is the settings for the sss type ... this is where you determin what the glass or slime or er well whatever type transparent like liquid settings ...
the 1st color i think is the specular type color so what specular brightness you want , is the setting for that ... the second color is reverse color of specular not sure what you can call this but its useually the same color type only darker ... the distance is how far the light is going to bounce and travel from outside ior - liquidnessness
see http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/URZ/hardware/parallel/local/softimage/Soft3D_html/mray/physics.pdf#search='dielectric%20material%20photon'

and goto the dielectric section for more complicated discription
phong coef. is a tuff one useually i think its the edge thickness density high number ior out is used for the light that transfers out of the sss object ... like what you would get from a caustic light passing in through and out again to the other side ... ie the light bounceing on the outside(top) of a pool of water , i dont remember if i set this

next is for the photon volume and volume http://www2.3dluvr.com/11/129/S11A129FIL13.jpg

photon volume 's parti volume is the density seting for the "fog" parti volume of the sss this will either at depth to the partical photons inside or take them away useually a darker middle color ,
http://www2.3dluvr.com/11/129/S11A129FIL14.jpg

the extention is how much showes up in total of the density.. useually i set to lower numbers .01 and the pic i grabed here has 1.5 wich is very thick min and max step distance is for the partical size ... used mainly for smoke or blobs of thickness... if your looking for a foging ... .0 numbers are useually good like in the picture this is the tuff one to get the hang of
the volume' slot's parti volume is for the foging tint color in general... lighter colors for more translucent type of transparency tintings... settings on this volume slots parti volume have less influence on it overall. numbers in this useually vary but extention is useually about what can be from .001 to even the higher numbers to show the harder light colors ... ill have to give you all a max file when i ever get it to render all the way ... esh takes a long ass time .. its geting late again and i dont know if i have left anything out or not .. but i think the rest of the numbers like the min and max really dont matter as much

ill have to take another look at the file settings once i get a good render so you dont have a nasty picture to go off of

[JasonCamp]

http://www.3dluvr.com/content/article/129
i based it off the settings on this tutorial if it helps ... and after about 30 + tries i got it narrowed down ... FG does not help for anything except the quality of the sss and eating up time eheh... so wait for that until you have a good mat ... also i forgot to say in the scatter color slot on the volumes's parti volume you can set a scatter definition ... like a splat or a noise type to influence the way the "clouds" of density apear... some awesome efx can be produced here for your sss object not much use for a standard glass mat tho unless you have it thicker in some areas or have like flakes or er well depends on what type transparent object your thinking of useing


- oh also the fg thing for speed wise i set max radius to like 50 and min to 1 and it speed it up a lot ... er still havent seen it because i left for work as i set it to render

[JasonCamp]

well its hard to discribe and i think i discribed it wrong in the raymarcher material setup you need to set that parti volume in the volume slot - not the photon volume
i cant post the max file here because its to large but i have it here on the computer at work waiting for somebody that wants it ... ill email it to whoever just let me know
and id have brought a pic in but i was late for work and my damn laptop's lazer was being a pain in the well ... you know .ill try to bring one in monday. but here is the file it took 4 hrs with no fg on a 1.2 with 512 megs of ram and the artifact in the bottom most part of the glass is accually 2 things its not the shader its either the reflection of the raymarcher or a modeling error .. made the glass model in like 3 secs so i didnt plan for the density settings .. anyway here goes .... id bring a pic in tomarrow but i think there gonna give use a 4 day weekend ! er altho i set my computer to render for that extra day ... damn.. i really gota get a workstation to do this on...
i really just set this up to show you so the textures arnt nessary or the hdr and the settings are low and it still takes a while

[ILS]

stefan

i really like that material that you made - to me it looks like matted velvet which i have never seen before. can you post some parameters.

i would really appreciate it.

[akropol2000]

I'm working on a new very complex material.
Its a verde madascar marble.

It looks like it has at least 4-5 different layers of differend color elements and a polish to top it of.

Truly amazing marble. Obviously I can't use just scanned texture.
I tried to produce that look using few techniques I learned on this forum , but didn't get even a bit close to what this marble looks like.

Does anybody have some experience creating something like that? Some really complex marbles or multilayered materials with similar properties ?

I would be very greatful for your help, tips or any comments...

Thank you in advance

[Equinoxx]

I guess you should at least use blurs electric material in there somewhere, not much of a shaderman, but the electric material should be usefull for creating the veins.

[JeffPatton]

It would also help if you can post an image of the type of marble you want to re-create. Personally, I don't know one type of marble from another.

Hey Yves! That blur electric material would be great for marble....but it's not compatible with MR (go figure). Seems like I mixed up a similar material with the standard noise (or was it a gradient ramp)..I don't remember. But it would certainly be easier if that blur electric mat did work with MR.

Also, I'd probably use the physical-SSS material. It has the settings for marble already, just add some textures for the veins, and colors you need.

[arachnophobia]

sorry, if i dropped this in the wrong place, but to me, this is apparently the zion of mr users, and i have a submission in 5 days that is about to go wrong....apologies accepted?...i am using mr for an interior,whenever i render just photon maps, the render doesn't have those red dots at the top right hand corner.. but immediately i turn fg on..they come..pls help...unfortunately i don't know how to attach a test rnder to show my problem...

[akropol2000]

The thing is is that under different light settings and different viewing angle the colors of speckles on different layers would change...

I'm gonna scan this marble on monday ... but I know it wont look right ... may be I should try to take a picture , from different angl;es so you can see the complexity ...

The idea with electrical blue is actually not that bad... I modified it slightly :) may be if I mixed it with a masked other layer of speckles and veins ...


I'm gonna give it another try today .... and will post images and photos of real thing on Monday ...

About SSS mat - already tried it ... and it doesn't work for that kind of marble ....

I'll try to post the images as soon as I can. Cause this marble is one of the most intriguing material I've ever seen ... :)

oh, BTW Thanks guys for your advice.

[JeffPatton]

the white witch - Without an image for reference, it's hard to help. I'm not sure if the spots your talking about are like this problem?:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=170630

akropol2000 - Looking forward to the pictures. Sounds like a beautiful material to try and reproduce.

[eks]

finally got some time to work on the madVelvet again. but can´t seem to go any foward. problem is, in the material editor it works as i want. but when i apply the material and render it, it comes out redish black or a bit more red only. and thats it. any ideas?

i´m using photometric lights.

here´s a pic:

http://xs16.xs.to/pics/05076/unmadvelvet.jpg



eks
PS: i tryied using the shader in an architectural material, in a mental ray material and standard material. all ended up the same (the standard was a bit brighter only, but without the sheen).

[rawshark]

Hi all,
I posted this thread in the main Max forum but didn't get much of a response.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=209905

Since it is MR-specific I thought I'd see if anyone here had any ideas. Apologies if it's misplaced...

In short, I'd like some pointers on how to make a SSS + translucent shader WITHOUT using physical caustics, and without all the 'cheats' I used here:

http://img204.exs.cx/img204/4641/sweetmrsss24uf.jpg (http://img204.exs.cx/img204/4641/sweetmrsss24uf.jpg)

Of course if it's not possible, let me know so I can stop banging my head against the wall!
Maybe I just need to bite the bullet and get to grips with caustics, but my system seems too slow to experiment properly.
Thanks for any help.

[arachnophobia]

thank you very much jeff, that was exactly the problem i was having.....please could someone explain how i can load my images on the site for viewing, thanks

[secco3d]

hello all. this is my first post on this forum. i have read some pages on this threat and with some of tips here i created an ice cube

unfortunatly rendering with MR wasn't as good as i thought..


first material i used was standard material with raytrace
http://kolos.math.uni.lodz.pl/~darekb/pub/forum/kostka0.jpg


....to get nice noise efect on sides i used this displacement map:

http://kolos.math.uni.lodz.pl/~darekb/pub/forum/kostka0-displacement%20map.jpg

..but when in comes to use MR material i couldn't insetr this map
effect was:
http://kolos.math.uni.lodz.pl/~darekb/pub/forum/kostka3.jpg[/url]
...i've tryed different combinations of using map (bruteforce :)) but with no good result.


Render below, without displacement map shows that i used white box in my scene on the top:
http://kolos.math.uni.lodz.pl/~darekb/pub/forum/kostka2.jpg[url="http://kolos.math.uni.lodz.pl/~darekb/pub/forum/kostka2.jpg"] (http://kolos.math.uni.lodz.pl/~darekb/pub/forum/kostka3.jpg)
so if anyone had that problem before i will be pleesed to know the solution.



So far my icecube looks like this:
http://kolos.math.uni.lodz.pl/~darekb/pub/forum/kostka1.jpg

and with this i have 3 more problems:
- I didn't find any antialiasing control with mental ray render
- I don't know how to set up dispersion effect with MR
and also how to make reflactions more natural (not dottet like on picture) .. i've tried to manipulate number of caustic photons but with walue of 60000 effect is still not satisfacting


ps sorry for my english

[rawshark]

Secco3D: I can't help you with most of that, but I can tell you that MR anti-aliasing settings are under 'Renderer', 'Samples per Pixel'. Try increasing the 'minimum' and 'maximum' values, and also change 'Filter Type' to Mitchell or Lanczos. I don't really know what the difference is but seems better to me ;)

[Rigged]

Maybe you'll have to use a bump map instead of using displacement. Bumpmap is actually designed for small elevated surfaces.

[JasonCamp]

well in the 4 days off i seamed to work up some pic's to show , renderd these at 1600x1200 most of them took a hour to render with fg on only 24 or 32 . the one with caustic volume took 30 mins with no fg on ehh the one with glasses is no fg also ... they are all useing dielectric photon... but i noticed when you set it up for caustic volume that it just didnt look right so i tried the other dgs photon.. gave me even nicer caustic efx, set it to basicly the same coloring only 1 set for transparent and 40 for shinney
right now im am tring to get a sharper caustic volume i think i over read that the cone filter will do that but i dont know .. accually for the scene im working on i have it almost perfict but i wanted to find out in case i need it sharper

[JasonCamp]

the rest of the pics, also i did not use a camera shader for the volume .. its a object with transmat photon on surface / shadow / and photon vol... and the raymarcher was added that also, as for fg ... really slow also i changed to a photometric light , point light ... better but slow to fg ugh it didnt take much though to make it accually look ok

[secco3d]

here is my latest result..

http://kolos.math.uni.lodz.pl/~darekb/pub/forum/10big.jpg

greetings to all

[sampson]

those look good hellion..

any chance of posting a scene so we can have a rummage?

cheers,

C.

:thumbsup:

[AdamantiumKnot]

Is there a way to animate the SSS so it looks like it's pulsating?

[herbert west]

I've been experimenting with the Parti-Volume shader in Mental Ray, and here's some stuff I've learned.

A good starting point for SSS is a Raytrace material, and check "Two-Sided".

Put a "Two-Sided (base)" map in your Diffuse and make Back (0,0,0) black, and Front whatever color you want your SSS surface to be.

Put another "Two-Sided (base)" map in your Transparency and make Back (0,0,0) black, and front around (0.2,0.2,0.2) dark gray.

Then, in the Mental Ray Connection, add "Parti-Volume (physics)" in the Volume slot.

The settings I've found for a good starting point are:

- Scatter color: the color of your choosing, but something subdued (ex. not pure red, but muted gray/red)

- Extinction: 0.035

- r: 50.0

- g1: -0.1

- g2: 0.9

Next, I've found that Photometric lights work best with Parti-Volume. With regular lights, it seems you have to use shadow maps instead of raytraced shadows to get similar results to the photometric lights.

I've also found that a lights distance from the object (as in real life) will affect the SSS "glow", so to see the effects of these settings your light will have to be close by (in the case of an omni). I'm still looking for a good "sunlight" setup for SSS. On this topic, you can also add a light in your scene to the shader's light list. I'm not positive this always has an effect, or weather setting the "Light Distance" does anything. Anybody have input on this?

Anyway, these are basic settings. I'm just testing them on a sphere and cube, so they might not translate to other objects of different sizes and shapes without some tweaking, but it's a just a start.

Let me know if anyone gets any good results.

[JasonCamp]

yes ill email it to whoever wants it..
ziped its even larger then 98k wich is the limit here to post er, also if anybody has a temp web site let us know we run into this quit often... id set one up but my time is limited left in the navy so i canceled my net and im doing this all at work ... wich is a pain in itself

[JasonCamp]

well i know this might provide some help for those who dont know but i found this .. in the help , more stuff in there too i gota just find time to read it all

Indirect Illumination Rollout (mental ray Renderer)
Rendering menu > Render > Render Scene dialog > Indirect Illumination panel > Indirect Illumination rollout
Main toolbar > Render Scene > Render Scene dialog > Indirect Illumination panel > Indirect Illumination rollout

Note: The Indirect Illumination panel appears only when the mental ray renderer is the currently active renderer.
The controls in this rollout are for the effects of caustics and global illumination.
Procedures
To render with caustics:
Select each object you want to generate caustics, either by reflection or refraction. Right-click and choose Properties, then on the mental ray panel of the Object Properties dialog, turn on Generate Caustics.
Objects receive caustics by default. If you think this value might have changed for the objects you want to receive caustics, use those objects’ Object Properties dialog to make sure Receive Caustics is turned on. Also, to speed rendering time, you might want to turn off Receive Caustics for those objects that don’t need to show them.
In the Render Scene dialog, go to the Indirect Illumination rollout and turn on Caustics.
Adjust the caustics parameters to get the effect you want.

Render the scene.
To render with global illumination:
Select each object you want to generate global illumination. Right-click and choose Properties, then on the mental ray panel of the Object Properties dialog, turn on Generate Global Illumination.
Objects receive global illumination by default. If you think this value might have changed for the objects you want to receive global illumination, use those objects’ Object Properties dialog to make sure Receive Global Illumination is turned on. Also, to speed rendering time, you might want to turn off Receive Global Illumination for those objects that don’t need it.
In the Render Scene dialog, go to the Indirect Illumination panel > Indirect Illumination rollout and turn on Global Illumination.
Adjust the global illumination parameters to get the effect you want.
For the final rendering, turn on Final Gather as well as Global Illumination.
Render the scene.
Interface
Caustics group
Important: For caustics to render, you must also make sure to set up these other conditions in your scene:
At least one object must be set to generate caustics.
At least one object must be set to receive caustics.
At least one light must be set to generate caustics.
The settings for generating and receiving caustics are on the Object Properties dialog > mental ray Panel.

Enable—When on, the mental ray renderer calculates caustic effects. Default=off.

Samples—Sets how many photons are used to compute the intensity of the caustic. Increasing this value makes caustics less noisy but also more blurry. Decreasing this value makes caustics more noisy but less blurry. The larger the Samples value, the greater the rendering time. Default=100.
Tip: To preview a caustic, set Samples to 20, then increase the value for a final rendering.

Radius—When on, the spinner value sets the size of photons. When off, each photon is calculated to be one tenth the size of the scene extents (the size of the scene). Radius default=off; spinner default=1.0.
In many cases, the default photon size (Radius=off) of one-tenth the scene size gives useful results. In other cases, the default photon size might be too large or too small.
When photon reflections overlap, the mental ray renderer uses sampling to smooth them together. Increasing the number of samples increases the amount of smoothing and can create more natural-looking caustics. When photons have a small radius and don't overlap, the Samples setting has no effect. Low Radius values with a large number of photons result in dotty caustics.

Filter—Sets the filter to use for sharpening caustics. Can equal Box or Cone. The Box option requires less rendering time. The Cone option makes caustics appear sharper. Default=Box.
Kernel—Controls the sharpness of caustics when you choose Cone as the caustic filter. This value must be greater than 1.0. Increasing the Kernel value makes caustics more blurry. Decreasing the Kernel value makes caustics sharper, but also slightly more noisy. Default=1.1.
Global Illumination group

Enable—When on, the mental ray renderer calculates global illumination. Default=off.
Photons—Sets how many photons are used to compute the intensity of the global illumination. Increasing this value makes global illumination less noisy but also more blurry. Decreasing this value makes global illumination more noisy but less blurry. The larger the Samples value, the greater the rendering time. Default=500.
Tip: To preview global illumination, set Samples to 100, then increase the value for a final rendering.

Radius—When on, the spinner value sets the size of photons. When off, each photon is calculated to be one tenth the size of the scene extents (the size of the scene). Radius default=off; spinner default=1.0.
In many cases, the default photon size (Radius=off) of one-tenth the scene size gives useful results. In other cases, the default photon size might be too large or too small.
When photons overlap, the mental ray renderer uses sampling to smooth them together. Increasing the number of samples increases the amount of smoothing and can create more natural-looking caustics. When photons have a small radius and don't overlap, the Samples setting has no effect. For global illumination, photons should overlap. To get good results, you might need to turn on Radius and increase the photon size.
Photons (Caustics & GI) group
These controls are for the photon maps used to calculate caustics and global illumination.

Volume—These controls are for volumetric caustics. Volumetric caustics require a material to have a volume shader assign to its Photon Volume component.

Samples—Sets how many photons are used to shade the volume. Default=100.

Radius—When the check box is on, the spinner sets the size of photons. When off, each photon is calculated to be one-tenth the size of the scene extents. Default: check box=off; value=1.0.
This spinner is unavailable if the check box is turned off.
Maximum Trace Depth—The Trace Depth controls are similar to those for calculating reflections and refractions, but they refer to the photons used by caustics and global illumination, rather than to light rays used in diffuse reflection and refraction.
Reflections—Sets the number of times a photon can be reflected. At 0, no reflection occurs. At 1, the photon can be reflected once only. At 2, the photon can be reflected twice, and so on. Default=5.

Refractions—Sets the number of times a photon can be refracted. At 0, no refraction occurs. At 1, the photon can be refracted once only. At 2, the photon can be refracted twice, and so on. Default=5.

Sum—Limits the combination of reflection and refraction. Reflection and refraction of a photon stop when the total number of both equals the Sum setting. For example, if Sum equals 3 and the trace depths each equal 2, a photon can be reflected twice and refracted once, or vice versa, but it can’t be reflected and refracted four times. Default=5.

Photon Map—These controls tell mental ray how to calculate the photon map for indirect illumination.

Render—When chosen, the mental ray renderer recalculates a photon map, even if one is already saved on disk.

Rebuild—If Render is chosen and Rebuild is turned on, the renderer saves the recalculated photon map to the file specified by the Files button.

Save—When chosen, the mental ray renderer calculates a photon map for the scene, and saves it to a .pmap file. This option is unavailable unless you click Browse (“...”) to provide a name for the .pmap file.
Browse (“...”)—Click to display a file selector dialog, which lets you specify a name for the photon map (.pmap) file, and the folder where it is saved.
File name—When you have used the Save button to specify a photon map file, the name field displays its name and path.
Load Existing—When chosen, the mental ray renderer uses a photon map on disk, with no recalculation. This option is unavailable unless you click Browse (“...”) to provide a name for the .pmap file.
Browse (“...”)—Click to display a file selector dialog, which lets you specify a name for the photon map (.pmap) file, and the folder where it is saved.
File name—When you have used the Files button to specify a photon map file, the name field displays its name and path.
Final Gather group

Enable—When on, the mental ray renderer uses final gathering to improve the quality of global illumination. Default=off.
The Final Gather toggle and its associated controls are unavailable unless Global is on.
Tip: Without final gathering, global illumination can appear to be patchy. But final gathering increases rendering time. Leave Final Gather off to preview the scene, then turn it on for the finished rendering. (Increasing the number of photons used to calculate global illumination can also improve global illumination.)

Samples—Sets how many rays are used to compute indirect illumination in a final gather. Increasing this value makes global illumination less noisy, but also increases rendering time. Default=1000.

Max Radius—When on, sets the maximum radius within which final gathering is used. The default value of 1.0 encompasses the entire scene. Reducing this value can improve quality at a cost of rendering time. Default=1.0.

Min Radius—When on, sets the minimum radius, within which final gathering must be used. Increasing this value can improve render quality but increase rendering time. Unavailable unless Max Radius is turned on. Default=0.1 (Ten percent of the Max Radius).
Fast Lookup (Slower GI)—If turned on before you render the scene, the mental ray renderer computes information to speed up the regathering process. The fast lookup computation can take a long time, but it can greatly reduce the total rendering time. Default=off.
Like photon maps and shadow maps, the fast lookup computation can be saved in a file and then reused in subsequent renderings.
Preview (No Precalculations)—When on, final gathering skips the precalculation phase. This results in a rendering with artifacts, but begins rendering more quickly, so it can useful when you want to do a series of trial renderings. Default=off.
Rebuild (Do Not Re-Use Cache)—When on, the mental ray renderer computes the fast lookup data. If an FGM file is specified, it stores the fast lookup data in the file. When off, the renderer reads the data from the file and skips the computation step. Default=on.
Note: You can turn on Rebuild without specifying a file. In this case, the renderer stores the fast lookup data in memory only.
Use Falloff (Limits Ray Distance)—When on, uses the Start and Stop values to limit the length of light rays used for regathering. This can help improve regathering time, especially for scenes that are not fully enclosed by geometry. Default=off.

Start—Specifies the distance, in 3ds max units, at which rays begin. You can use this value to exclude geometry that is too close to the light source. Default=0.0.

Stop—Specifies the maximum length, in 3ds max units, of a light ray. If the ray reaches this limit without encountering a surface, then the environment is used for shading. Default=0.0.
Use File—When on, the results are saved in a final gather map (FGM) file.
Browse (“...”)—Click to display a file selector dialog, which lets you specify a name for the FGM file, and the folder where it is saved.
File name—When you have used the Files button to specify an FGM file, the name field displays its name and path.
Maximum Trace Depth—The Trace Depth controls are similar to those for calculating reflections and refractions, but they refer to the photons used by final gathering, rather than to light rays used in diffuse reflection and refraction.
Reflections—Sets the number of times a photon can be reflected. At 0, no reflection occurs. At 1, the photon can be reflected once only. At 2, the photon can be reflected twice, and so on. Default=5.

Refractions—Sets the number of times a photon can be refracted. At 0, no refraction occurs. At 1, the photon can be refracted once only. At 2, the photon can be refracted twice, and so on. Default=5.

Sum—Limits the combination of reflection and refraction. Reflection and refraction of a photon stop when the total number of both equals the Sum setting. For example, if Sum equals 3 and the trace depths each equal 2, a photon can be reflected twice and refracted once, or vice versa, but it can’t be reflected and refracted four times. Default=5.
Global Light Properties
Controls in this group affect how lights behave when calculating indirect illumination. By default, the energy and photon settings apply to all lights in a scene. Use the mental ray Indirect Illumination rollout for light objects to adjust an individual light either by multiplying the global values, or by setting local values (using multipliers is the recommended method).

Energy—Sets the energy of each light. Energy, or "flux," is the amount of light used in indirect illumination. Each photon carries a fraction of each light’s energy. This value is independent of the light intensity determined by the light’s color and Multiplier, so you can use the Energy value to fine-tune indirect illumination effects without changing the light’s other effects in a scene (such as providing diffuse illumination). Default=1000.0.

Decay—Specifies how photon energy decays as it moves away from each light source. Can equal None, Inverse, or Inverse Square. Default=None.
At the default value of None, the energy doesn't decay, and photons can provide indirect illumination throughout the scene.
At the value of Inverse, the energy decays proportionally to its distance from the light. That is, a photon's energy is 1/r, where r is the distance from the light source.
At the value of Inverse Square, the energy decays at an inverse square rate. That is, a photon's energy is the inverse of the square of the distance (r) from the light source (1/r2).
In the real world, light decays at an inverse square rate, but this gives strictly realistic results only if you provide a realistic value for the energy of the light. The None and Inverse options help you adjust indirect illumination without worrying about physical accuracy.

Caustic Photons—Sets the number of photons emitted by each light for use in caustics. This is the number of photons in the photon map used for caustics. Increasing this value increases the accuracy of caustics, but also increases the amount of memory used and the length of render time. Decreasing this value improves memory usage and render time, and can be useful for previewing caustic effects. Default=10000.

GI Photons—Sets the number of photons emitted by each light for use in global illumination. This is the number of photons in the photon map used for global illumination. Increasing this value increases the accuracy of global illumination, but also increases the amount of memory used and the length of render time. Decreasing this value improves memory usage and render time, and can be useful for previewing global-illumination effects. Default=10000.

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

[loran]

anyone could turn this maya MR plug to 3dsmax ???

mentalray object lights v1.1 (http://www.highend3d.com/maya/plugins/?section=rendering&sort=dt_modified+desc#3430)

http://www2.highendnet.com/files/mayaplugins/ctrl_objectlights-v1.1-.zip_screen.jpg

[BrianHarbauer]

Hey loran, from what i remember, if you give an a object self-illumination value, and turn on Final Gather, the object will emit light.

-Brian H.

[MiGa]

Have a look at this:
http://migaweb.de/tutorials/illu/
Hope that helps

[Rigged]

ok Hellion, you're getting pretty close towards Jeffy P's status here,.... great stuff you're doin' here

tnx man...

[cpan]

this shader create real light emitting ( with photons, soft shadow etc.) from geometry.
check out the maya (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=213012) thread about-it

[JasonCamp]

hey guys another test here , still workin this .. found out today that dgs material works better for caustic volume then dgs material photon does ... also all distances make a big differance ie:
distance from light to raymarcher / raymarcher to object / object to end or open space however your scene is setup / (light&end light target also)
and diferences in the size and how many faces your raymacher has is a big change ,
this test is good for a smoke setup but i think my raymarcher needs to be tiny in size like 1/4 size of the sphere, and then closer to it so i get a longer ray marching, if you can see by the shaddow that its coning outward .. outside cone is where the shadow ends and inside cone where you see the caustic volume is where the cone of the light is hiting ,dont quote me on this i might even have it backwards ... i wish i had a chance to test this theory before i left today ugg

[akropol2000]

Here are the images of that stone what I was talking about before.

I had to take photographs cause the scanner can't pick the details ...
The highly polished surface then you have couple of layers of different type of speckles sort of speak. Viewing it from different angles also create new effects - blue or yellow or brighter green speckles deeper inside ... its difficult to explain ... check out the images ..
http://mcqconcepts.com/images/stone/moonstone


3 images

I'll post my pathetic attempts later on tonight ... :)


WHat do you think about this stone ????

[MikeBracken]

Hello all.Im not sure if my question has been answered already in this thread.I have been reading as much of this thread as i can ,but there is alot here.Im trying to figure out how to use the glare lume to simulate sunlight glow coming in from a window or door.I have seen a couple renders with this effect and a couple of posts suggesting the use of the glare lume for this.....but I havent seen a good explanation on how to do it yet.Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry if this has already been addressed.

BTW....this is the most informative thread ive ever read.....Thanks to all who contribute.I feel like Im getting an education in CG for free.


So many things to learn in CGTalk .... so little time.

[JasonCamp]

hey mike on page one of the thread theres a index or you can do a search for glare in this thread , jeff and i , and maybe a few others have explaned this. its easy really assign a glare lume to the lense camera shader in the render setings ... then drag it over to the materials editor , as a instance .. then set it to about 2 or 3 and it should affect the light in the picture thats more then 1 brightness of any color.. for more search on glare in this thread

[JasonCamp]

hey all, more updates on the volume caustics ...
here in caustic-test2 you see that i reduced the raymacher to 3/4 the size of the sphere, and added a few more faces to it also, this is even with less volume samples as yesterday here are the render settings
caustics/ 64 - cone no radi 1.1 kernal
gi samples 500 / no radi
photons volume samples 500 no radi trace depth 5x5x5
and no fg = eek i dont even want to think about it
and in caustic-test3 i have reduced the size of the raymacher to 1/2 of the one yesterday... it seams that the smaller the raymacher gets the less it filters from the light
also guys i was thinking seriously about geting a dual board and 2 3.ghz
anybody care to boast , i just cant live with these render times anymore... jeffy ! what are you runin?
also thanks who told me about the anti-analyzer setings i had forgot

[JeffPatton]

Interesting work on the volume caustics. I should mention that there's an older thread on volume caustics here:http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=108789&highlight=volume+caustics

I think the setup from those test files are similar to your research Hellion (neat results btw). But if I remember correctly, it seems like we had problems getting the volume caustic effect to extend any decent distance. Looks like you've had better luck with that that we did. :)

As far as my PC goes, my main PC is a dual Xeon 3.2 system from BOXX (great PC's & support btw)

[BrianHarbauer]

Hey guys, here's a portion of an email i got for 3ds Max7.5




Release 7.5 will provide new and enhanced functionality in three key areas:

•Hair and Fur—Based on Joe Alter's highly regarded "Shave and a Haircut" solution, Hair and Fur will offer numerous styling and dynamics tools for creating amazingly realistic hair and other strand-derivative effects.
•
mental ray 3.4—Delivering numerous optimizations, mental ray 3.4 will include faster final gathering performance, double precision computation for ray tracing and fast rasterization for first-generation rays.
•
Autodesk VIZ—With the very latest technologies from Autodesk VIZ, product designers, architects, inventors and others in the design visualization arena will have the advanced modeling, lighting, rendering and animation tools that are exclusive to 3ds max combined with the unique design-oriented functionality of Autodesk VIZ—all in a single package.



Faster final gathering performance.... SWEET. (Hair and fur looks cool too.)

[ToddD]

Made this today, used some of the materials outlined in this thread. Deriver and reflection utility, glow lume. Need to play with the samples of the reflection utility to reduce the noise, but not a bad example of how the mats look.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/tbonz/orbitalglow-01.jpg
Oh-- inspired by the glowing tubes ala Jeff(and Nik Clark), and the Neil Blevin orbs.

[JasonCamp]

- jeff thx for the thread heh i remember it well.. and accually after i found out how to do it ive been attempting to recreate it sence .only without the lens shader . its a lot easyer to do as far as a lens shader goes , ... i dont have a screen shot as of today because they worked me from 3pm to 07am the next day and i pritty much slept all day today , and not to mention today is my day off ... ugh i hate the navy ... anyways .. as for next attempt ill try and add a lot more faces to the raymarcher ... and for the pc yea i was accually thinking building my own dual 3. xeon myself ... i really want my home pc back heh... what vid card your runing ? and ram . im not sure what is going on with cpu prices but from what i see they are about to drop big time because of intel's 64bit is on its way, wich prob will make it a good time here shortly to get new cpu's and this single 3.4 is nice for games and such but mr is kickin my arse

- tbonz nice , what is your fg count ? if you are useing fg that is

[JeffPatton]

I'm just now getting around to testing the simboint (DarkTree) shaders. They are some neat shaders/materials. I think these would really help with your marble akropol2000.

Test:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/cg-post/simbiont-1.jpg

[SoLiTuDe]

Jeff... In order to use the simbiont textures with Mental Ray do you have to own darktree?? I can't seem to figure that one out... Thanks!

[JeffPatton]

Yes, you do atleast need to install the demo of DarkTree (that's what I'm using, I haven't purchased anything yet). You only need to install the demo for use of the shaders/materials that come with the demo. I'm not sure if the demo of DarkTree is time limited...or if that even matters to the DarkSim plugin.

[instinct-vfx]

Afaik the maxplugin itself is freeware. And it loads all the shaders publically available without any probs (the plugin is called simbiont and available as a material and a map) Without Darktree you can´t built own "shader-netwirks" tho.

Thorsten

[akropol2000]

where can I get that demo ? is there 30 day limit ?
and could you explain a litlle bit more about the shaders itself.

thanx

[JeffPatton]

where can I get that demo ?
http://www.darksim.com/

is there 30 day limit ?
As Thorsten stated, Darksim (the max plugin) is freeware. But to make custom Darktree shaders, you'll need to purchase DarkTree.

and could you explain a litlle bit more about the shaders itself.
thanx
Check the Darksim website for all the details.

[SoLiTuDe]

thanks guys... yeah I realize that symbiont is free with a bunch of shaders... but to use them with MR you need to have darktree installed... but that's coo i'll go get the demo Thanks!


edit... ok... i d/led the demo... got that in... and now i d/led the mr extensions, but I don't have a clue how to install them. I copied the files to: mentalray\shaders_3rdparty\ ...but the instructions say "create an environmental variable and set it to the darktree components" ??? what's that about??? Thanks again

geeze... ok... I put the files in the autoload folder instead of 3rd party... so they load, but they give me the error: " LINK 0.0 error: TIWdtemental::no environment set
API 0.0 error: found second definition of GUI "gui_tiwdte_color_uv" using first " any ideas?

[JeffPatton]

geeze... ok... I put the files in the autoload folder instead of 3rd party... so they load, but they give me the error: " LINK 0.0 error: TIWdtemental::no environment set
API 0.0 error: found second definition of GUI "gui_tiwdte_color_uv" using first " any ideas?

Yup. This thread:http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=214723

[SoLiTuDe]

You da man! Thanks a ton!

[JasonCamp]

well i started this post yesterday but did not finnish it so here goes

i found out why my home made hdri's looked so sloppy,for 1 i neveraccually looked in the viewport to see how it looked as an environment eh it was all jacked up, and the main part was that eh heh i didnt have enuff fg on... 1000 fg really brings out the lightness of it, ive always done about 300 or 500 for testing...this is how i have set my hdri stuff -
take a picture of a cool backround with certain light that you want
goto photoshop (provided you have it , or other 2d program) change the horizontal size to well 4x the current width and make sure you dont have maintain aspect or whatever its called , so it streches 4x horizontaly
this is for camera angles front left right back...
then check maintain aspect ratio's and change it back to your desired res. so now you should have a normal size picture thats streched... save as a tga file as 32bit (it seams to work good)
goto max6 - file - view picture then use that picture you just made and then save it as a hdr file , use ldr method because your going to manage the unclamped colors
assign it as a instance to your enviroment and skylight and also in your material editor, set the skylight to like 4 or so depending how bright you set the hdr setings to
in the material editor you set your hdr setings to use ldr method goto the black point it should be the darkest point or at the end , useually default is good , white point should be dependent on how much light your hdr pic has in it .. usually its the area that is the most brightest, say if you have a few semi dark areas and then one area that is accually almost white or as bright as white would be if it was a white color that is where your should clamp your white point too... ie make it the pink color ... 8bit is what i was useing , and the little area that has the L type button that makes the colors over bright should be a lot brighter then normal at least to the point where your darkest area is now even a bright color... playing with this will make the hdr brightness increase as if it was the brightness of the skylight.... only it will be raytraceing the colors in the picture instead of just the "white point" selection you have set which it seams is what the skylight brightness is doing when you increase it.. the only next thing you should do is in the tiles section of the mat brouser set it to tile 4 times for the left right front backthing and then you can mirror it so it doesnt look all jacked up ... when in your view port with out the fg on you can look at it and make sure it is aligned right .. if not align it with the alignment settings... should take much ... and should accually look like a spherical enviroment and produce realistic light when fg is bumped up to 1000 also the size of the walls make a diffence letting light in and such... like i also added a window in and it was accually traceing light in depentent on where i was viewing the picture at on the screen ( http://www.cgtalk.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) most of you probably knew this but i didnt ehhh wow is all i have to say i thought hdr was a cheapy gi effect until now

[jwilson02]

gotta just say this thread rox my sox! heres my little contribuition...this is a sss for reptile skin...a bit glossy..can be used for stones and such also..dont know but if u would like the mat let me know Edit: heres a weird lookin one i did while bored..looks like brains almost
http://img84.exs.cx/img84/3469/brains2bf.jpg
http://img91.exs.cx/img91/8597/reptile4xv.jpg

[jwilson02]

not sure if this has been talked about but here is a faux moss shader made with some clever use of mix and noise maps in the displacment map...
working on making a fuzzier one for animal fur
I know its no subtitue for ornatrix or others like it..but hey, its just a shader
http://img218.exs.cx/img218/614/mossshader24km.jpg
http://img218.exs.cx/img218/3971/mossshader5mc.jpg

[x-per]

Thank you all for contributing with these fine materials http://www.cgtalk.com/images/icons/icon13.gif

Jeff Patton: Was it you that made that carbon fibre material?
I dont get it to work, i tried to apply it to my car but it semes like it dont work on flat surfaces and i really cant se any pattern, it just looks grey!
Would be awesome to use that great material!

Thanks again http://www.cgtalk.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[JeffPatton]

Jeff Patton: Was it you that made that carbon fibre material?

I made one early on in this thread (and I think someone posted another carbon fiber mat more recently). But if it's the material that's in the cg-talk.mat file, yes it's the one I made.

Why does it show up grey or black?
The material uses a checker map, therefore proper UVW coordinates must be applied to your model. I also used an insanely high number of tiling on that checker map...so you'll probably want to decrease that to help make the effect more visible.

[Ionex]

I have read a lot of this thread (which is awesome BTW) but I didn’t really find a lot of information about geo shaders within Mental Ray for max. Can someone explain to me if this function exists in max I know it does in mental ray, both Maya & XSI have similar workflows. What is the workflow for 3dsmax when dealing with geo shaders?


Thanks

[JeffPatton]

I was able to use Paolo Berto's tips here: http://www.lamrug.org/resources/physsstips.html
as well as the BSSRDF info here:
http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/bssrdf/

To make this milk scene with the physical SSS shader:
http://www.jeffpatton.net/Max7/images/MR-Milk.jpg

[Viper]

A bit too yellow there mate :) Milk is more whitey :D

[BrianHarbauer]

Oh i don't know, i think he's right on the money, could be whole milk or 2%. From what i remember, milk does look like that when lit like that...

[jwilson02]

looks pretty good..id have to light up a galss of milk to see if it looks like that...add some droplets to the glass and ground...id like to see it realistic

[JeffPatton]

I'm not sure. Milk's so many different colors, it's hard to say. I think I'm getting close, but I agree that what I have now, isn't "just right". Here's some reference pic's I just captured.
http://www.jeffpatton.net/CG-post/reference-milk.jpg

Same glass of milk, different lighting conditions and environments. I do think my render is a bit too yellow. And I also think the SSS effect is too thin...the milk should be thicker. Oh well, back to the drawing board I suppose.

[JAF]

can't find this new scene on your website Jeff... lol, sry. :thumbsup: :buttrock: And i would be very happy if you could explain your shader settings for the bronze statue (ambiant occlusion mask)...
always following your amazing and shared work...

[billyfat]

I've been trying to learn from that milk paper at lamrug.org for a week or so but can't seem to get it right. All I'd really like to do is emulate the MR fast skin shader with the physical SSS shader. That way I can embed some shapes (like bones) inside the object that would block light in a physically accurate way. Imagine splinters inside these funnels(fast skin shader):


http://erbp.net/funnels_yellow3.jpg

Jeff, I think the milk looks good. With some artifacts, some bubbles, and a dirty glass I'd buy it. Would you mind sharing the material?

Billy

[JasonCamp]

damn jeff , i'm still fliping out that i made a good looking glass and then you went all milk on my a$$ lol
accually im expermenting with hdri and volume right now... ever linked a volume shader (ie one thats covering your scene) to a skylight ? eh not sure if its doing the volume or not but my hdri is working real well so im pleased .. heh last week when i thought i was on to something i took my digi camera out and snaped a huge huge panoramic pic and joined them together with my wacom tablet .. when i get back to home base i gota try this out lol whata trip , like 10000x1800 res hdri man if this looks good the way i did it last time with wraping 1 pic alone , i cant wait to see accually a panoramic pic that has all angles coverd on it , should be cool... anyhow ill keep you guys up to date with some samples, here in a few ... probably monday cuz this weekend is coming up and i gota let off a hell of a lot of steam after the crap these guys have been puting me threw, and ill prob need a good day to render this ,

oh btw dont take me the wrong way jeff this was accually a complement ,, outstanding milk..., and even the glass is looking good what type of light is it thats lighting up the 1st pic ? if its a spot thats probably why its looking yellow ...

[depleteD]

Hey guys,

ANyone know where to access a Greeble plug for max 7?

-Thx in advance.
Andrew

[JAF]

The Greeble plugin can be found here:
http://max.klanky.com/
The R6 version is working with 3ds max 7.

[depleteD]

Hey thanks alot JAF

hey check out what this guiy did with mrs skin, unfreaking belivable.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=63930&page=77&pp=15

[dave-3d]

Hellion :

Thanks for explaining your HDRI techniques.

I am slightly confused with what you said about HDRIs.

Are you using these for lighting alone ?

As for creating an HDRI, you really are better off taking 3 or 4 pics at various exposure settings for each viewpoint (then creating one large stitched view but at different exposures in photoshop/stitcher) then combining the different exposures in HDRI shop - if you want to retain that large spectrum of light information.

For instance, load in a real HDRI into HDRI Shop and use the "+" and "-" keys to adjust the exposure, I would imagine with your pseudo-HDRI image it just gets darker or lighter ? With a real HDRI image it is just like real life - the more "dark" the image becomes the more fine detail you will see in what was before just glare. This is the important thing about HDRIs and with subtle use they can produce stunning reflections.

I have created a few HDRIs. With my small digital camera taking bracketed consecutive images it turns out reasonable but with a bit of fringing due to me not using a tripod !

I now have on order a kaidan panoramic head and will be using the expensive SLR Digital camera from work to create huge HDRIs.

I think that for lighting (in the projector slot of the skylight) you only need a relatively small HDRI image which is blurred - no need for grainy detail, while for reflections the higher res the better.

I find this is because when you have a flat surface it sometimes reflects/"maps" only a small area of the background/environment image (thinking of it as a small area on the sphere that the background image is wrapped onto) over a large surface area if your surface is flat, "stretching" and thus smearing and softening the reflected image. Higher Res is the way to go for realistic refections.

As a footnote I created a 10,000 wide TIFF and Mental Ray fell over ! I had to save it as a JPG .... still unsure about Mental Rays memory handling.

Also you need to be careful when clamping the range of an HDRI. If you clamp it and then up the RGB value you will eventually see ramping/banding in the reflected image. Can't remember if this occurs when you clamp too low and keep the RGB multiplier low or when you Clamp high and up the RGB multiplier ? I'll have a look.

Hope this adds some food for thought :)

Dave

[JasonCamp]

hey dave, yea im bad at explaining stuff,
mostly yes im useing it for lighting , and i understand what you are saying with the no tripod lol mine required quite a bit of my wacom tablet to splice them up, but i havent used that one yet ill test how it looks in about 8 hrs when i get home and all set up again, i might have to do as i was saying though because your right with a big picture it does tend to slow down a lot ..
i should have also mentioned i took about like 15 pictures to create the hemi-sphere and ended up useing only about 4 or 5 and it turned out like a panoramic pic anyways...
ill try to explain more when i get back to my home computer so i can poop out some good looking pics for you , and ill try to do some accuall snaps of the max screen to show setings , sort of a tutorial i guess , right now i am at work and cant do much ill get back with you tho

[JeffPatton]

I'll add the milk & bronze test files to my Max7 files later today (and maybe one to two more that I think might be useful) :thumbsup:

EDIT: Added the files.

[JAF]

a BIG BIG BIG thanks to you Jeff!
You're really the best.

[spears]

Can you guys let me know where I am screwing up on getting light to pass through this with the physics phen shader? http://www.spearnetworks.com/ttest.zip


Thanks!

[JeffPatton]

That's interesting...it doesn't like a primitive cylinder object. If you add a shell modifier on the cylinder and change inner amount to .25, outer amount to 0.0. It works as expected.

I saw that you also had disabled "opaque shadows when caustics are enabled", you should probably turn that back on.

[spears]

Jeff,

Thanks a lot! I turned that off because I was getting total blackness! This problem hit me up in another file I was working on, and then I made this one to see if I had changed something in the other.

Lesson learned!

[Mariano]

Hi Jeff , just a question cos i dont know exactly why this is happening, but when i render the statue of your bronze shader into your skydome scene, the max crashes, the scenes are exactly as u leave them, the main scene its the skydome one, and the statue is merged into the scene.
any ideas?

thanks

Mariano

[crazyKuki]

Hi guys,

I need to design a birthcard (my sister first baby +/- on 8 March:)
I promised her i'd make a composite of her picture inside a plastic wrapped foil
You know plastic package like candy's- cookies inside a plastic bag with lot's of highlights but no refraction.(where you can clearly see the goods.)
Time is not at my hand now and i promised her to deliver the composite, but i don't get any real looking convincing plastic foil :(

I'm so desperate to deliver what i promised.
Can you guys help me out here.
I'm sure if i were Jeff Patton, it would take me only a couple of minutes.
:( I feel sad

Any help deeply appreciated
Best regards
Kuki

[psv]

IF GI is activated ambient occlusion is prone to crashes,,,the same with dirtmap

[castelle]

I have drop off from this forum for a couple of months now and so I am trying to get back on track.

I came across this wallpaper http://www.deviantart.com/view/15772416/
and I am trying to do this material but its not really coming out right.

Can someone give me points to setup that look..i guess its simple but still i can't get it done.

Thanks!

[FATdan]

hi all, making a compact instrument tuner for final year project..i really want to use the "i,robot" type material for the case!! i understand that mental ray was used on most of the CG in the film..anyone got any thoughts on constructing such a material?
ive experimented with the new max7 sss shaders and cant get specuar highlights + transparency at the sametime..bar using standard mat.
ta

[JeffPatton]

@Castelle - You mean the chrome material? If so, startw with a mental ray material. Add a metal(lume) shader to the surface map slot. Add one of the black & white reflection maps that comes with Max to the environment slot of that mental ray material. Set the mapping to spherical.

@FATdan - You might want to try the Glass(lume) shader and blur the transparency & reflection.

[castelle]

Jeff, like so http://postboxx.tv/download/Screen.gif

if so its not coming out at all, plus when i click the environment slot i only get 3 options and i chose -- Environment (3dmax) then pick a reflection map.

[FATdan]

thanks for the suggestion!! ide overlooked the lume stuff to be honest..getting some promiceing results
thanks a lot!!!

[JeffPatton]

That's because your object has square edges, and flat surfaces. Neil Blevins explains this problem best here:
http://neilblevins.com/cg_education/flat_metallic_surfaces/flat_metallic_surfaces.htm

[herbert west]

Q: Got Milk?

A: Almost...

Made with MAX 6 using Parti-Volume.

http://home.comcast.net/~ian_kirkley/milk1.jpg

[ILS]

i don't mean to be redundent,

but someone asked how to program custom shaders and i think it was Jeff or someone posted a nice link. At the time i had no desire so i forgot to bookmark it. So, can someone either post it again or just PM it to me it would be greatly appreasiated.

[JasonCamp]

hey guys like i said , ill see if i can clear up the pesky hdri settings to bring color to your scene,also this will help on making your own hdr's wich some think you need programs and plugins and all that crap when you really just need a picture and or a digital camera if you want to make your own backgrounds
first off i noticed that what i said earlyer was incorrect about streching the picture i thought it was creating a skybox when i found out it was accually doing it nomatter what you do to it ... i still mirror the u axis of the sphereical environment though.. basicly all of what i said was wrong if your are looking for a perfict reflection enviroment that is ... as far as light goes it was spreading to much of the same light everywhere ... so im going to have to rethink this ... after today i should have it just about down , i renderd one of the standard light with the u axis mirrored.. then for the reflection i chose the same picture but not linked to the skylight so the reflection was not messed up ... i do think im on to something here is a pic of what i had before i left for work today, its a simple box with box cut out of the roof and the left wall deleted... notice how the light is bouncing off the trees and hiting the window , much of it is just gi but when i set it up right it should work as i pan the camera ie the background pans and so does the camera ... as all the light is correct , as you can see with the shadow of the statue

[JasonCamp]

hey jeff looks like people are loveing your car paint shaders -
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=217382

[Cruzifer]

hip hip hurray to this awesome thread...

...guys i hope you can help me with my serious problem. I animated a hose of a vacuum cleaner with reactor rope system.
After that i applied a Displacement map to the hose to get this typicial ripples.
unfortunately it doesn´t work propertly. look a this to pics which are taken from different angles.
http://www.titanfilm.de/hose1.jpg

http://www.titanfilm.de/hose2.jpg

and here is the scene
http://www.titanfilm.de/hose.max

anybody? Cheers rob

[loran]

I don t open your scene but my advice would be :use your rope spline as a bone to skin another properly map define mesh. if you are using the rope spline for render maybe it can bug on the spline render to geometry and wreck your map...

[loran]

anyone to turn the maya mental ray new shader to 3ds max ???

http://deathfall.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&thttp://3dsurfer.com/files/lafortuneshader.jpgid=2207

[JeffPatton]

loran,

I converted the .mi file, but Max doesn't like the included .dll for some reason. (I can't open the .dll and recompile it...haven't learned how to do that yet). Maybe someone else can figure it out? To save them some time, here's the modified .mi file ready for 3dsmax.

##########################################
## ##
## COPYRIGHT (C) 2002 - 2004 DigiTeck3D ##
## FILE NAME: dt3d_lafortune.mi ##
## ##
## AUTHOR: Miguel A Santiago ##
## EMAIL: miguel@digiteck3d.com ##
## ##
## DATE: March 1, 2005 ##
## ##
## DESCRIPTION: DT3D Lafortune UI ##
## ##
## Modified 3/8/05 - Jeff Patton - convert to 3dsmax format ##
###############################################

declare shader
color "dt3d_lafortune"(
color "diffuseColor", #: default 0.309 0.397 0.708
color "ambientColor", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
color "ambience", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
color "incandescence", #: default 0.0 0.0 0.0
scalar "diffuse", #: default 0.8 min 0.0 softmax 1.0
scalar "specularRollOff", #: default 5.0 min 0.0 softmax 20.0
integer "specOutput", #: default 0 min 0 max 6
color "specularColor", #: default 0.5 0.5 0.5
integer "mode", #: default 0 min 0 max 2
array light "lights"
)
version 1
apply material
gui "dt3d_lafortune"{
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiName" "dt3d_lafortune",
"category" "l_glass shader"
)
control "diffuseColor" "color" (
"uiName" "diffuseColor",
"value" 0.309 0.397 0.708
)
control "ambientColor" "color" (
"uiName" "ambientColor",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "ambience" "color" (
"uiName" "ambience",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "incandescence" "color" (
"uiName" "incandescence",
"value" 0.0 0.0 0.0
)
control "diffuse" "scalar" (
"uiName" "diffuse",
"value" 0.8,
"range" 0.0 1.0
)
control "specularRollOff" "scalar" (
"uiName" "specularRollOff",
"value" 5.0,
"range" 0.0 20.0
)
control "specOutput" "integer" (
"uiName" "specOutput",
"value" 0.0,
"range" 0.0 6.0
)
control "specularColor" "color" (
"uiName" "specularColor",
"value" 0.5 0.5 0.5
)
control "mode" "integer" (
"uiName" "mode",
"value" 0.0,
"range" 0.0 2.0
)
control "lights" "array light" (
"uiName" "Lights",
# "hidden",
"nonConnectable"
)

}

end declare

I tried, sorry it didn't work.

[JAF]

Strange but original .mi and your modified .mi seem to work for me, Jeff...
I probably not understanding something in this new shader... :shrug:

[psv]

JEFF, THAT SHader work`s,, al least for JAF and me,,,,,,,,from maya it`s no need to change that mi file.....and the DLL is the same for all windows Mental ray versions...
i never change a mi declaration file from maya mi...

[JeffPatton]

Hmmm, strange. Are you guys running max6 or 7? I'm using 7 here, maybe that's the difference?

[JAF]

7.0 here. Try to clean your dll folder just for this test... I'm sure it's full :)

[Jonathan33]

Hey guys, this is an amazing thread, some excellent points in it.
I've having aproblem myself with a MR shader, i'm using a MR displacement map to get some roughness on a tree model i'm making, but when i render parts of my polys seem to have well.. exploded

Any ideas why this is happening or how i can fix it?

[JeffPatton]

ehh, still a no go for me (and surprisingly enough, I don't have that many extra shaders). Oh well, I'll pass on this shader. :D

[JAF]

http://membres.lycos.fr/jafdesign/CGTalk/dt3d_lafortune.jpg

Working with probably bad settings...

[herbert west]

Jeff, do have any updated renders of your milk? I'm still trying to do milk with Parti-Volume in Max6 (picture of results on pg 140). I'm hoping to post my scene as soon as I'm satisfied with the results.

[SoLiTuDe]

loran,

I converted the .mi file, but Max doesn't like the included .dll for some reason. (I can't open the .dll and recompile it...haven't learned how to do that yet). Maybe someone else can figure it out?


Don't you need original source code to compile a dll in the first place??

But on top of that... how do you go about converting a maya mental ray shader to max? What's the difference?? I remember reading that with all other versions of mr, you can code you shaders from the ground up if you want, but it's not the same with max?? Any truth to this?? Thanks!

--Solitude--

[JasonCamp]

hey can you post your pic again , its not showing up...

and for my hdri stuff .. i thought i had something guys but i give up lol. the lighting is good with what i use and 1000+ fg and if i want a cool background ill keep it untied with the skylight lol so much simpler...

[JeffPatton]

Don't you need original source code to compile a dll in the first place??

Yes. And more times than not, these custom shaders come with the source code in the .zip files.

But on top of that... how do you go about converting a maya mental ray shader to max? What's the difference?? I remember reading that with all other versions of mr, you can code you shaders from the ground up if you want, but it's not the same with max?? Any truth to this?? Thanks!
--Solitude--
Well, I thought all you needed to do was to write a GUI section in the .mi file. But maybe that's a thing of the past now since this last shader worked for some people without any modifications.

You can write you own shaders for Max/MR. You just need to know how to use C programming and compile the shaders properly (which I don't.....yet).

[ILS]

i know people who are really savy at programming C for windows - and are willing to work on custom shaders for MR - just need some documentation on the finer details. Trying to make a good anisotropic shader.

do any of you guys have source code for ReflectionUtility and/or Deriver?

[JeffPatton]

You might want to try emailing the developer of the shader if they didn't include the code in the .zips. Hopefully the developer of the shader left his/her email address in the .mi files. They (the developer) would probably be willing to help you out (as long as you dont plan on selling the shader, etc).

But of course, I'm just speculating on that. Some people don't like to share info...some do.

[Cruzifer]

I don t open your scene but my advice would be :use your rope spline as a bone to skin another properly map define mesh. if you are using the rope spline for render maybe it can bug on the spline render to geometry and wreck your map...

didn´t knew that it is possible to skin with a line... anyway IT DOESN´T WORK for me - it still has something to do with the displacement map!
Take a closer look at the pics i posted one page before - the displacement gets crappy at a special angle to the cam i guess. And i dont have any clou on how to fix this...
please help me out it is a important job for a big company.:sad:

cheers cruzifer

[JAF]

:) I've found your solution, and I will try to speak a good english...
In the renderer settings, go into the "Renderer" tab and look at the "Shadows & Displacement" rollout. In the "Displacement" section (the last one at the bottom), uncheck "View".
Render... seems better now ;)
Let me know if this is ok for you.
Good luck.

[JeffPatton]

@Cruzifer - Also, if the displacement map doesn't work out for you...couldn't you just use the hose primitive?

[Cruzifer]

thx JAF for the hint... looks much better now but there are still some places where the displacement doesn´t work ... i made some adjustments on "edge length", "max Displacemant" in the displacement dialog box but with no better results within this rendertimes.

@jeff -> first of all i want to thank you for your great job in this forum - i have learned the power of mental ray through your experience and "sharing behavior".
but now to your question:
in the first stage of animaion i didn´t knew what the director want me to animate (he also not)
so i decided to take reaktor and not the 3dsmax hose...

in the matter of fact that there is no way to fix it, i will model the hose and skin it to the
rope spline... that should work for sure!

By the way - is there any way (script) to convert a displacement map on an object into a mesh? i thing a had seen this option in maya.

cheers cruzifer

[Jonathan33]

Can anyone shed some light on a new problem i'm having

I'm using a mental ray material to make a displacement on my object, i put a diffuse texture under the surface paramaters, and a 3d displacemtn in a mental ray displace.
My object does not recieve any shados though? i've used a raytrace and mental ray shadows and nothign shows up.

[ILS]

Can anyone shed some light on a new problem i'm having

I'm using a mental ray material to make a displacement on my object, i put a diffuse texture under the surface paramaters, and a 3d displacemtn in a mental ray displace.
My object does not recieve any shados though? i've used a raytrace and mental ray shadows and nothign shows up.


you answered your question yourself pretty much. there is no map in the shadow slot so how could there be a shadow? you can use regular material say raytrace or standard just insert 3d displacement into mental ray connection beside displace.

[Jonathan33]

you answered your question yourself pretty much. there is no map in the shadow slot so how could there be a shadow? you can use regular material say raytrace or standard just insert 3d displacement into mental ray connection beside displace.
Sorry, i didn't fully explain the problem i was getting

If i use a standard max texture and put the 3d displacment in the mental ray roll out, my mesh seems to explode, there are wholes near seams and it doesn't look good (there is a picture of it a page back)

So i tried with a mental ray material, and the displacement works much better in that slot, but as i've said it recieves no shadow now, and no matter what i put in the mental ray shadow slot (there are like 8 options i believe) it does not recieve shadows.

[dave-3d]

Jeff :

A quick question with respect to the Metal (Lume) shader.

I am trying to create a silvery material (falloff) with reflection (fresnel) BUT using a local Environment map (HDRI) in the material itslef, and NOT activating the Environment map slot in the Rendering-Background menu.

I had a re-read through this post to check and I still can't see if it is possible or not, mainly from what has been written on pages 8 and 42.

As a test I use your Nickel material and it will render with blurred reflections using a global environment but NOT with a local Environment - MR does not use the local environemnt map.

As an example is there any way that I can setup your nickel material to use the Environment slot in the nickel material ??

I wish to use the local environment slot because I want to use a colour in the Global Background-Environment slot, not the HDRI I wish to use for the reflections in the Nickel.

Thanks,

Dave

[JeffPatton]

Dave,

I must've misunderstood your question or something? I don't seem to have any problems with putting a map (HDRI, or whatever) in the environment slot of a MR material (and the metal reflecting it).

I tried it with both the nickle material from the cg-talk.mat file as well as just a regular metal(lume) shader. I've attached the render.

Jeff

[psv]

hi guys
there is someone who has used those geo shaders in max..???

is there a way to use them?
in maya are exposed , in max hidden, it seems that a lot of the power of mental ray is missing from max implementation....or maybe is hidden somwhere

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=209991&page=1&pp=15

and more
http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=17218

and even more
http://www.virtualcinematography.org/


im speaking about ctrl buffers shader which it`s showing in max shader list....but
a specific ~ geometry "buffer_api"~ doesnt show up...........so ........the internal mray buffers are not enabled...and therefore written.....

there must be sombody out there who knows.........

:banghead: :cry:

[psv]

and there is a way other than regular max interface , or standalone mr version to acces mray via let`s say max script like in maya???

[francescaluce]

psv. the maya one.. no, for sure.
you could try the xsi one. if the buffer_api works.. will work everything.
the problem is that could not be directly shown in the shader list, 'coz
it is a geometry shader that has nothing to do with render shaders.
you should know if geometry shaders are supported and how to load
one.. personally I haven't 3dsmax, but should be present or a specific
object like geoprimitive.mentalray or a specific mentalray flag on any obj.



ciao
francesca

[dave-3d]

Thanks for the reply Jeff,

I just can't get the material to use the local environment map.

This is what I get. As you can see, placing an HDRI in the environment slot has no effect.

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/screenshot_001.jpg

But adding the HDRI to the global slot (as below) it works :

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/screenshot_002.jpg

This is the original scene (without background Environment map activated) - this archive contains an HDRI file :

http://www.dmmultimedia.com/cgtalk/metal_lume_001.zip

Mmm ... Are you sure you have an empty global environment slot ? Or have I done something different ?

Dave

[psv]

thx francesca for the quick reply


the problem is that max doesnt have a specific mental ray flag attached to .. let`s say a primitive object........or i`m unaware of it......

that`s to bad.........though they say in the documentation that ....~if you are a developer you , would need to use the geo shaders~~but i`m NOT one ,,,,that`s to bad again.., and discreet has released an updated version of include file for max 6 with those geo shaders.....in the base mi file .........


thx again francesca

ciao Sorin

[psv]

dave 3d
first extend the mental ray connection rolout in that raytrace material
you should use
lookup spherical base (must remove ~hidden~ in mi file) in the environment slot of mental ray
connection of that standard material.

or simply use your HDRI image in the in the environment(Environment3dsmax) slot of mental ray
connection of that standard material.


good luck........

[JeffPatton]

Dave,

I added the environment map to the environment map slot located in the MR connection rollout. You're adding it to the raytrace material environment map slot. Scroll down the material editor screen to the mental ray connection roll out (past the maps rollout, past the dynamics properties rollout). Then in the Mental Ray connection rollout menu, you'll see the environment map slot that I used.

Jeff

[JeffPatton]

you should use
lookup spherical base (must remove ~hidden~ in mi file) in the environment slot of mental ray

HUH? I didn't have to do any of that...just use the Environment(3dsmax) material...and add your map....no unlocking or special workarounds needed.

EDIT: Nevermind, I overlooked the part of your post where you mentioned the environment(3dsmax) map.

[dave-3d]

Fantastic !

:thumbsup: , Jeff.

I just didn't know that existed !

Thanks to this thread because the lack of official documentation is shocking, are you listening Discreet ?

I'll post what I am working on soon ..

Dave

[psv]

Jeff that`s a good lesson (for all of us)

....never start whith the complicated version(like i did)
keep it simpler , if it is simpler................... it wil render FASTER:thumbsup:

[mengy]

No matter how many times I read the instructions or try to I can't make the carbon fiber material posted on page 110. Specifically, I can't get both rough reflections of the fiber inside and smooth reflection of the shell at the same time. Can someone post more detailed instructions or a .max file? Thanks

[JAF]

Here a fast test render with the Mental Ray Diffraction Shader 1.2 by Robert Mehofer & Daniel Rind. The shader is working with max 7.0 but need better settings. Please, could you help to improve this humble test Jeff? Thanks again.

http://membres.lycos.fr/jafdesign/CGTalk/Diffraction_fast_test.jpg

[ILS]

Sorry, i didn't fully explain the problem i was getting

If i use a standard max texture and put the 3d displacment in the mental ray roll out, my mesh seems to explode, there are wholes near seams and it doesn't look good (there is a picture of it a page back)

So i tried with a mental ray material, and the displacement works much better in that slot, but as i've said it recieves no shadow now, and no matter what i put in the mental ray shadow slot (there are like 8 options i believe) it does not recieve shadows.

interesting,

anyway i did some tests and i didn't find much difference between 3d displacement in plain mental ray material and material with a mental ray connection. the seams are the result of a mesh not being smooth enough. assuming that displacement is derived via normals it is not that surprising. i use mesh smooth with iteration of 2 and it worked fine on all my models - maybe you can try that. as to the shadow - in the surface slot put in material to shader and insert your material if you prefer to use mental ray material it doesn;t really make much difference i found.

from left to right : iteration 2 , 1 , 0 , bottom has no mesh smooth applied.
http://img220.exs.cx/img220/4907/test0hs.jpg (http://www.imageshack.us)

[Raffi_1]

Hi again it has been a long time .. :)
check my gallery, I've been playing with mental ray for about 6 months & this is what I got till now, they are all rendered with mental ray:
http://up.to/raffi

what do you think ? ? ?

did anyone succeed with this physical sss ???
absorb. & scatter. coeff. ?? if there is please tell us how we can control these amounts ..

any physicists here ?? Jeff maybe you can help us .. :thumbsup:

[ozlime]

Hello all. This is the first post.
Re:JAF.
Diffraction Shader
I do not succeed though I tested it. Please teach me your setting in the little bit.

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

im speaking about ctrl buffers shader which it`s showing in max shader list....but
a specific ~ geometry "buffer_api"~ doesnt show up...........so ........the internal mray buffers are not enabled...and therefore written.....

there must be sombody out there who knows.........
Um...this is available in max using render elements. It does the exact same thing with more options it seems. So is there a valid reason to need the ctrl buffers?

-Eric

[zman]

i just gotta say this is an awsome thread !
to be sure i got it right, the first post of this thread is constantly getting updated with new materials that are posted here right ?

[JAF]

Ozlime, i had PM my test to Jeff because he's doing better job than me, and i wanted to wait his improvements before he shared his amazing work to the community.
But if you can't wait, here the link to my bad test:
http://membres.lycos.fr/jafdesign
This scene is based on one of the Jeff's scene.
Always hoping Jeff will share us a better scene than mine...

[psv]

Um...this is available in max using render elements. It does the exact same thing with more options it seems. So is there a valid reason to need the ctrl buffers?

-Eric

yes that`s true ,max render elements....mr render some more buffers (like a z-depth pass, )in the same time internaly..........there is a speed gain.........and you cannot use render elements to add a ....ambient occlusion pass for example.
it`s a feature that add a litle bit flexibility in your workflow...
anyway the fact that i haven`t found a single mr shader (apart for those from base mi file, and few from Pixero) written for max, and the large (ok not so large, but growing every day)number of shaders available , for maya,can put some questions about the way mr it is used by the max users...

thx for reply Eric

[ozlime]

Ozlime, i had PM my test to Jeff because he's doing better job than me, and i wanted to wait his improvements before he shared his amazing work to the community.
But if you can't wait, here the link to my bad test:
http://membres.lycos.fr/jafdesign/CGTalk/diffraction.rar (http://membres.lycos.fr/jafdesign/CGTalk/test_diffraction_CGT.rar)
This scene is based on one of the Jeff's scene.
Always hoping Jeff will share us a better scene than mine...
P.S.: download not working!!!??? i'll fix it today, sorry.
It doesn't work. I am waiting. best regards.
& Jeff. I hope by all means. & Even here. Happy birthday!:love:

[JAF]

I fixed the link. Direct download link didn't work. Go back to my post and try the new link.
Is someone able to download and render the scene now? Please say me if someone is able to, and perharps upload it again here.
Thanks.

[JeffPatton]

Ozlime! Hey man, thanks. Glad to see you over here too! :thumbsup:

About the Diffraction shader. I guess what we need to do is find a reference picture of something with abberation (sp?). Then try and recreate that effect. Because JAF's teapot scene looked good to me...I guess it just depends on how sharp you want the effect to be, etc.

Zman - I haven't updated that .mat in a while. It's on my to do list though (which get's longer by the day)...but thank you for reminding me to update that. I'll dig through the thread here and update the .mat in the next week or so. :thumbsup:

[ozlime]

I am unknown in the ability to have not done. It will be because I am a scatterbrain.
Thank you JAF. The teapot looks wonderful.
I expect the wonderful material of jeff.

[herbert west]

Chromatic aberration in glass is generally a very subtle effect, and is not visible in all glass. I was looking at some old soda bottles I have, and only in one could I see a slight trace of aberration. I've usually seen it only in thick glass (like a solid statuette), or in a glass of water. There's a mirror in my bathroom that I can see aberration in (it also casts it on the wall). I'll post some reference photos if I find any good examples.

[MikeBracken]

Is it possible to change the color of the Glass Physics_phen ? Ive been searching this thread for days and cant seem to find out how.

Any help would be great. Thanks .
Colored glass has been a real challenge for me.

[JeffPatton]

Just change the Light Persistence color to whatever you want.

[stefan]

I will may be interrest someone.
http://www.claus-figuren.de/addons/tensionmap.php
And max scanline only version of same idea from MAnkua-Stress
http://www.mankua.com/index.htm ----- Download -> Free tools --> Stress

Is it possible to make max version?

[-Vormav-]

Hey. I've been messing around with the glow(lume) shader, and there's one thing I've been getting stuck on. I can't seem to figure out a good way to control the distance over which the glow shader casts light. It seems to be entirely dependent upon the size of the object that the material has been applied to. Changing FG sampling, glow brightness and global decay seems to have a slight effect, but it is very negligible. So far, the only way I've found to increase the distance effectively is to place an output shader in the glow slot of the glow shader, and then bump up the 'rgb level' on the output shader. Which works...but the quality of the light being cast definitely degrades very quickly (understandable, I suppose).
I have a feeling that getting the light to go much further will call for using real lights to fake the glow...but is there a better way to control this?

[vertice]

Do have a photon basic shader on photon slot?
Then try to increase the brightness, maybe with the output shader.
You may also create an omni inside your object with the same color.

[-Vormav-]

I must be missing something, but why would I want to use the photon basic shader for a glowing material? Isn't that only applicable if an object is set to receive global illumination and/or caustics (since the object is going to be fully-illuminated, neither of those apply)? Either way, I've noticed no differences with that shader added. :shrug:

[vertice]

Sorry, you're right, I think I had a problem similar to yours and the only thing with I can get some results is using a self-iluminated material with the output shader on the diffuse chanel.
If you want a colored light you may use a checker (with the both colors equal) in the map slot of the output.
Take a look on this tutorial first.
http://www.3dkingdom.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=541

[-Vormav-]

Hmm... well I tried that as well, and I still couldn't get quite what I was looking for.
I guess it's really going to come down to using additional lights in the scene. With the way that glow/self-illuminated materials emit a (very) limited amount of photons from the surface of an object, they spread out more and more the further away from the object they get. As far as I can tell, they only reduce the decay effect of the photons further away from the object, which can sort of make the object appears as if the light being emitted is spreading further. But if you use output to increase the brightness of these outer photons by enough to make a very noticable impact on the spread of the glow, then they just show up as ugly little dots. You can clean it up by increasing the final gather samples much higher, but the hit you take on the render time makes it not really worth the trouble.
Not that there's really anything wrong with including a light or two along with the glow. I just wish that that there was a way to adjust the number of photons emitted directly.

[JeffPatton]

With the way that glow/self-illuminated materials emit a (very) limited amount of photons from the surface of an object,
Technically the glow shader emits no actual photons (which is why you're not having any luck in controlling the distance with photon settings). You MUST use a physical light if you want to use GI with glow. There's a thread that discusses that somewhere around here, and I have a scene that I created for that thread in my Max6 files (it has glowing orange and blue spheres with omni lights linked to it for use of the photons to light a room)

I think Maya has a shader that can be used as a light source (that emits photons)...but that hasn't been ported over to 3dsmax yet (might be a MR3.4 thing...I dunno).

[zenas]

Hy everyb...

I'm new at this forum and sorry for any mistake. i'm rendering a scene with MR and i have a fast moving camera. Í rendered with fields and there are some aliasing in diagonal lines...

Someone can help me ...How MR deal with fields ?

thanks a lot

Zenas

[machadoj]

Hy everybody...

I have a new 3Dwork at: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=224840
In this scene i've used shaders and ilumination from our forum....

I hope you enjoy them.

yours,

Jomar Machado

[ILS]

zenas,

i don't think the aliasing is due to MR. (but if you want to increase anti-aliasing got the renderer tab and set the min max sampling higher).

did you chech your animation on a television screen or on your monitor?

from what i understand of rendering to fields you are supposed to have those lines. later on television converts the images from the odd and even fields into one frame.

[hjalle]

I have a question abaut AMD 64b and Mental ray.
Mental Ray have problem with memory, and Windows or 32b CPU
can't handle more memory than 1Gb or 2Gb, I dont know.
( you can shange it to 3Gb in win.ini, but it is shit anyway)

Do Mental ray handle memory better with 64b CPU?

Please answer?

Maybe not the right forum, but the right people.

:thumbsup:

[dave-3d]

Hjalle : Have a look here :

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=185820&page=1&pp=15

Is that what you are experiencing ?

D.

[hjalle]

Yes.
"MEM 0.1 fatal 031005: cannot free memory."

This is a old Mental ray error, and I have helped people
to get around it earlier in this forum.
(change to smaler Bucket Witdth, change to smaler memory Limit etc.)

But new times shall give better Mental ray.
Some people (me) render for print.

Max Scanline works different, and don't have
this memory problem ( but take time ). But I don't use it anymore.

[hjalle]

You lads ho have 64b CPU and a lot of memory, is it honky dory? Is it a shange for Mental ray ore have Mental ray the same problem with memory?

64b CPU shall handle more memory in theory.
Or is it Windows as usual, a well-known fact.
The biggest bad guy is Mental ray, that handle memory so bad.
Mental ray require memory to claen memory, I understand that, but
why is it so..............................bad on it?

[KxL]

have problem..
let say I have a ball, with blend material:
A - material is dark red ( "mental ray->surface:glass(luma)" ),
B - material is light red ( "mental ray->surface:glass(luma)" )
They are mask by gradient ramp with solid interpolation (which placement will be animated).
Now, I want that B material glow.
So first I try to make na normal glow from max effects on material effect ID...dosn't work with mr materials ;(
Then I try to use a glare(lume)..and I make something like this:
"mental ray -> surface:glass(luma) -> surface:output(); and glare(luma) for output" ..........dosn't work ;(
How can I achieve that?
And, how can I change glare color? By changing "output->Enable color map"?

Thanks
KxL

[zomboxy]

Do you have the Lume glow shader. Try it on the part of the blend shader you want to make glow. Glare is used to make the bright areas of your scene kinda glow but it's different. It works as a post render effect. Use them together (glow & glare) and you'll get some pretty results. Glare might have to have a minimum quality setting of 3 to work...I think.

Mark

[KxL]

yes, i have glow(lume) shader. I tried what you sad and it work good, but:
if i use it without glare -> i have no effect "outside" the object,
if i use it with glare -> all white part of the scene glow..
is there any posibility to use glare only on seperated objects? Not whole scene.

OK..i will try to do this,but for now i will do it in post production ;)

Thanks for replay zombox
KxL

[-Vormav-]

is there any posibility to use glare only on seperated objects? Not whole scene.
Doesn't seem like it, from what I can tell. Though the shader does give the option to have the effect target specific objects, I don't think that Max correctly outputs the object channels to Mental Ray for the shader to match up with this list properly (which wouldn't be surprising, as this shader isn't completely supported by discreet atm)

Technically the glow shader emits no actual photons (which is why you're not having any luck in controlling the distance with photon settings). You MUST use a physical light if you want to use GI with glow. There's a thread that discusses that somewhere around here, and I have a scene that I created for that thread in my Max6 files (it has glowing orange and blue spheres with omni lights linked to it for use of the photons to light a room)
I somehow knew that someone would come in and tell me how wrong I was...:hmm:

[vertice]

Doesn't seem like it, from what I can tell. Though the shader does give the option to have the effect target specific objects, I don't think that Max correctly outputs the object channels to Mental Ray for the shader to match up with this list properly (which wouldn't be surprising, as this shader isn't completely supported by discreet atm)

There is an option called "object labels" but how can we deal with that?
My problem is the same, I don't want all the white material burned out.
Since the glare shader is hidden, perheps there is no support for it, maybe the Maya guys can give a help...

[-Vormav-]

KxL, you mentioned that you tried Max's standard glow instead of using the glare shader, but that it didn't work. I just did a quick test of that though, and it was working fine. The standard lens effect glow did cause mental ray to return an error message, but the effect was still applied properly, and did affect only the specific material effects channels that I defined. Alternatively, the 'glow' from video post works as well (although you won't be able to actively preview the glow), without any sort of errors.
In any case, unless someone can figure out the trick to getting the object list working, you two are probably best off looking for ways to handle the glare in post (glare is a post effect anyway). If you render to an RPF and render out the material effects, you could use that to isolate where you want the glow in post, and then maybe use something like the Genarts Sapphire glare filter.

It definitely would be nice to get this working through the glare shader though...

[zomboxy]

I have both 3ds Max6 and XSI 4.2. XSI is a better way to go if you're into MR.
It is integrated so much better. You can get XSI for the same price as an upgrade to Max7. There's a promo on until April 15, or maybe look at Brazil. Glows etc. are quite easy to pull off and you can still use Max. It would cost more though.

Mark

[JeffPatton]

I have both 3ds Max6 and XSI 4.2. XSI is a better way to go if you're into MR.
It is integrated so much better. You can get XSI for the same price as an upgrade to Max7. There's a promo on until April 15, or maybe look at Brazil. Glows etc. are quite easy to pull off and you can still use Max. It would cost more though.

Mark

While I agree that XSI has a better integration of MR....recommending that someone switch software or buy another renderer because it's glow effect is easier....is simply absurd.

As Vormav already stated, the default glow returns an error in the MR window, but it still works. Or add the glow in post, or use the glow/glare and render in passes. There's plenty of solutions without having to purchase anything else.

[zomboxy]

Jeff,
To own several different software solutions is far from obsurd...Not everyone has the inclination or patience to look for work arounds when a deadline is looming. I look at what I need to do and pick which way I think will work best for me. Limiting yourself to one package is obsurd in my opinion. You can never have enough resources to draw from.

Mark

[JeffPatton]

Mark,

I never said (or even implied) that owning/learning different software/rendering solutions was a bad idea (far from it). What I tried to say was recommending that someone switch to a new software package as an answer to a glow question was a bit farfetched (IMHO). 3dsmax is more than capable of creating glow effects (just as all the other software solutions).

I think I'm taking this thread OT with my last two posts...so lets agree to disagree on this one and return to the topic at hand, MR shaders. :thumbsup:

[zomboxy]

Jeff,

I think I was also taking things a bit OT. Just a different approach / philosophy I guess.
I'll of course agree to disagree on this one. Let's get back to learning and sharing more about MR.
It's not like software is expensive anymore...it's the time learning to use it that's the real expense or investment. Everyone needs a little sleep!!;-)

Mark :-)

[KxL]

wow :) What happened here when i was gone ;)
OK..i done it in post..thanks for advices

KxL

[KMAnStudios]

I was showing a few students some of Jeff's great work with MR and one of them took a look at his teapot scene with dirtmap applied to it. He found something that I'd never looked at before and was wondering if someone could help me with this. If you take a look at the material with the dirtmap, open the material navigator, there is a listing for surface. I can't find a surface anywhere. If I click on the 'surface' listing within the material navigator, I can go to it, but I can't get to it externally. I'm sure I'm overlooking something very simple here.

Baffled and dazed and really confused..... :D

[JeffPatton]

heheh, it's because the surface map is locked. Just expand the mental ray connection rollout and unlock the surface map slot. Since it hides anything in that map slot when you lock it...I just forgot to remove the map before posting that file. :p

[KMAnStudios]

Thanks :) wow....I can't believe I overlooked that one. I hate that greyed out, can't read the label thing :) Ok...back to being a doof on my own time!! :P

[rodrigogua]

uh, could anyone please help me? i can't install the sss shaders from lightengine. any ideas?

[Cruzifer]

hi folks,
look at :
http://homepage.mac.com/bauer/portfolio_shaders/zDepthDOF/zDepthDOF.html#zDepthDOFIntro

i have translated the maya Shader into Max Version so you can download it. i´ve already contacted anderas c. (the creator of the origin shader) to provide the max version on his site also.

cheers cruzifer

[ILS]

about time .

this is really great. i saw done before but never actually know HOW to do it.

but is it physically correct that the object out of focus actually become less saturated.

[ToddD]

Cruzifier, I think there is a maya shader that allows self illuminated objects to generate photons, any chance you could translate that if someone here finds it? :thumbsup: Thanks for the shader, going to give it a whirl.


Todd

[hjalle]

Thanks ILS

[Cruzifer]

if the maya shader is not for 3.4 it is possible... maybe:shrug:

[rodrigogua]

@ ToddD: i think that for a material to actually CAST photons what you gotta do is set a MR material, and if it is emitting light set a glow(lume) shader for the surface, adjust the settings, and then drag-and-drop it to the photon slot of the material. i might be wrong, though, but i think it is that way.

[-Vormav-]

@ ToddD: i think that for a material to actually CAST photons what you gotta do is set a MR material, and if it is emitting light set a glow(lume) shader for the surface, adjust the settings, and then drag-and-drop it to the photon slot of the material. i might be wrong, though, but i think it is that way.
Not quite. Even setting the glow shader as the photon map doesn't seem to make it emit any photons.

[rodrigogua]

@ -Vormav- : thanks for the clarification. i wasn't too sure about it, but it kinda made sense. thanks again!

[JeffPatton]

When in doubt, don't forget about the search thread button. Current 3dsmax materials and the fact they do not cast photons (yet) has infact been discussed in this very thread before.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=1433936&postcount=1162

[McFarmer]

hi folks,
i have translated the maya Shader into Max Version so you can download it. i´ve already contacted anderas c. (the creator of the origin shader) to provide the max version on his site also.
Thanks again Cruzifer for providing the .mi file!

zDepthDOF is now available in version 1.6 and a 3ds max version (albeit unsupported) can be downloaded from my web page (http://homepage.mac.com/bauer/portfolio_shaders/zDepthDOF/zDepthDOF.html#Download).

Enjoy!
Andreas C. Bauer
author of zDepthDOF

[disassembler]

Has md_subScatter_shaderPack been converted over to MAX mental ray yet?

[shserge]

Great! I did not know about zDepthDof, nice solution. :)

[JasonCamp]

well i have definatly solved the hdri for reflections now , i was searching yahoo's image database looking for a color concept when i found a panoramic picture of a hospital, i then thought hey that looks just that apartment hdri so i thought what the hell and tossed it on a sphereical environment , and low and behold there it was the perfect reflection... then i got to thinking and rememberd that 3dstudio has a panoramic picture maker, so i tossed a camera in a scene i had been working on that i had added lights to and adjusted the lens to the correct aspect and renderd out a 3d panoramic picture , wich i was correct its accually a sky box, 4 sides a top and a bottom, and it worked great !

[psv]

[QUOTE==HELLION=]well i have definatly solved the hdri for reflections now

every single post of you sounds like a major public release of knowledge......but,.... it isn`t.
try to be more focused ...and more specific...
ok that`s the solution..but where is the problem???
between the lines i was able to see that you try to have some good looking metals in interiour...or maybe not...
don`t get me wrong mate... the road to hell is paved whith lots of good intentions...
and a tip for your anisotropic metal reflections.....any HDRi can be tiled let`s say on one axis
...whith a little blur you`ll get a nice looking anisotropic brused metal ...you can mix the amount of reflected environment and per material basis environment via a ambient occlusion shader.


sorin

[c0rtex]

Hey guys.. I was wondering how I would go about creating a nice glass material for car windows? I made glass but with the refraction it messed up the interior inside the car, and this doesn't happen on normal windows.. Thanks

[JeffPatton]

Try this one:
http://www.danielbuck.net/index.php?page=glass_tut/glass_tut

[c0rtex]

Thanks for super duper quick reply! Just what I wanted

[c0rtex]

I'm having some trouble creating neons. I'm using the neon mat from the bunch of mentalray materials from your website. When I just make a simple scene with a teapot and the neon, add a skylight, play around with settings, it works fine. But when I try to add them under my car they don't seem to light up at all, no light bounces off anything else. I just get white cylinders rendered. Anyone know the direct problem here? Thanks

[c0rtex]

I figured out that the cylinders weren't big enough! silly me

[ozlime]

The file is up-loaded because there was a request.
They are three different materials.

[feldy]

I was wondering if any of you have mangaged to make a matt shadow shader for mr?

[FATdan]

hi all!
ive briefly tried vray..got some really nice features. im trying to recreate the blurred reflections that you can achieve with vray in mental ray. i tryed using lume metal and various settings using DGS..can anyone help?

[vertice]

...to feldy

I keep using this workaround based on Jeff´s amb/occ solution on bronze statue.
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=147630

[philipbruton]

I recently purchased the ornatrix hair plugin which creates some awesome styles but i'm stuck as to using it with mental ray. I did a search on this forum and found a few posts regarding it's use but nothing clear on it's use with mental ray in max 6.
I've tried it with the ray marcher shader but no joy and i dont want to convert it to geometry cause that is defeating the object of using this time/memory saving tool.
I see Jeff was involved in the beta testing so I was wondering if you could give me any pointers on use with max 6 and ornatrix to aid my research, tyia

Phil b :thumbsup:

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

Phil,
I would hit up the Ornatrix forums for this Marsel should be able to give you all the info you need on the subject. From what I know there is a special converter to work with Mental Rays Hair Primitive this should keep you from having to use the render effects.

Hope this helps,
-Eric

[JeffPatton]

Eric's spot on with the statement about the MR hair primitive converter. I'm not sure if you read this thread:

http://www.ibmr.net/Ornatrix/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1017

In that link, I just discuss the basic steps to get the hair to render with MR...I didn't cover any real texturing or dynamics. So if you need more advanced info, just create a thread over at the Ox forum on what you want to see and I'll be sure to respond over there. :thumbsup:

[philipbruton]

just read the link thread, that simple, cheers m8y :)

Phil b

[FATdan]

this is as far as i got with DGS..any sugestions on improving this material? or any sugestions on using somethin differant?

[c0rtex]

since I can't afford final render.. im trying to recreate this scene in mray! i can't get it quite right, so I thought maybe jeff could? :P what do you think?

[JeffPatton]

Didn't have much time to spend on it, but maybe it'll be a good start for you to tweak the settings however you want:

Render (straight from max7, no photoshop):
http://www.jeffpatton.net/cg-post/mr-crystals.jpg

Scene:
DOWNLOAD (http://www.jeffpatton.net/cg-post/mr-crystals.zip)

Hope that helps.

[c0rtex]

omg lol your amazing.. thanks very much :)

[philipbruton]

Jeff i follow your suggestions to create rendered hair with mental ray in max 6, but no joy, no hair m8 just a sphere. Any chance you could post a simple scenen that works for you so i can see if it's something else causing this problem ?

Phil b

[JeffPatton]

Won't do any good Phil. I didn't know you were using Max6. It wont work in Max6's version of MR (3.3). Has to be Max7 or higher (MR 3.4). I'm terribly sorry that I didn't notice that in your earlier post. :hmm:

(Of course I'm just talking about the MR hair primitive passthrough part of Ox....you can always use the geometry hair option...and if you use billboard hair it doesn't take up too much memory)

[c0rtex]

I was wondering the best way I could go about making some sand like the one you made here: http://www.jeffpatton.net/CG-post/Water-setup.jpg

It's sort of what I need.. but something more like the attatched file would suit my likings

Thanks

[The Real Mark]

Hey guys,

Jeff, You work is AWESOME. love it. Got sent your site from a friend who's making a beach scene... obviously getting some ideas from yours.

I do have a problem someone might be able to help me with.

I'm making bar scene and I have these lights on the roof that are cylindrical.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/marktavares/sceneprogress1.jpg

I want the white area to be like a warm glow type of lamp... with a light transparency to it.

kinda like this (high rez):
http://www.putnamfurniture.com/gallery/images/Lamp%20Africa.jpg

and the black area like this (high rez):
http://www.putnamfurniture.com/gallery/images/Lamp%20Anthea.jpg

Atm the lights in my scene have a mental ray material with a glow (lume) inside the surface map. I'm really just taking a stab in the dark trying to get it to work... glow (lume) sounded right :P Any Ideas on how I could achieve something like those ref pics?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

Won't do any good Phil. I didn't know you were using Max6. It wont work in Max6's version of MR (3.3). Has to be Max7 or higher (MR 3.4).

Just a quick correction for Jeff, Max 6 (MR 3.2), Max 7 (MR 3.3), and Max 7.5 (MR 3.4).

-Eric

[JeffPatton]

heheh, thanks man. I've never been good with numbers.. :argh:

[JeffPatton]

I was wondering the best way I could go about making some sand
Try using a falloff map (set to shadow/light) and mix up some of the colors from that picture.

I want the white area to be like a warm glow type of lamp... with a light transparency to it.
ToddD (formerly Tbonz) posted a lamp setup here in this thread a while back. I ran a thread search for "lamp" and found the post here:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=1661094&postcount=1609

[The Real Mark]

Awesome! thanks jeff, thats perfect!... I should've searched a little more thoroughly next time :P

[Mariano]

Hi guy, first id like to say that all of you are doing an awesome job for all the rest of us who r learning. :)
My post its for trying to find some orientation about how to make a velvet shader, not just a fake mapping, some good velvet whos chance the white soft reflection areas depending from the camera angle.
any ideas how to start?

reference here. http://raymondstextiles.com/310-STR-VELVET.jpg

thanks!

[Haola]

Hi master , im very new with meatal ray , im searching everywhere to get the info about render a good interious scene with mental ray . I did find on this website and the others but they dont give any hints or tips. So if anyone who have a lot of experience about this , please help me. Thank you ...

[ToddD]

Haola, lighting is an entirely different issue(materials are the subject), maybe a good time to set up a thread similar to this for those interested in using MR for interior arch rendering. I would participate as I still have a few issues myself.

Back on topic, any new materials out there?

Todd

[Rigged]

That would be a hell of an idea. I tried using Mentalray on architectural simulations all the time but i just cant get verry acurate results here. Maby cause im still usin max 6 and IES Sun isn't supported.

[joske]

guess what ? :bounce:

there is all ready a thread simular to this one but dedicated to Mental ray light setup :

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=135785

and one dedidated to mental ray interiors :

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=124999&highlight=mental

so have look there and post any light related questions or problems there, this thread is dedicated to mental ray materials and shaders as mentioned above.

[sledgeweb]

This is an insandely informative, if not overhwelming, thread.

I have a bit of a query though. I'm doing some Ambient Occlusion tests for multi-pass rendering/compositing in which an occlusion pass will be added on top of other passes to simulate self shadowing. I know there are various ways to do this, and, I would just like to get some feedback on the advantages of different methods. Apparently, Max 7 has an Ambient Occlusion shader for Mental Ray - which I'd like to experiment with, but I only have Max 6. Is there any way I can import the shader from Max 7 into Max 6?

Currently, I'm using Max 6 skylight with Light Tracer to create a GI render. Which gives me this:

http://www.cubit.net/3dwip/spaceScene/wbssc005.jpg

Then, I bake that into a texture and apply it to the object. I'm still fine tuning this part. Right now, I'm rendering out to a 5k texture. This is what it looks like with the occlusion baked in (this render only took 3 seconds, compared to several minutes for the GI render):

http://www.cubit.net/3dwip/spaceScene/wbssc019.jpg

This looks very promising, but I haven't perfected it yet.

After reading this thread, I saw that people were using dirtmaps to simulate occlusion, so, I gave that a try. It doesn't have near the detail of the baked GI:

http://www.cubit.net/3dwip/spaceScene/wbssc020.jpg

So... what are your thoughts on all this? What is the best method for creating an occlusion pass in Max 6 for an animation pass?

Which of the methods I've demonstrated to you think gives the most realistic ambient occlusion?

[Haola]

thanks joske , but those thread not seem to be updated . i saw last post was 3-8-2005 ??? But anyway , i found some good info . thanks again

[abyjoe]

great thread. i will contribute something very soon. thanks

[ILS]

sledgeweb

try increasing far clip and samples in dirtmapmm. i think it will be more appearant.

[c0rtex]

Where does the Glare (lume) map come from?

[-Vormav-]

c0rtex - This post shows what to do. http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=1043630&postcount=179
You just need to find the lume.mi file in your max\metnal ray\include directory, and delete the shown line from the file (make a backup, just incase something goes wrong)

sledgeweb - I think we're pretty much stuck with the methods you mentioned... It'd be quite nice if someone could port it for us, though. *nudge nudge*

[c0rtex]

Thanks :)!

[lehthanis]

A while back I posted a note in this thread askign for help getting rid of the SSS dll missing error that you get with a vanilla install of max7 after opening the cgtalk-mr.mat file. In that same post, I did an edit sayign that I got it....and I remember having did a lot of trial and error and things liek that to get it working.

Well, as big as this thread has gotten, there's still no one single post that lists a tried and true step by step way of getting that dll setup, and I just got a pm about it asking how I solved the problem, and I don't remember the answer...Was wonderign if we could get an official 1st post edit with at least a link to another post or something that has the tried and true method of getting that dll working?

Thanx all.

[JeffPatton]

You either need the lightengine SSS shader (md_subscatter.dll) or the diffusion shader (diffusion.dll). Or both...I don't know. At any rate, you will find that I have both the page number as well as post number in the TOC for those shaders on page 1.

To help further, I've just updated the first post to add a link to my Max6 mental ray folders. You will find the files you need in that .zip file. (EDIT - I don't know if those are 100% compatible with Max7...you might want to check for updates on those before installing)

Just keep in mind those are quite old by now and the people who wrote the SSS shaders more than likely have newer versions avilable by now. Regardless, those are the files that worked with the cgtalk.mat file and max6.

[Brainex]

well i tried to implement the subscatter but unfortunatly....

API 0.0 error 301030: .\shaders_3rdparty\include/md_subScatter.mi, line 21: mi file requires ray version 3.2.99 or older, this is 3.3.3.46

API 0.0 error 301030: .\shaders_3rdparty\include/md_rayDiffuse.mi, line 17: mi file requires ray version 3.2.99 or older, this is 3.3.3.46


do you know of a new version ( i used the one provided by you in your mental files)


----- update:

i simply changed the "max version" paramter in the mi files and now it starts, if it works correctly i can't tell because i am a total newbie concerning mr and materials

----- update2:

obviously it seems to work because things look like in the pics that have been posted ...

thanks for those great materials and help, especially jeff patton :thumbsup:

[JeffPatton]

(EDIT - I don't know if those are 100% compatible with Max7...you might want to check for updates on those before installing)
As stated in my previous post...those are old copies I had from max6 and I advised people to check for updates before installing.

I'm merely sharing the files I had in an old backup...maybe I'm doing more harm than good by doing so. I'm counting on everyone to use their best judgement on those and check for updates. for future reference, you can always google search (or thread search..but that will take longer than google probably) the name of the shader, or open the .mi file with notepad or similar and check the header...most of the time the developer will list his/her website in that header.

A quick google search listed the developers websites....
http://www.lightengine3d.com/index2.html - Lightengine SSS website
http://animus.brinkster.net/index.html - Diffusion shader website.

EDIT - Eh, crap. Looks like I was too slow in typing and searching and that you had already fixed da' problem...lol.

[-Vormav-]

Someone in another thread was asking how to get a material that would only display shadows, and otherwise be transparent. But this wouldn't be displayed up against the background environment, so a quick matte/shadow solution was out of the picture.
There's a quick solution for this with mental ray, though; the 'material to shader' map. Using this, you can use the a matte/shadow material as a mask on a standard material. You need to invert it first, though.
So the material would be in the form of:
Standard blinn
opacity - > output ('invert') - >material to shader - > matte/shadow
You can also use standard materials to create materials that only render the lighting applied to them. It's just a matter of setting the transparency in the extended parameters to 100, and setting the type to additive (lighting is an additive function afterall, isn't it?).

Though I couldn't find a way to reproduce it in the default scanline, you can also get both of these elements (lights only, and cast shadows only) in a single material through a mental ray material (possible since opacity is a built in component of a mental ray surface). Just apply a mix material as the surface map, with the shadow material as the first map, and the light material as the second material. The shadow material should also be applied as the mix map.

It's nothing that's suitable for creating passes of separate elements, but maybe it'll come in useful elsewhere for someone. At the very least, it shows the usefulness of the 'material to shader' map. I love that material. ;)

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

If you have edited your lume.mi file and update to 3dsmax 7.5 and MR 3.4 you will get an error on max start. To fix this replace your modified lume.mi file with the original unedited and rerun the MR 3.4 portion of the update and you will be good to go.

-Eric

*Edit: Deletion of the edited lume.mi and reinstall the MR 3.4 update will also fix the error. [Thnx trthing for the deletion fix].

[Nerick]

Does anyone has a stone shader ? (for white stone)

[-Vormav-]

Nerick, if you're just going for a look similar to that of the image you posted, you don't need a stone material. Just apply a standard shader to all of your objects with white set as the diffuse color, add a sunlight system, and then enable final gather to give it the finishing touch.

[Nerick]

yes but this is Minas tirith , so the stone is not all white . I am beginner in texturing that's why.

[-Vormav-]

Oh okay, thought you were just trying to mimic the attached image. That's a different story then...
...and I'll let someone else handle it. :p

[MarkSnoswell]

We have a whole bunch of custom plugins and shaders that we use internally for film work. I have been meaning to release then as shareware for some time -- things like Spherical Harmonic lighting mental ary shaders, exposure/gamma control (actually both of those work as both Max and MR shaders) etc ... I am thinking that we might make them availble free to CGSociety members.

Reasoning is that they are really valuable -- but I couldnt justify charging more then $40 or so, which I know we would never recover any profit from and people would then demand full support for a paid product. On the other hand they are invaluable in production. So offering for free to CGSociety members seems like a good solution. If your not familar with Spherical Harmonics -- they are THE best way to encode environememtal lighting. Our shaders are set up so that you can manually control them or convert HDRI images to SH shaders -- a conversion that is almost instantaneous (not like the unbelievably long pre-colvolution of HDRI images offered in HDRIshop)

-- what to people think?

[-Vormav-]

Mark - You won't catch me complaining. ;) Seriously though, I'm not very familiar with "Spherical Harmonics", but if it offers faster conversions than HDRI, I'm interested. It's really amazing how easily HDRIshop locks up my computer.

[yoni-cohen]

I`d like to take a look at those too, sounds promising ;)

[Boa]

If your not familar with Spherical Harmonics -- they are THE best way to encode environememtal lighting. Our shaders are set up so that you can manually control them or convert HDRI images to SH shaders -- a conversion that is almost instantaneous (not like the unbelievably long pre-colvolution of HDRI images offered in HDRIshop)

-- what to people think?

That sounds great, Mark. I'm especially curious about possiblities of manual control. I'm definately interested.

Andrea

[psv]

that would be great Mark,for all of us ...
thank you sir


sorin