List your rendering tutorial wishes...

#1

Alright, as I’m about to go through all the basics, I thought about asking you to simply say what you’d like to see as tutorials…I’m just curious. I’ve spend so much time with it all, that sometimes I simply don’t know anymore what’s unknown.

My introduction shows the following:

  • loading an object
  • turning on metanurbs
  • moving the camera and object into place
  • simply rendering it
  • showing the different rendering tabs at a glance(surfaces, materials, settings, output)
  • renaming a material
  • adjust object render settings
  • …activating displacement (a bit later in the session)
  • adjusting material parameters
  • adding shaders
  • connecting a shader output to several material inputs
  • changing render settings (switching on radiosity, antialiasing)

If you already realize that there’s something you’d want to see or you think should be shown, just let me know and I’ll see that I regard that in the following sessions!

I’m really not trying to make this tutorial a documentation, but instead I’ll show you how to do things directly! If you want to know about individual parameters in depth, you will find that in the documentation then. IF NOT (god forbid)…don’t hesitate to helzle us any time! We’ll take care of it then immediately! :wip:

SO…ask away, if you want to see specific things in terms of rendering tutorials.

#2

http://flarenova.com/Msx/

You can check my tutorials as I believe everyone has had a minute to check them out.
See if anything int he new rev have change the rules!

I would like to see how you did the little kids face on the messiah site soooooo

Tutorials

1.For SSS skin - the Taron way
2. Using GI and transluency/transparency (raytrace shadows) without crashing
3. Taking any picture you’ve done with displacement and go from beginning to end. You pick the model/scene so you can gauge its diffuculty to tutorialized (does not require showing Zbrush or modeling side of things, just hooking up in messiah and using the muscle bones to drive displacement) ie Texture deformer shader

  1. using your Dolleye shader - setup and animate.
  2. using your ansiotrophic shader to do sheen on poly textured hair or the like or heck, anything worthwhile.
  3. BasicShader explanation part duex

Pick any (but all eventually) one.

The SSS effect in these pictures…

#3

//1st Request… Please start a fresh thread for this… Its time to leave this awful thread//

Thanks for moving this :slight_smile:

#4

Taron,

I’d like to see more details on;

Volumetics
Lighting types
Node examples for nodes such as anisotripic, basic shader etc
Image filter
Atmosphere

Thanks
R

Perhaps a project based approach like you did with Neckling.

Thanks again

#5

Absolutely, great requests already! Yes, I’m devoting a whole session to the translucency (“SSS”).
DollEyes - Great idea, I think I will make a whole session for that one, too!
I’ll see that I make a nice shader collection session that covers all of them in brief and that grab particularely complex ones to make singles.

Uh, the image filters…yes, that stuff still needs to be made…hehe…I’ve got a whole set of things already lined up for that, but I havn’t written it, yet. So image filters are still a little open. As soon as they’re done, I’ll push the tutorials right with it!

Volumetrics and the Atmosphere material - VERY good, yes, I’d love to make a session about that stuff!

Lighting types - Another great one, yes! Very much so…it’ll be a very easy one, too, I think! A few of these sections will get cross-covered of course, because they do have a vital influence on each other…like the lighting and shading is more related than usual due to the introduction of light source sizes for the common shading!

As for the rendering setting’s Atmosphere, I’ll see that I look into this section as well. I honestly havn’t dealt as much with that as others did, actually. I wrote my own atmosphere for the material and loved the speed too much. But that’s a very potent part of the engine and I’ll see that I present it, too. That’ll be one of the sessions that’ll come a bit later.

GREAT great great…keep it coming, it’s already a great set to take care of AND very inspirational!!!

THANK YOU!!! :thumbsup:
:beer:

Taron

#6

Hey I don’t mean to be a selfish but since its more than enough material, lets knock these guys out and come back. How about supplying simple mesh project file so people can follow you and ask questions.

Like after you do them, pst them.
then open up for a week of question on what you did and everyone can be on the same page.

If something crashed or confusing, we can all dissect it.

And study under the great master Taron and his dancing messiah render engine.

After that and peple got their feet wet then you can reopen the list for new tutorials with a set ALREADY DONE. An I promised I won’t be in the next group.

Just a suggestion.

#7

Great suggestion! We might do it just like that! :thumbsup:

#8

Sounds great.
I would be happy if you could explain the differences between the several AA algorithms. I have no clue what their individual advantages and disadvantages are, when to use them or not and so on.
I´m not so much interested in a scientific explanation, but some pictures and infos would be great :slight_smile:
Hmm, and something about cutting down render times -> optimization

#9

Hi Taron

Thank you for offering to do this. I would like a very simple tutorial on rendering an object using a normal map generated in zbrush. I want to be able to use messiah to do turntable style renderings of models detailed in zbrush.

And here’s a question. After the recent discussion, I tried a few test renders. Why, after the second AA pass, does the rendered image immediately get a soft blur? The blur is too much imho, and puts the object out of focus. I have been tweaking anti aliasing levels and the motion blur settings, but not to much effect. I have also played around with camera settings. The AA / motion blur settings seem the same as on your Butch scene, for example. All I am doing is loading an object (OBJ format), adjusting it on heading, and hitting F9.

I don’t know if this is covered in the docs. If so, my mistake, but it is this kind of thing with the renderer that I find dispiriting. I just want to load an object and render it. In the middle of typing this e-mail I have spent about half an hour tweaking settings, comparing my scene with messiah default scenes, and I still can’t see what is causing the problem. I suppose it is an anti-aliasing issue because if I turn it off, the object is crisp (but with jaggies). To make a comparison, in Lightwave, I can just load an object and render it, and it will look good; with messiah, there always seem to be little issues in the way. I’m not having a go at messiah - I sincerely want to get more out of it. From your pics on the pmg site, it seems that messiah may be the best solution at the moment for me to render zbrushed models. This is how I personally see myself using it.

Thanks for any help

Alex

#10

Hi Taron,

it is really great to hear that there will be tutorials on the topics mentioned above. I think the most important one will be a “getting started-tutorial” that will put everybody in a position to explore the render-engine effectively, without getting frustrated. But all the other topics sound very interesting too - for diving deeper into Messiah:Render. I look really forward to your tutorials, especially SSS, DollEyes and the ones on the animated displacement/Texture (bone-driven) ala Neckling (Julez´ no. 3)

Maybe a last wish: If the next update will actually have particles and hair, I would like to see some introduction-vids on how to render these effects to their optimal look.

Thanks again for taking this step - it will definitely help to get Messiah the attention it deserves.

LX

#11

I am very happy to see you are really helping the users by taking time out of your busy busy schedule!!!

PLease show how the render integrates with the animation tools. I remember you saying how it could do powerful things when you tie them together somehow.

I want to see you go through a character, something as simple as the example you created called “Chuck” and create things like animated displacements along with the cool tools like TextureDeform (if I can remember correctly). YOu did this demo for Siggraph 2004 where the character would roll its head around and its muscles would activate. It would be cool to see how you create those expressions to automate things.

I would also like to see how you attain some of your real world lighting scenarios with the render, on things like skin, the veins in the eye etc.

#12

Try using Adaptive AA with the threshold at 0.015, instead of Enhanced or Soft.

#13

AA Patterns:
I hate “enhanced AA” and never use it, but the principle behind it is very clever and just needs some optimizing…for now I do recommend, too, to use the adaptive AA instead!
As for the AA Patterns…well, they are mostly just different patterns and show different pro’s and con’s…the default mode(Hammersley) is what we found most versatile. Just play around with them and see what you like best. Zoom into antialiased edges for instance to check out the actual values! It’s very interesting. Some show particularely different results using motionblur…curious stuff, really. I’m not an expert on pattern, though…I’m almost in the same position as you are. Except I’ve played with it until we’ve decided to stick with Hammerley as default.

the depth of tutorials:
Anyway, YES, crossbones is absolutley right about the connection between animation and rendering, just like the Neckling Scene requests further down in the posts it asks for a tutorial that shows more than just the basics of how these sections interact. I’ll make an advanced one for that eventually. But that’s absolutely high profile stuff and can’t really be free tutorials, actually. It would mean quite a lot of work for me that is really not directly related to the “sales” of messiah.
I’m so sorry to even mention that here, but I really ask you guys to understand me. I havn’t done them, yet, but when the time has come I’d want to know that you’d be willing to actually support me morally on selling such a heavy tutorial…or even buy it…or at least tell me how you liked it, once you were done with “torrent”-ing it.

I could only squeeze in a very simplified set of hints, but it’s really so easy. I have little doubt you’ll figure it all out anyway.

A little tip on the side:
DON’T JUST SIT THERE and wait for tutorials to regurgitate it all for you, really! The whole software is so pleasantly easy, once you’ve taken the basic ideas in. I really just want to get you started, really! You’ll see that there’s endless possibilities and experiments and all of that just waiting for you! Each little bit you understand should carry you a very long way.

Oh, back to the main program…tutorials:
If you want to showcase models with normalmaps you should just flip Z in Zbrush of the normalmap, because Zbrush looks at the world from behind…hah…eh…black is far away, white is closest, Z positive points to you as opposed to away from you. SO, flipping that is now no problem in Zbrush anymore thanx to the great Zmapper! I used it once…it’s interesting.
I’ll make a little tutorial that’ll cover that, too! It’s a very good idea! It’ll be in the bundle session that deals with several shaders!

AGAIN, what a GREAT set of requests! I’m really enjoying this! I think I should stop it right there, because it really looks like enough work for me! As I told you in the beginning, I was already recording a simple little “getting started” clip, that really just shows you a session. Now I think I’ll have to give it some audio commentary as well…haha…havn’t done that, yet.
I will let this thing be a little test clip and would love to get your feedback on it. Whether it’s been ok to watch, understandable and if it got you to start with something. HEY, I’d totally love a little showcase thread to see the aftermath of watching the tuts… …hmmm… …that’s just asking for trouble here. I really mean that I’d love to see if they were helping! :eek:

#14

We are with you Taron!!! :applause:

#15

Taron,

Thanks for taking this on. The whole materials and rendering has been a bit daunting since it is so different than Lightwave. Altho’ I’ve used messiah from the beginning, I never really dove into the materials and rendering.

Can’t wait.

Best,
Rick

#16

hey Taron,

like crossbone just wrote: We are in there with you!!

I would have bought a lot more tutorials like the ones of Joe Cosman and Wegg. But there are just none…

If you are doing any tutorials that are more advanced and rather hard to compose, I would be glad to buy those. So you got my vote (or money) for those plans.

Thanks for popping in and giving those news. We really apprciate it!

LX

#17

I have had the same impression of the render side of messiah as Rick. I look forward to using that side of the program in the near future.

Peace,
Shane

#18

MoodyB - thanks, those AA settings give a much better result. Also, thanks Taron, for the response. I’m looking forward to your tutorials.

Alex

#19

Hey awesome. What Julez said,

".For SSS skin - the Taron way
2. Using GI and translucency/transparency (raytrace shadows) without crashing
3. Taking any picture you’ve done with displacement and go from beginning to end. You pick the model/scene so you can gage its difficulty to tutorialized (does not require showing Zbrush or modeling side of things, just hooking up in messiah and using the muscle bones to drive displacement) ie Texture deformer shader

  1. using your Dolleye shader - setup and animate.
  2. using your ansiotrophic shader to do sheen on poly textured hair or the like or heck, anything worthwhile.
  3. BasicShader explanation part duex"

…and the application of these 6 things: how to use messiah’s lights and render settings to get highly realistic looking renders for indoor AND outdoor scenes. I’d really like to hear what you have to say about achieving realism, knowing as you do, the actual math behind what’s going on.

For instance, here we have the the basic shader. But what is it really doing? How does it treat light across its surface? You hinted about how it’s gotten a lot better, but what prompted those improvements? Clearly there was some R&D going on there, so what did you observe? How does it deal with light from the different light types? What works best in certain situations? What’s designed to work best?

#20

Amen. To get back to this, uv coordinate support for anisotropic wouild be cool.