Mental Mill

#1

Where is Mental Mill in 2010 ?

#2

you must download the nvidia fxcomposer, that have mental mill included or go to mental images. Mental mill is a stand alone node editor. The technic of mental mill is in 3dsmax2010 for the realtime viewport rendering integrate. You can create the shader in mental mill, import this in 3dsmax2010 and than have the shader for the realtime viewport rendering.

http://www.mentalimages.com/products/mental-mill.html

mfg
hot chip

#3

Hey Thorsten, what about A&D shaders in the viewport, how do you do it and how do they behave? I haven’t tried 2010 yet.

#4

Thanks for your reply, but take a look at this from mental images.

«The mental mill® Artist Edition software, made by mental images, will also be bundled with Autodesk 3ds Max 2010. It will provide direct workflow to users by allowing them to natively render MetaSL based shaders in 3ds Max 2010 using its library of existing nodes. »

also from your link

«mental mill Artist Edition
With the Artist Edition, one can quickly assemble complex shader graphs or Phenomena from the provided library of shaders and modify the parameters. It is bundled with the Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2010. »

Does this means that the only thing that comes bundled with max is the ability to render the MetaSL natively ?

#5

From the Area forum:

You will not find it in 3dsmax 2010. Mental mill is a standalone product. To install, start up your installer click on install tools and utilities and select “Mental Mill Artist Edition”.

Thanks anyway for your time thorsten hartmann.

#6

i am waiting of the 64Bit Version from my reseller and than i can test it.

#7

The viewport representation of A&D materials has been done through metaSL since 2008.

-Eric

#8

but i give not a mia_material node or A&D node in mental mill.

#9

You can add them in :D, you just need to know where to look. Copy the .msl files from the (3ds Max)\hardwareshaders\MetaSL\ to the (mental mill Artist Edition)\data\shaders\ folder. From there they should be accessible in mental mill.

-Eric

#10

Anyone figure out how to get shaders from Mental Mill to Max?
Artist Edition doesn’t have File>Export and the documentation is shall we say light on this subject…

#11

http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/events/gdc_2009_videos

The guy shows it in th emax demo, at least he did when i watched the broadcast.

#12

File > Save As > .XMSL. This is then loaded into the 3ds Max DirectX Shader.

-Eric

#13

I haven’t downloaded the demos to check for this info but just in case it isn’t mentioned anywhere in the documentation here’s some tips from Zap that I wrote down in regards to getting mental mill shaders working in my renders:
You must make your custom shader a phenomena.
You must end the phenomena with a node that has a single output.
If using texture nodes, you’ll need to add a state_uv input to the texture node.

#14

I’ve been testing the demo, it works fine in the viewport but the renders are allways black :frowning:

#15

Did you follow the guidelines that JeffPatton posted? Can you post the .xmsl file so someone can look at it?

-Eric

#16

It renders black also using Jeff’s shader :frowning:
Thanks for the fast answer.

#17

I assume that means you’re trying the shader I posted HERE for Chris? Not sure why it wouldn’t render for you, works fine here. How is your test scene configured? What are you assigning to the texture map on the shader?

#18

@Eric: thanks for the tip :wink:

#19

The one Jeff attached in that thread worked for me, but you do have to assign a texture to it in max like Jeff says.

I havent been having much luck getting any I create myself to work however (using the mental mill download from autodesks site). I’ll go through the steps I’ve tried here to see if I’ve missed anything obvious: :arteest:

  1. drag a Illumination Phong node in
  2. select the node, right click on blank space and go ‘create new phemonimon from selection’
    2a. add a new texture 2d input to the phomimimum
  3. maximise the phenomomom
  4. add a texture lookup 2d
  5. add a state texture coordinate 2d
  6. connect the nodes: state-tex -> ‘tex UV’ input on the lookup node, texture 2d phenominom-input -> ‘texture’ input on lookup, result of texture lookup -> diffuse input on phong node
  7. save as xmsl
  8. assign to direct x shader and assign bitmap to texture slot
    9 Bam! (actually more like wa-wa-waaaa) the shader displays in the viewport but wont render (renders invisible, not black) with the error "PHEN 0.3 error 051011: shader “Phenomenon” not found…

ive attached my resulting shader

#20

One question…if you do a meta Sl shader, when you render it inside mental ray, can you get real reflections and refractions? or if it is a metasl you loose that even at render time? i know that there is not reflections and refractions in viewport.

Cheers.