Mental Ray - Shaders

#4545

Ha, I’m an idiot. It was the fresnel effect that wasn’t allowing me to see the change. It’s working fine. Heh.

#4546

Hi,

I am trying to render a lamp like the image attached (its from the tutorial from lume site) but i have not been able to achieve the same. Can anybody help me with this. I am also attaching the max file with textures (there are 3 textures facing texture, inside texture and translucency mask texture). Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks n Regards,

MayaV

#4547

Hello !

I have had a look into your scene and changed some parameters.
But first of all i never succeeded in finding the illumination and glare lume texture (I use Max2009)
However i used glare(lume) for the materials of the lampshade.
I also leaved out the light in the translucency (lume) material and used the MRay photographic exposure control too.
I got this picture. (I add a zip of your scene with the new parameters)

#4548

For what it’s worth, I like to use the fast SSS material for things like lampshades.

#4549

Thanks a Ton Dominique :slight_smile:

Thanks a ZILLION JEFF :). Its an honor that you are replying to my query. I have always been a fan of your Mental Ray work and respect you greatly for the way you have been supporting people and Mental Ray Community. Would love to interact with you more on Mental Ray :slight_smile:

Coming back to my problem, i still feel that we are away from the image which i posted, i am not being greedy but curious that if the same lume tools used can produce the results then why not in 3ds Max???

Thanks and Regards,

MayaV

#4550

Are you just being nostalgic for 2003 by following that old lume tools tutorial? :eek:

To get similar results today you can create/apply a translucent A&D material to your lamp shade, put a light behind it, enable the glare camera shader and then adjust the brightness/intensity of the glare effect to taste.

Or to fake it you could just use a self-illuminated material with the glare camera shader.

#4551

Fine and perfect reponse Jeff (as usual :slight_smile: )

Yesterday evening i was also trying something with volumetric light and also some white ceramic A&D material on the lamp but i had problems with the translucency and this effect.

Now i use the Jeff’s parameters of the SSS material for lampshade and it goes rather well.

I get something like this with the skyportal (good idea Jeff) very low and walls (planes) to see the volumetric light effects.

The lampshade is not very bright but it’s weekend, and at home i’ve not the 12 octoprocessor computers of my workplace to test most fine renderings that spend a lot of time :rolleyes:

#4552

Hey guys,

I have been searching around for a realistic “starting point” for a MR shader for snow. I have found some old threads you guys had going on, but I think the ones I found were from 2004, and one had a dead link.

Either way I am working on an antarctic scene and am looking to nail down at MR shader similar to this baby here:

http://www.vray-materials.de/img/samplepics/Drifty%20Snow_by_Mark_Noland_xl_7369.jpg

I am starting to try and recreate it right now and am working to composite a noise and cellular to get me started. But any direction, or advice is appreciated. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

W

#4553

In the promaterials library (generic) there is a snow material. It needs a little tweeking, but can look pretty nice.

Regards,
Mike

#4554

Jeff,

Do you have any problems with the sss flickering on your lamp shade in animation ? Just wondering.

Regards,
Mike

#4555

I never made one myself, but my modest experience tells me this:

I believe SSS is important in this case. The scatter radius would be large, like 15cm (6 inches).
If the snow is on the ground, you could have a top layer of freshly laid snow, and the layer under would be more ice-y. (sss does this fine)

And for the sharp reflections, one could do it in a A&D material with noise maps, and combine it with the SSS using BLEND or COMPOSITE mateials, Maybe this is too much, I don’t know how you guys work, if you’re after rendering speed or other goals.

#4556

No, I haven’t seen any.

#4557

What shader do you use when you want to instance just a color across several materials?

I used RGB multiply and checker with the same color in both swatches… is there a better/faster/simpler way? (compatible with mr of course)

#4558

Here is where I am at with this shader:

Still not too happy with it, but it is getting there. I am really missing the depth and “crystallization” specularity I think. I dropped an SSS Physical Shader in the diffuse, but for the life of me I could not get it to affect the surface.

Render is with a direct light and skylight, with FG on draft. 0 bounces.

Still no where close to this imo
http://www.vray-materials.de/img/samplepics/Drifty%20Snow_by_Mark_Noland_xl_7369.jpg

Thank you for the tips guys and will see how close I am able to get to realism.

#4559

I used RGB multiply and checker with the same color in both swatches… is there a better/faster/simpler way? (compatible with mr of course)

I use the color correction map.

Regards,
Mike

#4560

check the nice Jeff snow material
http://jeffpatton.cgsociety.org/blog/archive/2007/2/

#4561

hi,

here is solution to create ice. With can you modify and you have snow.

left ice= volume shader, simple raytrace shadow
right ice= Partivolume Shader, area shadows

http://www.germanmentalray.de/viewtopic.php?p=376#376

#4562

I tried creating a salt flats material the other day, which is not unlike snow except for being dry. I found I needed to boost the diffuse beyond 1.0 to give it enough brightness not to look grey on a bright sunny day. But even that solution wasn’t terribly satisfying. I find Mental Ray super easy and intuitive for some materials (it took me less than a minute to produce photo real copper - and not using the template setting), but something of a puzzle for others… :slight_smile:

#4563

Thanks Dominique :slight_smile:

Thank you Jeff, i just realized that i was chasing a 2003 result but it looks damm good. I am trying what you suggested. Will show you the results once i am done :slight_smile:

Thank You,

Best Regards,

MayaV

#4564

Hello to all!
Today I had the idea of composing the shader of AO within the sss shader, seems a really simple idea, but the result is great. So I decided to share with everyone who has not thought about it.
In my opinion is most practical that make in photoshop using AO as mask for the levels and much better than the AO with multiply blend mode.

This is the setup of the material: