Mental Ray - Shaders

#121

folical9, you have been doing amazing job researching mental ray shaders! Thanks m8! Maybe you will write a proper documentation for MR that discreet never did… :smiley:

Can you explain how you used the dirtmap? I haven’t figured out how to use it with a material and how get the shadows and stuff to work with it. Should it be just used as an AO pass for compositing, or can you actually add dirt to a material with it?

//
Thanks Markus. I figured it out now.

(mods, feel free to delete my posts to keep this thread tidy)

#122

Here are some links related to dirtmap over at XSIBase:
http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=4880
http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=5113
http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=5840

Markus

#123

GREAT:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

http://www.evermotion.org/gifts.htm

#124

folical9

Can you post how you got the dirt to work in max6. I also have been all over lightengine3d and can not find a down load for the SSS stuff. Can you post a file?

Thanks again

Im working on getting the set of DVD’s but if this thread keeps going, we wont need them.:beer:

BigRanS

#125

I should’ve posted this to begin with I suppose, but anywho, here is a direct link to the subscatter download at lightengine:

http://www.lightengine3d.com/downloads/plugins/subScatter/md_subScatter_shaderPack.zip

I will post a dirtmap scene with explanation shortly.

I’m really happy with mental ray for now. Just think of all the wonderful Maya & XSI shaders that can/will be ported over in the upcoming months!

#126

Here’s some notes on the dirtmap shader. But please read the threads posted by Markus as well. There’s way more to this shader than what I’m posting/doing with it.

(BTW) If you need/want the greeble plugin, get it here:
Greeble plugin

  1. I placed the dirtmap shader into the MR surface map slot of a basic standard 3ds material.

  2. Make sure you have an environment. I used a HDR for my environment.

  3. Setup a spotlight to illuminate the object. Nothing fancy, just 1.0 for the light value and white for the color.

  4. In the dirtmap parameters, enable probe geometry, and probe environment…basically leave everything at the default settings for now.

  5. render.

#127

Again, thanx for the priceless stuff u’r doin here!
(and thanx for the greeble tip, shame on me:wip: )

Another dumb question, wich i think maibe what rendermonkey23 was tryin to understand…

once u unzip the shaderpack relative to mr_Subscatter, lots of files (including the instalation.html) refer to it as being for Maya.
Now, exactly wich files, besides the md_subScatter.mi file u need to copy and to what other directories other than mentalray/include? if any :slight_smile:

Thanx again!

#128

You simply must put the .mi files into “include” and the .dll files into “shaders”. That’s all. All the other stuff is for Maya or XSI.

Markus

#129

As a sidenote, after reading more of the threads over at the XSI forum, I used the dirtmap in the illumination & diffuse maps of a regular material and this is what rendered…again one spotlight for sun and that’s it…no GI no final gather.

I still have not used it to create dirt per say yet. There’s a wonderful example of a bronze material using dirt in the first XSI link posted by Markus.

#130

Originally posted by folical9

2) Make sure you have an environment. I used a HDR for my environment.

Btw, just so everyone understands a little better you don’t need an environment “map”, you can also just set the background color to a color other than black.

#131

Is quickdirt (digimation) a dirtmap like the one u guys are using here, or thas that do something else?
:shrug:

#132

I guess now what we need is a solution for MAX/mental ray to do ambient occlusion based on shadow maps instead of raytracing (I’m thinking of animations now). I believe Andrew Whitehurst has written a tutorial for Maya/Renderman. Does anyone know how to adapt this to MAX/mental ray?

Link to A.W. website.

http://www.andrew-whitehurst.net/amb_occlude.html

#133

Ok, so I couln’t adjust the specular, reflection, etc of the subscatter shader. So I thought I would try mixing a raytrace glass material WITH the subscatter material and this is the resulting render.

Here’s the scene (minus the model…just place your model where the sphere is located). I wasnt sure if I could add a mix material that references other materials to the .mat file

Download Subscatter Glass scene

#134

cool… thnx folical9
i’ll definately take a look

#135

<<AWESOME! Thanks for the tips. I adjusted further and found that you can get by with only 35000 photons in the caustic paramaters of the spot light. By doing that and making the other changes you made, mine rendered in 6 minutes and 33 seconds.>>

Just a quick FYI, I saw mention of “upgrading to dual Xeon”, with the settings from matlock it (glass-sss.max) rendered in 4.09 minutes on a 3D Boxx dual Xeon 3.06Ghz machine (with hyperthreading enabled) with 2Ghz or Ram… Not a huge render time difference for a hefty price difference…

#136

Thanks so much for that info web_weasel. I’m actually stunned at the performance. I really thought the render time would be alot lower than that. Maybe someone will chime in with a new dual opteron(?) setup…hint…hint.

#137

Great work you have been doing Folical, I haven’t had the time to try alot of this, but I have been following along:beer:

web_weasel, I agree about the dual xeons, but you have to consider that if you are talking about multiple frames(animation) the time difference would quickly add up.

:thumbsup:

#138

Thanks a lot for the shaders Folical, I was thinking too that an ambient occlusion shader will be great … I read the web page that matlock talked about, and I think it could be done for MR … Still dont have a clear idea how to do it but… I think it can be done… :slight_smile:

#139

Cheers for all the great stuff folical9… but any chance of getting a copy of the hdr image you used as the environment in that max file… it comes up as missing when I load it… I think it’s called ‘Apt-probe.hdr’.

By the way I haven’t used Hdr images before, so if I want to ad one as an Environment Map am I right in thinking I have to select ‘Bitmap’ from the Material Browser then select Real Pixels (32 bpp) in the HDRI Load Settings?

#140

Downpour, you can grab those hdr images in one of two places. One is on the very first post in this thread, up near the .mat file itself. Second is on page two, second post. I posted a basic hdri scene and zipped the images with it.

BTW - I’m glad you guys are finding the thread useful! :thumbsup: