Mental Ray - Shaders

[loran]

no caustic doesnt mean highlights.
just try to reproduce equal quality of Infigo render with Mr. there is nearly no highlights with Mr! even with area light visible, I have to create a object with overboosted rgb output mapped to fake this.

[everlite]

Hey guys,

Shortly i’m going to be doing a project that requires a few metal / rusty objects seen up close and was just wondering if anyone has any good tips on creating a convincing material / shader, any ideas or thoughts you could share.

Mainly small street objects, letterbox, pipes, bins, that kind of thing.

It’s not something i’ve touch on that much so I was going to investigate the new metal shaders in MR and see what i could come up with.

Any pointers greatfully accepted.

Cheers - Dave.

[Cgmystic]

everlite

  Try making your texture via this tutorial.

 [http://67.15.36.49/team/Tutorials/stefan_morrell/stefan_01.asp](http://67.15.36.49/team/Tutorials/stefan_morrell/stefan_01.asp)
  Then apply to your scene.

  Another method would be to use DarkTree procedural textures
  [http://www.darksim.com/index.html](http://www.darksim.com/index.html)
  
  Jan Sandstrom has some neat DarkTree prefabs:
  [http://www.pixero.com/downloads_darktree.html](http://www.pixero.com/downloads_darktree.html)

earlier in this thread there a discussion about using Darktree method:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=2007470&highlight=Darktree#post2007470

:wise:

[everlite]

Thanks for the feedback, however the tutorial you suggested is more orientated towards painting the texture effect apposed to the the shader setup … i think.

I’ll investigate the second option also.

Cheers - Dave.

[SoLiTuDe]

Hey guys, i was just messing around with the arch & design shader (mia) on the stanford dragon. The question I have is on viewport performance with the shader. If i use a standard blinn shader i’ll get around 20 fps rotating around the 871,446 poly model. When I apply the arch&design shader i get about 9fps or so… any reason for this? Any way around it? I tried many other mat. types and all seem to work fine…

Thanks!

[hjalle]

Thanks for the feedback, however the tutorial you suggested is more orientated towards painting the texture effect apposed to the the shader setup … i think.

I’ll investigate the second option also.

Cheers - Dave.

Everlite, try this. I use a mix of vertex paint and lume landscape shader. I suppose you don’t wont to struggle with UV editing, but you can paint only a mask to mix shaders.

[Steve_Green]

Hi Ian,

I’ve not noticed viewport perf problems (although I haven’t looked yet), but I have noticed that multi-subobject materials in the material editor are much, much slower when mr is used for the material editor. May be there’s a connection?

• Steve

[paulc]

First off apologies for raking up a really old thread

.I need build an environment featuring lots of icebergs and I’ve been using the beautiful iceberg setup on jeff patton’s website (thankyou for that by the way, I’ve learnt loads from all those files.) But as soon as I change the environment to anything other than black it all goes AWOL.

Now I’ve noticed a couple of scenes on page 73 of this thread that have a couple of scenes where this isn’t a problem, but the links are dead.
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=183&t=104578&page=73&pp=15

So if anyone can tell me if these file are still available, or if the know what is going wrong with this scene (see attachment)

Found the answer I think. I just put an output material set to zero in the local environment.! (if anyone’s interested)

[ctrl.studio]

Hi luckymutt,
I´ve created a max 8 version of that file. At least it spits out 5 black images and a zdepth file. There are also 2 warnings and an error msg in the MR console window. This is only quick and dirty adoption of the settings in the max 9 version. I´ve to check if it´s possible to get at least some passes out, like the max 9 version does. I hope this can help you and I think it´s a good idea to compare this with the setups in Maya and Xsi. Good luck and keep us informed if you have any success.

greets, gulio

Hi there, thanks for testing but do not spend too much time on that as it simply can’t work on 3dsmax for the while. I’m working on a new version where there’ll be also a 3dsmax version.

max

[SoLiTuDe]

Hi Ian,

I’ve not noticed viewport perf problems (although I haven’t looked yet), but I have noticed that multi-subobject materials in the material editor are much, much slower when mr is used for the material editor. May be there’s a connection?

• Steve

Yeah it’s wierd… it might have something to do with the poly count for that scene, but it still shouldn’t really affect it. It’s def. trying to do something else when the mr mat is applied. I don’t think it has anything to do with the mat editor… the mat editor actually does a small render of it of sorts, where the viewport… well… it should just be a color and a highlight, but who knows. I’ll see what happens with some dif scenes, and just ask that some other people test it out.

Thanks again,
Ian

[gulio]

Hi there, thanks for testing but do not spend too much time on that as it simply can’t work on 3dsmax for the while. I’m working on a new version where there’ll be also a 3dsmax version.

max

Hi max,
that´s definitive good news :bounce: for the 3ds max community as we were not able to participate in the advanced rendering features of the ctrl_buffer shader in the past. So, if we can be of any help with testing or what ever, please don´t hesitate to request assistance. :):)

greets, gulio

[erilaz]

Hi guys. This is a tonne of useful information, with the slight draw back of it being all in one huge thread. What I would like to suggest is we start to break the useful tidbits into the CGWiki Mental Ray section. I’m suggesting the same thing for the particle flow thread as it’s getting cumbersome also.

[demoniorojo]

Hi mr gods! I´m looking the features of a very nice shader,T2S_Illumination,but don´t found any information of max version ,anybody know about max mi for T2S_Illumination shader?

[demoniorojo]

I´m doing some test renders with the maya mi and seems work,but by default all the values are 0…at first time it´s confusing,lot of values and options so looks great…i´ll post some test, the coating option is very exciting

[JeffPatton]

Thanks for the info Javier. I had never heard of this shader until your post. I’m testing with it now as well and it is VERY interesting indeed. Good find!

[JAF]

I was trying the T2S shader too
If Jeff can ckeck this and if it’s ok, just add this to the .mi file created by [size=2]Jan Sandstrom (Pixero):

gui “gui_T2S_Illumination” {

control “Global” “Global” (“uiName” “T2S_Illumination”, “category” “Illumination”)
control “seed” “integer” (“value” 0)
control “WrapLighting” “scalar” (“value” 0.0, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “bump” “vector” (“value” 0.0 0.0 0.0)
control “DiffuseColor” “color” (“value” 0.474 0.474 0.474)
control “OrenNayar_Roughness” “scalar” (“value” 0.0, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “Glossy_Mode” “integer” (“value” 1, “range” 0 3)
control “Shiny” “scalar” (“value” 50.0, “range” 0.0 100.0)
control “Shiny_U” “scalar” (“value” 30.0, “range” 0.0 100.0)
control “Shiny_V” “scalar” (“value” 70.0, “range” 0.0 100.0)
control “Base_Shiny” “scalar” (“value” 30.0, “range” 0.0 100.0)
control “Edge_Shiny” “scalar” (“value” 100.0, “range” 0.0 100.0)
control “Shiny_Falloff” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 10.0)
control “Optimization” “integer” (“value” 0, “range” 0 1)
control “ReflectionEnable” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “Samples” “integer” (“value” 8, “range” 0 128)
control “ReflectionColor” “color” (“value” 1.0 1.0 1.0)
control “RefractionEnable” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “RefractionColor” “color” (“value” 0.5 0.5 0.5)
control “Samples_Transp” “integer” (“value” 8, “range” 0 128)
control “Enable_FresnelMask” “boolean” (“value” 1)
control “Fresnel_Method” “integer” (“value” 0, “range” 0 3)
control “IOR” “scalar” (“value” 2.0, “range” 0.0 50.0)
control “MediaIn” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 100.0)
control “Fresnel_Mode” “integer” (“value” 0, “range” 0 2)
control “AbsorbtionCoeff” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 20.0)
control “ReflectionBaseWeight” “scalar” (“value” 0.2, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “ReflectionEdgeWeight” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “ReflectionEdgeFalloff” “scalar” (“value” 10.0, “range” 0.0 10.0)
control “FresnelPreset” “integer” (“value” 0, “range” 0 22)
control “Fresnel_CustomFilePath” “string”
control “Fresnel_DebugMode” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “EnablePhong” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “EnableBlinn” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “EnableAnisotropic” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “EnableLafortune” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “PhongColor” “color” (“value” 1.0 1.0 1.0)
control “Phong_SpecularDecay” “scalar” (“value” 50.0, “range” 0.0 100.0)
control “Phong_Weight” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “Blinn_Color” “color” (“value” 1.0 1.0 1.0)
control “Blinn_Roughness” “scalar” (“value” 0.2, “range” 0.0 10.0)
control “Blinn_SpecularRefraction” “scalar” (“value” 10.0, “range” 0.0 10.0)
control “Blinn_Weight” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “Anisotropic_Color” “color” (“value” 1.0 1.0 1.0)
control “Anisotropic_LinkShiny” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “Anisotropic_ShinyU” “scalar” (“value” 10.0, “range” 0.0 10.0)
control “Anisotropic_ShinyV” “scalar” (“value” 10.0, “range” 0.0 10.0)
control “Anisotropic_Weight” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “Lafortune_Color” “color” (“value” 1.0 1.0 1.0)
control “Lafortune_Model” “integer” (“value” 3, “range” 0 6)
control “Lafortune_CustomFilePath” “string”
control “Lafortune_RollOff” “scalar” (“value” 20.0, “range” 0.0 20.0)
control “Lafortune_Weight” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 2.0)
control “Weight_Diffuse” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 2.0)
control “Weight_HighLights” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 2.0)
control “Weight_Reflection” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 2.0)
control “Weight_Refraction” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 2.0)
control “Weight_Irradiance” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 2.0)
control “InputNoise” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “EnableNoise” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “Noise_Mode” “integer” (“value” 0, “range” 0 1)
control “Noise_Weight” “scalar” (“value” 0.4, “range” 0.0 0.5)
control “Noise_Brightness” “scalar” (“value” 0.5, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “NorthVector” “vector” (“value” 0.0 1.0 0.0)
control “NorthMode” “integer” (“value” 0, “range” 0 1)
control “NorthRotation” “scalar” (“value” 0.0, “range” -180.0 180.0)
control “InputBumpFactor” “scalar” (“value” 0.0, “range” 0.0 0.3)
control “Bump2Diffuse” “boolean” (“value” 1)
control “Bump2HighLights” “boolean” (“value” 1)
control “Bump2Scattering” “boolean” (“value” 1)
control “EnableCoating” “boolean” (“value” 0)
control “FilmIOR” “scalar” (“value” 2.0, “range” 0.0 10.0)
control “FilmThickness” “scalar” (“value” 1000.0, “range” 0.0 1500.0)
control “InterferenceWeight” “scalar” (“value” 1.0, “range” 0.0 1.0)
control “ReflectionExposure” “scalar” (“value” 0.0, “range” -1.0 1.0)
control “Refraction_AttenuationDistance” “scalar” (“value” 15.0, “range” 0.0 100.0)
control “Bitmap_T2S” “string”
control “array light” “lights”
control “hardwareColor” “color” (“value” 0.5 0.5 0.5)

}

Good luck and post some samples (enabling RefractionEnable crashing my MAX v.7.1 but working fine with the v.9.0 demo… :/)
[/size]

[theotheo]

any news on the ctrl_shader and ctrl_buffer shaders?

-theo

[demoniorojo]

HI jaf! thank you for the mi !! I´ll test it this afternoon

[JeffPatton]

I was trying the T2S shader too
If Jeff can ckeck this and if it’s ok, just add this to the .mi file created by [size=2]Jan Sandstrom (Pixero):

Works fine for me. Attached the updated .mi file that includes your GUI control edit.

[JeffPatton]

I just updated my blog with the T2S_Illumination file links and an example image where I used the coating feature to create a color shifting paint material.
(link to blog in my sig)

Has anyone else noticed that the Lafortune highlight option + FG seems to produce unwanted light? It may be my settings, but just wondering.