Hello shakey3d
can u plz post the max file for us to test. You aren’t giving a full explanation of your problem, and it seem that you’ve got a lot to sort out in that scene.
Phil b
Mental Ray - Shaders
JeffPatton
#562
i’ve tried lower rays (50) for the FG setting, now the FG doesnt crash but the render takes 6 hours on a 800x600 rez. i’m not using GI in the scene. is the a way to speed things up?
Shakey3d, do you have the min/max radius enabled on the final gather? If so, turn them off and it will speed up the render. You will need more samples though. Also, what setting are you using on your max. trace depth (under final gather)?
The blurred metal material does indeed take a while to render as you increase the sample amount. But as you know, you have to increase the amount or it looks grainey. Another option is to use a blurred bitmap in the environment slot and not use the metal lume material at all.
Jeff
philipbruton
#563
Hello Eloop,
You’re not the only one to get confused about particle flow properties, it’s a common mistake to make.
All Object properties for particle flow particles should be accessed through particle view, this is done by right clicking the event boxes and selecting properties.
From here you can uncheck “visible to reflection/refraction” and this will solve your problem. Be aware that all Object properties work this way for particle flow. Therefore setting this at the top level (pf source) will disable reflection/refraction for the entire particle system but you can also set specific events to be reflected or not reflected and so on therefore creating a wide combination of effects through one pf source.
If you need more info on particle flow go to the thread below as we are trying to keep this thread specifically for mental ray discussion, thankyou.
www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=114324
Phil b 
eloop
#564
Originally posted by philipbruton
[B]Hello Eloop,
…
If you need more info on particle flow go to the thread below as we are trying to keep this thread specifically for mental ray discussion, thankyou.www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=114324
Phil b
[/B]
Hi Phil,
This is related to mental ray as I mention in the second update note that its only a problem with mental rays “autovolume” feature, so I thought it was more appropriate here, but I guess it’s a toss up …
-Drew
itayg
#565
Originally posted by folical9
[B]The blurred metal material does indeed take a while to render as you increase the sample amount. But as you know, you have to increase the amount or it looks grainey. Another option is to use a blurred bitmap in the environment slot and not use the metal lume material at all.Jeff [/B]
i guess that is really what effects the render time, i’ve lowerd the samples to 15, looks a little grainy but its ok, the render took 9 hours for a 1200x800 rez. now its 2 hours with FG on and 40 minutes when its off.
here is the render that took 9 hours, i’ll re-post it soon in the finished work forum because i have focus (FOV) problem in this one. thanks
http://img22.photobucket.com/albums/v66/shakey3d/final_casio2.jpg
Q_B
#566
Alrighty then!
First, let me apologize if this thing is off topic, but i just couldn’t resist.
One thing that really bothers me is not having fur tools in MAX.
So, i decided to take a shot at it using MR.
But, crappy as i am, the best result i could pull so far is:
For this i’m using, as u already have figured out, MR displacement. along with some opacity maps.
And then i thought “where the heck are the best mr brains out there?” and, of course, this thread just was the obvious place.
As far as disp goes, i guess it’s almost ok. Now what i liked to see is some ideas, sugestions, on simulating the fur softness, cos obviously the opacity maps are not working very well.
Care to take a shot?
Thanx alot!
BigRanS123
#567
There are some people who are getting some good fur withe the partical flow. I have now Idea how they are acheving the look that they are gitting, but I would also like to see how it is done.
Here is the link
maxmanjake
#568
I was just looking at the first few threads. the mental ray stuff is great. It seams that the documentation is real slim. thanks for the help
philipbruton
#569
Hello eloop,
sorry bout that, didn’t really read through your post fully.
I did download your file though and the answer i gave works prefectly, do you agree ?
Phil b
philipbruton
#570
hello maxmanjake
if you’re looking for good mental ray reference apart from this thread then may i suggest “rendering with mental ray”, very good from a starters point of view and in conjunction with forums like this.
Phil b
Q_B
#571
Hey BigRanS123! Thanx for the tip, absolutely cool fur they’r doin! I’ll try to track that down too!
But i really wanted to elaborate on MR! I was wondering if the Volume slot could be used … like when u use Submerge to get fadeout underwater, maibe some shader in the volume slot could be used to fadeout across the lenght of the displace … or even using the normals of the mesh… just throwing mad ideas here…
Anyone care to pick them up and turn it into something useful? I’ll keep trying it, that’s for sure 
philipbruton
#572
hello q_b
mental ray does use the volume shader but isn’t capable of translating it yet. There are some phenomenon shaders out there that have been used to simulate fur, but i’m not sure where to get these and if they’ll cost you anything
Phil b
zkydz
#573
This has been a very informative thread. Many thanks to those who have shared…it’s been quiter illuminating. i thought I’d post a pic of a wild car paint I came up with.
spiralof5
#574
Hi all,
Have been reading through posts, some good information. Kinda new to this mr stuff. I put the dirtmap.dll into the shaders and the dirtmap.mi into the include folder. This is the error I’m getting when max first loads.
MI 0.0 warn 122001: standard startup file ray3rc not found
MSG 0.0 error: Shader declaration ‘Dirtmap’ has no apply type. This shader cannot be used in 3ds max until it has at least one apply type.
API 0.0 warn 302005: E:\3ds max 6\mentalray\shaders\Dirtmap.mi, line 21: while defining
Whats this mean and what do i do to fix it.
Thanks
spiral
EDIT - disreguard previous statement…I think its all good.
But now a question…someone posted previously about putting this in the illumination map. What is meant by this.
Anton980
#575
Hello everyone! I was wondering if anyone has tried to make a realistic skin shader with mental ray, and if so, could you post some images and maybe a tutorial?
eloop
#576
Originally posted by philipbruton
[B]Hello eloop,sorry bout that, didn’t really read through your post fully.
I did download your file though and the answer i gave works prefectly, do you agree ?Phil b [/B]
Hey Phil,
Well as I’d written in the first update that does the trick when the particles are not inside another volume and autovolume isn’t being used. I’ve added another max file to that post that better illustrates the behaviour.
Cheers,
Drew
eloop
#577
spiralof5 - the illumination map is the “Self illumination” slot in eg the Standard material. You can collect the contribution of light from a small (typically) diffuse environment map here using the Dirtmap shader.
-Drew
spiralof5
#578
thanks drew I thought that was it. Well I guess I don’t understand the whole process. Maybe someone has a sample scene of dirtmap that I can download? I’m a kinetic person when it comes to learning.
Anyway this is what I tried. Dirtmap in Surface. Environment shader in Mental Ray set to white. I render with Probe Geometry on and P. E. off. Renders fine. Then I set P. G. off and Probe Environment is on and it renders nothing. I’ve read all the tutorials but they don’t help me as they show something rendered when P. E. is on.
Thanks guys
spiral
maxmanjake
#579
hey
I rendered out the file with the settings from matlock on page two in addition to changing to photons to 35000 as stated by folical9 and it took 15 min 4 secs on a P4 2Gh, 512MB RAM.
Thanks for all the info on this thread!!
