Here’s a kind of waxy looking shader.
I was toying with sub surface scattering fakery to try and make an interesting blood material, but then I ended up playing around a whole lot, and came up with this.
http://frodo.hiof.no/~deetee/mrupload/index.php?act=view&file=bW9ua2V5ZF9yZWR3YXh5LmpwZw==
Trouble is, I played some more and lost it 
Anyone have any ideas? Pretty sure it was parti volume shaders in the photon volume and volume slots.
Alex
I’ve been browsing these forums for a long time now, and I’d like to say that I’m truly impressed. I consider myself by far a “newbie” at 3DSM in general, but can someone tell me exactly what HDRI is, and what the .hdri file is for? What MR is, shaders, etc. I know these are professional forums, but everybody starts off at the bottom. I’ve been trying hard to learn. I don’t understand a lot about a lot in the thread that most people take for granted. If this is too off topic, can you just PM me some tutorials or information on all of this?
Hi everyone
I have been playing around with the lume.mi and found that if you delete all the “hidden” statements max crashes when you try and do certain things. Before i edited the original i made a copy just in case this scenario occured. If you plan on changing your .mi files always backup the original. Dont want to sound like a nagging mum , just concerned about you guys losing work and stuff like that.
If you need a copy of the mi file just give me an email and i will send it to you.
take care
nebille
:bounce:
@2big : HDRI stands for High Dynamic Range Radiance Imaging and I believe its a way to add radience to an image. Quickly described, when you setup a HDRI scene, the models gather light/color from its enviroment, and given you have a HDRI map in your enviroment, it will use that as a Radient source. This way, its easy to light a model perfectly into videofootage etc if you have a HDRI map of that spot. Donno if what I said helped you or was all wrong tho… hehe 
Hi people
I wondered if anyone could help me out of a little jam that i am in. I have to create a shader for some teracotta tiles in mental ray for a university building project. everytime i try and create this shader the results come out weird . The colour is totally off. I wondered if any of you guys with more experience with the mental ray shaders could give it a go.The link below shows the tiles that i need to replicate.
hope you can help
can you post an example of what your final image is looking like.
that way we can see what your problem is looking like.
Sure … i will also try and upload the .max file. Having trouble uploading at the mo. everything is to big. i will persevere
i have uploaded the files to the mental ray uploader database . the pic is called tera.jpg and the file is affordablehousing.zip
Im not to sure if i have done something bad… I used a previous link on page 58 from monkey donut to access the uploader facility. Sorry if i have taken the piss doing that.
Not to sure how to get back to the files i have uploaded either without going back to this link…
Any ideas on uploading would be much appreciated… God im a pain in the arse
Cheers
nebille
May be you guys can use the building in the file for something
hmmmmm
i always wanted to know how are there light shades(caustics, as now known) when ii filled water in my bath tub…
now i got to make it myself…thanks to Mental Ray
Nebille,
Turn off the exposure control. I had the same problem with a scene i was working on the other day. For some reason the color went way off while it was on. It only affected the objects with an image map (.jpg) in the diffuse slot. Turn it off and re-render. Should be good to go.
Zom
Cheers for the advice… Why is teracotta such a hard material to replicate… It has driven me absolutely mad. I have no problems making look good on interior scenes , just exterior daylight.
I think i have it worked out now. I am using the oren-nayer shader for the material with a few sub maps… To light the scene i am using a sunlight and skylight. Turned off the exposure control and voila… seems ok… will post the material now… Must add it totally depends on the light so if it looks crap in other peoples scenes then create the lights listed above with standard settings and it should look ok… Was going to put a 3ddisplace shader on it but could not be arsed… To much rendering time…
If anyone can add to the file to make it better or create another then please do so… I must admit that im not to good with materials so dont be disappointed if the bloody thing is useless to you. Just feel i need to contribute something after all this time.
Going to try and replicate zinc cladding now… see you in a few years when its done…
mental ray with md_subScatter LightEngine3D
AA: 1/4 & 64
SSS Samples: 64 64
1800+ xp atlhon render time 1.12min
Pretty fast imo, isn’t it?
Nebille,
I know that you used Mental Ray to render the scene, however this is thread is about creating and learning more about Mental Ray shaders. Let’s try and keep it to that.
You can always start a new thread about shaders in general or shaders specific to Max if it doesn’t already exist.
Regards,
Zom
zomboxy,
most of the shaders created by people on this thread and shared among this community are not mental ray shaders (although a few are, mostly unlocked and implimented from other packages via apply statements) but standard, raytrace, shellac etc…, max materials rendered in mental ray. it’s all a learning process of materials used in mental ray, this seems to be the common grounding throughout this thread.
Phil b
I kind of agree on that… I would also like to add that its all very well creating a thread about shaders but it seems strange to not talk about the things that effect the shaders like lighting … Materials would not exist in the real world without light so with that in mind how can you try and create a shader / material without having a discussion about how light effects it… I agree that this should be a mental ray shader thread and have found it most beneficial but if you are to look at the mental ray shader / material as a standalone entity i feel we are going to end up in trouble. The idea of forums is to learn about things and i dont see the harm in asking for help in creating a mental ray material ie the teracotta . for use with the mental ray renderer…
I suppose the i could have framed the question or request in a better way such as
I need help replicating the teracota material with a mental ray shader . Does anyone have any examples i could use that share the same properties as teracota. Which is a material that requires a great deal of depth before it can become realistic… If mental ray shaders is the way foward does anyone know how?
Anyway dont mean to go on about this or fall out with anyone here …
Kind regards
Nebille
Well, if I mis-uinderstood the the purpose of this thread named:
Mental Ray Shader discussion then it’s my mistake and apologize.
However, the new functionality in Max6 and Mental Ray is what I think we are here for. I thought that this was specific to that. I for one need the information found in this thread to learn how the Mental Ray Connection and the Lume Tools work. Rendering a Max shader ball out of Mental Ray is not any different or involved than switching the “Current Renderer” to MR and hitting “render”.
The real value here is in that information. Folical9 and others have set us on the right path. There is a lot of information here about MR and the MR connection/Lume etc. Let’s keep that going.
There really isn’t any detailed info. supplied by Discreet that will allow you to learn the advanced features of this renderer.
Hope I haven’t ruffled too many feathers…
Zom
No featheres ruffled at my end, and you are right about the lume tools and the mental ray connection… i too have learned alot from this thread and would like to keep it specific if thats the intention of the thread… Maybe we can start a thread about how materials should be put together and ideas from other people outside mental ray … I must disagree with the simplicity of just swithching renederes from default scanline to mental ray… They are completly different ways of creating gi and so on… Even the colours turn out different with mental ray gi in relation to radiosity as default scanline method…which i used to use… bloody hated it…
Any how i will start a topic on the site somewhere and hope it doesnt die a horrible death… thing is how are people going to know what to use and when if we seperate the threads… Oh well maybe we should set up a thread for discussions about relevancy…
I will keep to lume tools and the mental ray connection from here end… If anyone feels that they need to post advice about materials and lighting then hopefully a new thread will start soon.
Kind regards and respect to zomboxy
nebille
1.Is there any area light in mental ray? the area spot or the area direct Mental ray has looks like the normal spot lite only!
2.Folical had posted a reply about photon sheder, it was about how the same max standerd material can be enhanced in global illumination, when used with photon sheder, there was something about ‘material to sheder’ , i tried doing it few times but it did not work.
Could anybody who is clear about it please explain it again?
thanks.
hmmm you may get told off for asking that question here and i should for giving an answer but…if you look in the help files it will explain all about the new area light in mental ray… If you bought the product have a look in the help book supplied with the package. Basically if you create a light you can convert that light using max script … go to the utilities panel with the light already selected . Choose max script . at the bottom of the panel you should see convert to MR light… Press that and it should do the job for you… I think there is a drop down list that allows you to choose from certain lights.
Or you could just use the new MRomni or MRspot to do the job if you are creating a new light… The tutorials are in the help files and are great… If you dont have the help files let me know and will describe how to do it…
Not in this thread though
Over email so this thread stays about mental ray shaders
As for the photon tracing you will have to ask folical because he/she understands allot about that stuff…
Hope that was helpfull
nebille