pbviz.com / 3D Applications & Techniques / Technical Exchange

Moving to VRay - is it worth it?

Andrew M — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:47:00 GMT

Hi,

I've been using mental ray for my visualisation work for a few years now, and whilst I am generally pleased with the results, I still find there are a lot of frustrating inconsistencies during the rendering process. I am often finding that what settings worked on one project don't actually work in other projects of similar size (also getting a lot of mr memory errors and subsequent crashing!) I am only using 32-bit Max at the moment with the 3GB switch.

Having just knocked out a 42km highway upgrade (x 2 - one low level and one high level run - approximately 60000 frames) I am in a position now where I could justify moving to VRay - if some value can be found in the purchase.

I'm sure this has been asked before, but is the move worth it? Is there a steep learning curve? Is it more stable than mental ray? What benefits will I get out of it?

Any information I can present to management to justify a purchase would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance

Default frame rate in Premiere Pro CS4

Lisa Goddard — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:50:09 GMT

Does anyone know how to set the default frame rate that video clips are imported at in Premiere Pro CS4? I have looked in the Premiere preferences menu but the default settings there are only for audio and video transition lengths or still image clip length.

The reason for my question is due to the fact that since starting to use CS4 every video clip I import comes in at 29.97fps, when we use the PAL standard 25fps here in the UK. I can change the clip frame rate to 25fps by using the interpret footage command but this then seems to distort the Pixel Aspect Ratio settings on some clips, with the only way to fix it being to change the clip scale width to 100.1%. This issue has only arisen since we made the change to CS4 from CS3 and I can't seem to see why. I would be grateful for anyone's thoughts or solutions with this.

Thanks,

Lisa

10 Things to make your renders rock more! :)

Larissa — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:45:06 GMT

[url]http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=847962&utm_medium=plugblock&utm_source=cgtalk[/url]

Providing files to other firms

guthriealexander — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:29:21 GMT

Im not sure if this is the right sub-forum but the question is somewhat pertinent.

A highway vis project I recently did is moving into another stage and the client is wanting to add the context sensitive solutions to the model/animation. Because of my previous experience with this client I am not sure if I want to accept the work.

If we decided not to do the work this leaves the situation that they still need the work done and would assumingly go to another firm to have it done.

My question is, am I obligated to provide my MAX files to another firm. I dont feel like its the same situation as say sharing CAD files with an engineer. This is a full model that we retain the rights to and never handed over to the client as part of the initial contract.

Just looking for some insight from someone with experience with a similar scenario.

Thanks as always,

Best settings for preventing flickering in VRay Animations

TKaihea — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:12:50 GMT

Hi all,

Yeah I will probably sound like a broken record seeing as this question has probably been thrown around a million times before.

We are currently working on a road project involving heaps of cars and vegetation and at the moment we are getting a lot of flickering throughout the animation. I was just wondering what settings (lighting, material, rendering etc.) most of you use in order to prevent flickering.

Cheers,

Creating Snow

Aaron Waller — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:50:51 GMT

Hello,

This is my first attempt at creating a tutorial. Please let me know how you like it and if it's clear. It's more of an explanation than a step by step guide.

Please follow the link below :).

[url=http://www.graphicfinesse.com/Tutorial/ChristmasRanchSnowDevelopment.pdf]Christmas Ranch Snow Development[/url]

Tips for starting down the dark path to V-Ray

A.N.Dall — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:10:56 GMT

Well I went and got myself a dongle.

So aside from reading and tutorializing myself to sleep nightly I think I'll defer to the 'experts' on the subject of V-Ray implementation.

I know you all have some useful 'industry-specific' tips & tricks that will help flatten out the learning curve...care to share?

Oh and bye-bye MR, it's been a good run.

Thanks!

Adam

Whew! That's good...

Glen Loyd — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:22:05 GMT

I got a kick out of this message that popped up and thought I would share. I had just opened a scene and got this message.

Glad to know Max "approves" of one or more of my objects...

Snapshot Tool and pivots

Glen Loyd — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:31:33 GMT

Okay, I've done this before, but for the life of me I can't remember how. Here's the problem: I have a concrete post that I'm Snapshotting along a path (no problem if the path was flat, but this one follow a terrain). If I check "Follow" the post will rotate in the "X" and "Y" axis as well as the "Z". I've tried locking the Link Info "X" and "Y", but zero effect when I Snapshot. Does anyone remember how to allow an oject to follow a path and only rotate in "Z"?

Face Normals

Carl Bush — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:26:28 GMT

I have a very large surface terrain model imported from Microstation into 3Ds Max. I am getting some faces up and others down. I only know how to tag each one and "flip" to the direction that makes things similiar.

I am using a STL file format because the size of the file will not export to DWG or DXF.

Is there a way through a bulk process to do this for me? That does not lock my computer up for a long time?

Thanks

Carl

Taking it Dam Easy...

Claudio Branch — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:47:11 GMT

Here are a few views of a project that was modeled entirely in AutoCAD with Easy Site. I was asked to model a 700' long spillway with 33' tall piers that is part of Buchanan Dam.

http://www.lcra.org/water/dams/buchanan.html

I was given a file with 1' contours, the footprint (plan view) of this specific spillway, a section view of the spillways in between the piers, and a few reference photos taken on-site.

As you can see in the views the dam is completely integrated into the terrain. There are no overlapping faces. There is a tool in Easy Site called FILLHOLE. This command works the same way that the Paint Bucket Tool works in Photoshop except it fills in holes with polygons. I usually model my structures independent of the terrain. I will reference the terrain elevation data as it locally affects the structure, delete all of the terrain polygons beneath and around the newly modeled structure, and finally use FILLHOLE to quickly and neatly close-up the gap.

My initial model was used for a CFD (computational fluid dynamics) study. I also created a second model that was used to assist with the construction of a physical scale model.

I am also including a zip file of the model for anyone to poke and prode.

Here are the views rendered with V-Ray using the VRayEdges Tex material:

Position Constraints

Carl Bush — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:47:35 GMT

I am trying to build a small construction sequence movie in 3D Max. The project will shut down a 6 lane interstate to swing in a 220' preassembled bridge substructure.

I have the highway built and the bridge pieces to be assembled. I am working on the little details.

We will need 2 cranes to install the bridge assembly. I have drawn a simple crane to use. I have the boom and hydraulic piston assembled through pivots and look-at constraints.

What I can't seem to figure out is to "get items to slide in and out of each other" type constraint. With that I would like the constraint to be set so the items can only slide so far. (cylinder support is 10 feet long = limited to sliding 9.5 feet) I also would like for the items to slide proportionally over each other.

The picture shows a before and after shot of what I am trying to do.

Thanks

Carl

Quick Tip: Vray Sun and Sky and perspective views

Tom — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:02:21 GMT

Don't you hate having to make a Vray Physical Camera to get a test rendering?

Wanna just render from a perspective view?

Just set your Vray Sun's Intensity Multiplier to .02 and render from your perspective view! If you want to render from a Vray Camera without switching your intensity back to 1.0, just turn off exposure in the Vray Camera's Rollout. (remember to set all this back when you're ready for your production render!)

Vray Sun:

Vray Physical Camera:

Lane Striping

Carl Bush — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:27:34 GMT

Under the tutorial for the highway design, there was a short statement on how to do lane striping. I tried following what was written but no luck. I am new at this and am learning in my free time.

Could someone go through the steps, assuming I know very little. I got the editable spline created. It is in the material creation of making the white skip line that is stumping me. An opacity map was mentioned but no instruction on how to use it or set the paint/skip distances.

3ds max 2010 Service Pack 1

Mark Kauffman — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:46:01 GMT

Autodesk has just released Service Pack 1 for both 3ds max and 3ds max Design 2010. In it you can find fixes for over 31 issues including performance fixes for a issue with the Bitmap pager. You can find updater links here for each version:

3ds max Design 2010 -http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13642201&linkID=10381720

3ds max 2010 - http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13642460&linkID=9241178

I've heard people ask about the Subscription Extention for 2010 as well. Historically, Autodesk has been releasing Extenstions right around Siggraph which is next week so keep an eye out on the Autodesk website.

10 things I learned in my 1st highway visualization

guthriealexander — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:12:39 GMT

While most of you work for Parsons which does work way beyond anything I'm qualified to comment on, I thought for anyone new or just browsing the site it might be useful for me as a beginner to just make a list of techniques and tricks I learned over the past few months while working my way though my first visualization.

1) 3D mice are your friend.

I don't like the idea of being handicapped by either software or hardware in the case that they might not always be available. But my cheap 3d connexion mouse was a sanity saver. If you ever had any reservations about getting one they can save you so much time and frustration, especially working in large models.

2) 64 bit 3dsmax and windows are also your friend.

I started my project on a 32 bit machine and windows and quickly learned the limitations of the platform both in modeling performance as well as rendering capability. I don't know if they are necessary on every project, but it would of been impossible for me to complete the project without them. Its also a cheap way to greatly increase your workstation performance, all of our company pcs have Core II duos in them, but we all run 32 bit windows, by simply changing adding my OS (well and adding 8 gigs of ram) I greatly improved my performance without purchasing a new workstation.

3) The glue tool from Iootools is awesome.

Take control of your lane striping.
http://www.itoosoft.com/english/menu.php?id=download

4) If you have a large terrain and want to map an aerial to it, brake the terrain into smaller pieces. Global mapper does a great job of automatically breaking the terrain up for you. Tom wrote up a quick tutorial for me which was immensely helpful, ill re post it below.

[quote]Something to remember going from GIS to a DCC app like MAX is that images are 100% fully loaded at render time (unlike GIS where it only loads and displays a subset of the data.) That means you often have to sacrifice quality to achieve a rendering. Luckily we can introduce a lot more detail through geometry.

Global Mapper is great because we need to produce meshes that are int he right coordinate space (.dxf) rather than the DEM importer in MAX that centers the DEM at 0,0,0.

It is a pain, but creating a tiled area and going through each tile and prepping it, applying the maps, etc. is just part of the job. You can speed up some of the labor using scripts, but it's still pretty manual.

Here's my workflow:

GIS layers into Global Mapper (images, DEM, etc)
Export terrain as .dxf
-Generally I'll use Global Mapper's built-in gridding to make smaller parcels
-Smaller parcels mean smaller polygon counts, and smaller images on each
Import .dxf into autocad
-3ds MAX does not handle real-world coordinates, so I use Acad to move things around in world-space
Translate to 0,0,0 (this translation is used for all data uniformly)
Save as .dwg
Import to MAX
Convert to Poly
Weld the verts in each parcel
Flip the faces
Apply a single smoothing group to remove faceting
**For terrain parcels that are far from the scene, I'll use Pro-Optimizer in 2009 to reduce the poly count to <1%0 of the original). I HIGHLY recommended down-rezing the terrain using this method rather than downsampling the grid resolution in a GIS package because of the averaging that GIS packages do can really do a number on your terrain data.

Then, to get the images, I'll add the original .dxf parcels into Global mapper and use thier bounds to generate the bitmaps (usually saved as 24 bit .pngs to avoid compression artifacts).

I then map those onto my parcels in MAX.

The other benefit to making a lot of tiles is that you can down-res the bitmaps for areas you won't be near. You can also apply different pro-optimizer settings as needed.[/quote]

5) Make sure your cad work is at origin.

With the large model, having it not at origin to begin with and then moving miles out from that location created all sorts of crazy problems, inaccuracies, view issues, and movement problems. Create a standardized reference point in cad and move it as well as the data to origin (0,0,0) before you bring the linework into max. If you already have 60% of your model done not at origin like me you can bring that reference point into max, group your model and set its pivot point to that reference point, then move everything to origin, and it should align to your cad work.

6) Pay attention to your CAD import settings.

They are not all created equal, bringing in road shapes or building seem to require different setting than say lane striping which would require higher curve detail.

7) Wireframe mode is awesome!

F3 or better yet map it to a hot key on your 3d mouse. Working on some parts of the model and moving from one point to another after the model gets big is so much better in wireframe mode, not to mention you look cool when using it. Maybe this is a duh suggestion, but it took me a long time to realize its benefits.

8) Mental Ray proxies suck, Vray proxies are great.

Not much more to say about that, I haven't done too much research on the technicalities of it, but mental ray proxies do not "work as advertised" memory usage and performance with Vray is light years ahead of mental ray right now. I learned that the hard way when I switched from Vray from mental ray halfway though the project. For trees, and vehicles the proxies are a must.

9) Clone/Align (Tools-> Align) is a great tool for getting lots of repeating information from cad (columns and bents) into 3d and allowing them to be instanced.

10) Use Sketchup to do your building massing, I didn't do textured buildings (not even sure how you could realistically texture thousands of buildings in a short time frame) but for massing Sketchup + birds eye view from Bing are very useful if you don't have any building information.

I dont know if this information is helpful to anyone, but it sure would of saved me a lot of time having known it in advance. I will add more if anything comes to me.

Complex highway lofting vs other techniques

guthriealexander — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:21:07 GMT

I am working on a large (15+ miles) visualization project of a highly complex road. My original intent was to loft the highway using a similar technique as in the Rules of the Road tutorial, but because of the constantly changing right of way, lane changes and on and off ramps lofting just did not seem like it was going to work for the models complexity and our very short time frame to produce the model.

Attached is just a sample of the variables i need to deal with and this is constant for miles and miles.

[img]https://webspace.utexas.edu/gaa235/complex.JPG[/img]

Could/should of I used a lofting technique to create these highways?

To model the road thus far I have created 3d polyline center lines made in Autocad by extending the vertical profile information along the highway, which are very accurate. Created a surface in between two of these splines in which an extruded form of the roadway pavement intersects the surface and is then cut out with procutter.

While this technique has worked I cant help but feel like there was an easy way especially as I get into some of the limitations this has for texturing and lofting details such as barriers.

Any insight will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Snapping Goodness

Mark Kauffman — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:16:50 GMT

I came across some snapping goodies and thought I would pass them along to all of you.

1. Polar and Ortho Snap - This first one has been in 3ds max for a few versions and I recently "found" it when looking for something completely different. Both of these snaps are hidden in the customize UI but you can access it in the following manner. Open up your Customize UI and go to the Toolbars tab. You will find them both in the list under Ortho and Polar (it's all alphabetical) :

Simply drag these to a toolbar of your choice. I use the Snaps toolbar which ships as the default:

Once activated, the ortho snap limits you to 90 degree snapping when using something like the Line tool. Notice the angle gizmo. The ortho snap works in the same way only it's limitation is in 5 degree increments:

2. Alternate Snapping - This function allows you to alternate between snapping modes. Say you have 3 snaps selected, but you need to temporarily override to vetex, then switch back to all. This is accomplished via the snaps override which is a keyboard command. If you open your snaps window (right-click on one of the snaps tools), you will see an "overrride OFF" button in grey.

Once you initiate a snap, use the Alt+S to cycle between the overrides. The temp override is highlighted in yellow with the name of the override snap:

As you continue to hit the Alt+S, you will see the override button switch between the various snaps you have active, i.e. Pivot to Vertex to Edge/Segment as in the graphic above. This is a great way to snap a pivot to a vertex or a vertex to an edge.

I hope this was useful to at least one of you. Enjoy!

Erg! Raytrace Messages!

Glen Loyd — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:06:55 GMT

Okay. I used to know how to make this go away, but where's the setting to disable the Raytrace Messages?

Tree Plugins for Max

TKaihea — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 07:03:54 GMT

Hi guys,

Just wondering what is the preferred plugin when it comes to trees/vegetation. At the moment we are working on a project that requires a lot of trees/vegetation.

Does anyone know which plugin was used for the San Francisco Oakland bay bridge animation? That is more the look that we are going for. Great work on that one by the way.

Any useful hints would be useful as well.

Cheers,

V-Ray Matte Material...does it even work?

Claudio Branch — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:21:17 GMT

Anybody out there know how to get the V-RayMatlWrapper to emulate the Max Shadow/Matte material. I simply cannot get it to work.

I have search the web followed the instructions, but I still get the damn shadow plane showing up as white...WTF.

Bitmap Blur is EVIL!

Tom — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:45:25 GMT

I see it all the time and see all kinds of ways around getting rid of 'it'

IT is how your textures get all blurry in the distance and things just don't look quite right and there's a way to END it! Originally added to avoid 'ringing' or flickering in distant textures, these settings haven't been updated in MAX since... well I have no Idea, likely version 2-3. Vray features a far better anti-aliasing system than what was available 10 years ago so there isn't nearly as much need for such intense blurring.

Max's Default Settings (Blut: 1.0, Pyramidal Filtering)

My Preferred Settings (Blur: 0.1, Filtering Pyramidal)

Other Method (Blur 1.0, Filtering:NONE)

The differences are pretty astounding! You will really be amazed how much better your images will look with these new settings!

Oh, and if you want to set all the bitmaps in your scene at once, use this MAX Script:

[code](
local theBitmaps = getClassInstances bitmaptexture
for aBitmap in theBitmaps do
(

aBitmap.coords.blur = .1
aBitmap.filtering = 0 --0 is Pyramidal, 1 is Summed Area, 2 is None
)
)[/code]

Voice overs

Paul Brown — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:25:36 GMT

We are placing some audio commentry onto a movie and we have recorded it on a nornmal PC and added using CS4. Great but the sound quality is not that hot sounds a bit tinny/computer like.

Can I get some advice on what we should be using..............

thanks

Paul

LDD Points or Block replace in VIZ/Max

Paul Rae — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:34:52 GMT

OK... I'm new to the world of 3D but it seems to me that there must be a way of getting 3D points from Land Desktop into VIZ.

Problem: I have a number of survey shots in LDD representing tree locations. What is the best way of dealing with this info?

Is there a way of importing the actual survey shots or is there something in VIZ that is similar to the AutoCAD Block replace command?

I tried importing block 'references' from AutoCAD then using the substitute modifier in VIZ but, I can't seem to get it to work with RPC Proxy objects.

Any ideas or suggestions appreciated.

Modelling techniques for roadways using lofts

Paul Rae — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:37:30 GMT

Hi All,

First off, I'd like to say what a great resource this site is. Thankfully, I enrolled in one of Glen Loyd's classes at AU and find out about this site. (Glen, too bad you had computer issues that day at AU, would have liked to see your techniques in action)

In any case, I've read through the "Rules of the Road" tutorial, which has given a great start. However, I'm curious to know how you deal with the interface between lofts for on and off ramps and the main highway loft? Similarly, is there a certain technique that is used for roadway lofts at intersections?

Any insight to your techniques is appreciated,

Paul

PNG/TGA Output...

Claudio Branch — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:16:19 GMT

I have a problem I have never seen before. I am outputting a sequence of PNG files and one of the objects in the scene isn't showing up in the final png or tga file. It is on the screen and shows up for a bmp or jpg, but not png or tga.

Anyone seen this before?

Motion Blur on Moving Cars?

Claudio Branch — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:07:08 GMT

I have typically used a slight bit of motion blur on my cars for my animation and stills featuring primarily road projects.

Awhile back though I read something on-line suggesting that m-blur on cars was unrealistic unless their speed was really outside the norm. I cannot recall where I read this though.

What is the general consensus on this issue?

High resolution aerials as textures

guthriealexander — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:49:49 GMT

Normally I am the company GIS guy so dealing with aerials and terrain models is nothing new, but their transition into 3ds is killing me right now.

I have 47 aerial images 1 ft res .tif format that cover the 13 miles of highway that is being modeled. I have a clipped DEM to the exact extent of of my aerial coverage and have no problem mapping all the tiles as a mosaic. The problem is that I cannot export them from GIS at a high enough quality in a single image.

I assume I would need to tile the full resolution tifs in max on the DEM or export 47 individual DEMs (hope this is not the case) at the extent of their respective aerial image.

Thanks in advance for any insite.

Isolines to mesh

Christopher Leone — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:33:17 GMT

What is everybody using now-a-days to take 3d isolines and convert them to a mesh? I haven't had to do it in a while..there has to be something better than terrain?

Video Mapping

Mark Carter — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:45:51 GMT

Hi there,

Just wondering if anybody knows of any good tutorials on applying videos as materials in 3DSMax?

I have an AVI to apply to a face and when applied, it shows up in my viewports - as a one frame still on the first frame of the video as expected. Also, when i render a still one frame with it in view, it shows up. However, when i try and render the whole sequence, the face is black for the whole duration.

I have deliberately manufactured the framerate and keychanges in the AVI video to run in sync with when it should be the main focus in my MAX model so it shouldn't be a synchronisation issue. At least i don't think it is.

Has anybody here managed video facing effectively before or does anyone have any good info links i can look through?

Thanks

Mark
PBVIZ Cardiff

Road Contour

AHargis — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:16:33 GMT

I am fairly new to the 3d visualization world and we are just trying out some vis stuff with current projects on down time. Now on to the question. I imported in some GIS information and got the terrain in 3d using 3ds Max 9. Now I need to show a road that travels the span of the terrain so I made my small segment and copied it about a bajillion times and used a path deform on a spline I made that follows the road design. Now what I don't know is how to make my "flat" road follow the contour of the land and go up and down the hills. Any links as to tutorials for terrain or roads would be awesome too or if there is a better way to do this im all ears. Thanks in advance. Sorry if this is a newbie question but I am kind of on my own for learning this

Alan

Illeagal New Face

Glen Loyd — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:59:42 GMT

This is a new one for me. I'm modeling a rim for one of our cars and am working on a single "pie" section that will have a Symmetry modifier applied when done. However, I have two elements in and Edit Poly object that just don't want to be attached. I've tried welding, detaching and re-attaching, and recently deleting faces and trying to recreate. With the ladder I keep getting the error message "Illegal new face" at close. This only happens with certain adjacent faces to the two elements. Have any of you experienced this? Thoughts/solutions?

spline Drap

Antony — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:46:54 GMT

Hi Members,

I try to drap spline in a 3d surface using merge shapes, But it become a single object, can any posible to merge the spline on a surface and getting same properties of the spline?, Please advice,

thanks,

Antony

Gamma 2.2

TWhite — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:17:16 GMT

Greetings all,

Glen Loyd asked me to post a quick rundown on gamma settings in 3D Studio Max. Why? Well, it must be my way with words…the witty comments and clever phrases I use on a daily basis. Phrases like: “Good morning” or “Yeah, it’s Monday”.

Real clever.

Seriously, having the correct gamma settings in 3D Studio Max will help your workflow immensely. So, I did a little research (i.e. google) on the subject because my word-smithing is not that great. I can tell you how we set up our gamma settings, but the WHY is the important part…and I don’t use large words like “linear” and “calculations”. Over at http://www.aversis.be/tutorials/vray/essential_gamma_01.htm there’s a great write-up on gamma settings. I’ll run through the very basics (if you don’t feel like clicking the link and reading 3 pages.) By the way, this is geared toward working with VRay.

Firstly:

“The base problem is simple. VRay and 3ds Max do their calculations in 'linear space'. The VRay camera has a 'linear' response to light. This means that it is working in gamma 1.0 space. All this is no problem, but since max and VRay are setup to work in gamma 1.0 space, it also assumes that you view the output on a device that also has a linear curve or gamma 1.0...

However your computer monitor is not gamma 1.0 at all, in fact most CRT monitors are by default gamma 2.5! Since we didn't tell max and VRay about this, our images are actually displayed much darker!!! (Gamma changes the midtones of your images, it's not simply a brightness control.)

Max does have the tools to specify what gamma our monitor has, so it can counteract for this and display our images correctly - in other words 'brighter'”

Ok, so how do we set up 3D Studio Max and VRay to use the 2.2 gamma? Pretty simple. Let’s start with the 3DS Max settings. Under Customize->Preferences, select the Gamma and LUT tab. Make sure all the square check boxes are checked. Then we’re going to select Gamma in the display area and set that to 2.2

If your monitor is calibrated, the solid square in the middle of the hatched square should be the same value. If you squint your eyes, you shouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. Ok, we also set our Input Gamma (Bitmap Files) to 2.2

The VRay renderer has its own frame buffer by the way. So disable the default frame buffer in Max and enable the VRay frame buffer. Open the render dialogue (F10) and uncheck “Rendered Frame Window” in the Common tab’s Common Parameters rollout.

Next, select the V-Ray tab and check Enable built-in Frame Buffer” in the V-Ray: Frame buffer rollout. While you are in this tab, go ahead and set the Gamma to 2.2 in the V-Ray: Color Mapping rollout.

Now VRay should be set up to render and save images with the correct gamma setting. The other thing to look out for is the gamma setting when loading bitmaps in the material editor. Make sure “Use system default gamma” is selected in the Gamma area when loading a bitmap.

GI Lighting Study

Glen Loyd — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:06:27 GMT

I recently read a post on another forum where a user was asking about using Light Tracer. My response was based on my experience with Light Tracer several years ago. So out of curiosity I thought I'd run a little test to see if I really know what I was talking about. Using the same base model, I set up a max file using Scanline Light Tracer, Mental Ray, and V-ray using their own lights (just one per scene) and various settings. I do have my gamma set for V-ray, so some of these came out a little darker than what I had intended. Below are the results of the test:

Light Tracer

This test only required placing the Skylight, turning on Light Tracer, and setting one bounce.

Average render time: 00:01:23

Light Tracer Comments: The set up was really easy and only required eidting one setting (I added 1 bounce). All other settings are defaults.

Mental Ray:

This test required setting up the mrSky (and adjusting its angle), adding mr Physical Sky to the Environment, Setting Exposure controls to Logaristhmic, turning on Exterior daylight in Logarithmic settings, and enabling Final Gather.

Average Render Time: 00:00:06

This alternative requires a little more set up and has more variables. For a non-Mental Ray user, I was able to get in and figure it out fairly quick and would probably know exactly what to do if I was an avid MR user, so some of my setting could definitley use some tweaking. I don't like not being able to control the color of the Physical Sky other than moving the light. A lot of guess work and test renders involved.

V-Ray:

This test involved using a VRayLight and setting it to Dome (default settings), enabling GI Environment (default settings), enabling Indirect Illumination using only the Primary Bounce set to Irradiance map at medium.

Average render time: 00:00:35

I thought that V-ray might actually be a little faster than what it turned out to be. It has a similar look and feel to the Light Tracer test, but at half the render time. I also checked to see if using a V-ray material would affect the render time, but nothing noticable there.

As you can see, the results of each are pretty different. I've attached the test Max files below for those of you who would like to play. Since I'm not an expert on MR, I'd be curious to see some other optimizations that still produce a decent rendering.

How to make instances of multiple objects in Max...??

Jerlin — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:16:56 GMT

Hi,

I want to copy a group of objects at a number of places. later, if i remove or add objects to this group, it should reflect in all other copies (instances). how can I do this in max? (This is very simple in AutoCad with Blocks).

I tried group and made instances, but when I add a new object to the base group, the others are not updated.

the same result for xref-objects. If I make xref-scene, I am not able to make multiple copies..!!

Any ideas...??

Cheers,

CityEngine

Christopher Leone — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:21:03 GMT

[url]http://www.procedural.com/cityengine.html[/url]

This looks pretty sweet, lets buys some licenses!

VRay Brute Force?

Larissa — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:44:52 GMT

I have seen this "brute force" on the internet on various forums. I looked for it in my version of VRay ... however, it is not there. 0_O ... I have the most recent version but why isnt it there? Im just insane and I would like to try it on my kitchen/living room scene. :) *evil grin and laugh*

Modelling Earthworks

Andrew M — Mon, 26 May 2008 08:17:17 GMT

Hi all,

I am currently trying to model a 10km roadway completely in Max (as opposed to my usual methodology of MX --> AutoCAD --> Max).

I'm having success at lofting the roadways (thanks for the tut Glen!), but I seem to be getting stuck at the cut-fill earthworks / existing ground / bridge spill-through interface. I've attached an image of what I am trying to model.

From previous experience, I either export the interfacing triangles out of MX (this makes good texturing a bit difficult), or I create a series of rulesurfs through AutoCAD (more time consuming - but achieve's a neater 'Quad' effect when importing from AutoCAD)

How do you all go about modelling complex earthworks such as this? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

3dsmax Stability Tips and Tricks

Mark Kauffman — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:17:37 GMT

With the size of the scenes that we work with and the use of 3^rd party plugins like VRay and others, it is difficult to maintain absolute stability. Consequently, I have come up with a few techniques that seem to work in ensuring 3dsmax is fairly stable and that your files do not become corrupted.

The first technique is file saving. While the autobak feature can be a real life-saver, it can also be a serious pain the rear especially when you are working with a huge file. I set my autobak to about 45 minutes which keeps the saving to a minimum. Less pausing every few minutes particularly when you are performing a CPU intensive function.

The next technique is to save multiple iterations of your file to a local source. What I mean by this is to do incremental saves to your local hard drive. Save a small file over the network is usually a breeze, but as the file becomes larger, the potential for a corrupted file increase exponentially. Here’s the logic on this issue. Think of moving the breakable contents of your office from one room to the other. This usually is not too much of a problem because the distances between point A and point B are relatively short. Now imagine that you must move contents between your office and a building 5 miles away. You must now get in your car and drive to that location. Not only does it take a little longer, but there is always some dumb yahoo on the road who cannot drive properly and might crash into you and break everything. Statistically, this is not that high a probability, but it is much higher on the streets than in your office. Use the “+” button in your Save As dialog to auto save an incremental file.

Now, once you have completed your scene, you can copy the most current iteration back up to the network folder. At this point, if a yahoo hits you and breaks your stuff, you have a backup that you can push again. Saving using an application is a bit more delicate of a process compared to utilizing the file transfer functions of your OS. The OS transfer functions are significantly most simplistic compared to the process of saving data, then transferring it via a link initiated via the OS. Does this make sense?

Finally, running 3dsmax for an extended period of time can lead to a corrupted session of the application in memory. This is much more common when using 3^rd party applications like VRay or the Blur plugins and especially with very larger scene files; it’s inevitable. One way to get around this is to quit out of 3dsmax if you need to load a new scene. The process of closing the application and re-launching essentially wipes the memory slate clean. This can be a little time consuming particularly with a larger scene, but it significantly decreases the crashing and other various errors. In fact, on a really big scene, I will save, close and re-launch every now and then. As a result, I rarely have a corrupted scene.

While these tips are not full proof, they have worked very well for me. I hope they are helpful for you all as well. I wish 3dsmax could be rock solid all the time, but like a said, once you add a 3^rd party application, in this case plugins, you add a new variable to the equation that can trip up the program. This is the way it works for every application out there. Again, I hope this is helpful for you all.