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This tutorial explains all steps to illuminate an object with a technique which simulates the illumination
techniques of a photo studio. Before we begin it is very important to inform you that we will use "Mental
Ray"as render engine (version 8 and 9 of 3D Studio Max).
Mental Ray is a very stable render engine and it allows you to have very realistic renderings. Since we are
using Mental Ray for this tutorial it is very important to use "real dimensions" for all the objects that we have
to create. Otherwise the result will not be realistic. It means that you have to go to CUSTOMIZE ->UNITS
SETUP and choose the units that you want to use. In any case you should get used to create objects with their
real dimensions so that you get a feeling for correct dimensions and proportions.
The first step to do is to create an "environment object"(it is similar to the rooms which are used in the
professional field of photography)on which later we will place our object to illuminate (this is ideal for
product/industrial design and furniture design). There are different shapes that you can create to have an
environment-object which will be reflected correctly on your object and will give very good render results
(image 0 ). What many designers don't know is exactly this last point:in order to have a good 3d rendering,the
object has not only to receive a good lightning,but it needs to receive a good reflection of the room in which it
is placed.
The color that you should assign to the environment-object (the room)should be white like the walls of a
photo-studio !The material should not have specular highlights.In this way the color of the environment will
not affect the color of your product design (especially if you use reflective materials).Of course it is the
designer's choice to change the color to a different one. Let's do the first steps for an environmentobject.Create a spline like the letter "L".Then select the corner vertex and go to "modify",select the "fillet"tool
and smooth the corner like in image below .
If you like to have a very smooth environment you should put a very big value in the fillet slot.Now we need to
create an outline of this shape (the thickness of the walls).Select "spline"and go to outline the spline with the
command "outline"that you can find again in the modify panel. From this point you can create both
environment objects (the linear or the circular one).To create the "straight"one (which will be the one that I
will use for the tutorial)you must assign to the spline an "extrude" modifier from the modifier list (image
below)
To create the circular environment object you must first move the PIVOT/GIZMO to the correct location.
Check below image.
Just go to hierarchy,click on the button "affect pivot only"and move the pivot (this button allows you to
move/rotate the pivot independently from the object)!After this step assign to the spline a "lathe"modifier from
the modifier list.You will see that you will create an object similar to a tube.Go to the modify panel and
increase the segment number to have a smoother shape.Now go to Degrees and put 180 in the slot.You
should have the result of below image
Both of these two objects are really useful.It is your choice which one to use for your renderings.
Create a teapot on the environment-object (in the room)and create a simple skylight. Remember that the
illumination direction of the skylight can't be changed,i will ALWAYS come from the top. (check above image)
For now you can leave the standard multiplier value=1. To be able to render correctly with a skylight you must
enable final gather in Mental Ray (without final gather the skylight will not work - check images below).
For the
Gather
result
will
The skylight is NOT able to create specular-highlights on the object.The specular-highlights are of course VERY
important to simulate different kind of materials.This is the reason why you should never use only one skylight
in your scenes.It is important to have an additional light.If you want to have a very strong specular- highlights
like on car paint materials you should use Mr Omni lights (you can find the tutorial of the car paint material in
the FDA tutorials for materials).For this tutorial I will use a photometri target area light.This light is very soft,it
gives very good and realistic results. Let's create an target area light like on image below.
It is important to consider that the softness of the shadows of this light will change with the size of the light
(big size:soft shadows,small size:sharp shadows).The shadow type MUST be "raytraced shadows",only this
kind of shadow will give optimal results with mental ray.Don't create a light with a too big size,otherwise the
shadows will be too soft and will cover too big areas,this will darken the environment and will not look realistic.
Since now we have two lights you should reduce the multiplier of the skylight.Try to put a value between 0.4
and 0.7.I have reduced it a lot in my scene,in this way it is clear that the main light source is the area light.I
like the contrast between strong illuminated surfaces and darker surfaces like on image 9 .But at the end it is
your taste which will decide about the multiplier amount of the two lights.Sometimes I create an additional
area light on the opposite side of the first one.If you like to have more than one area light you should disable
the shadow of the light with lower intensity.Too many shadows are confusing and really ugly in a rendering.
Make a rendering.You should have the result of image below.
This is how I normally render objects with no reflections.If you have an object with reflective material you
need to do a few more steps.Let's see why (chrome and other materials are in another FDA tutorial).If you
create an object made of chrome and you go to make a rendering you will have the result of image below.
We can have a better result with a few more steps...Let's create two big boxes. Like showen in
image below
Create a white self-illuminated material and apply it to the boxes.If you make a rendering you
will see a big difference between the image below and last rendered image.
The reflection of this boxes are giving the impression of two light sources like windows or big
white panels which are used also in the field of professional photography. You can notice that
image second last rendered image is a little bit darker than image above, even I did not
change the light settings.Why this ? Whenever you enable final gather you will notice that self
illuminated objects are able to create light. The bigger your self-illuminated object, the
brighter the surface close to it will be. That's why the rendering in above image is a bit
brighter. Be careful with the size of the 2 boxes, don't make them too big and don't place them
too close to the teapot, otherwise you will create too bright areas.
At this point you can do a final rendering.This means you must set all settings to the maximum
values,in this way you will have a perfect rendering.In the render panel set Minimum samples
per pixel "4", maximum 16 . If you change the BOX filter to "Mitchell" your rendering will be
a bit sharper. The minimum size of a final rendering should be 1024*768 pixels (bigger is of
course better). Don't forget to increase the shadow samples (area light sampling) to 32 or
better 64, in this way your shadows will be perfect. Put in final gather sample slot 300,if this is
not enough put 400. Now make your final rendering.
The result of above image is already very good, but we can improve it. I also teach to my
students that Photoshop is a tool which is able to improve a rendering in many different ways.
Let's apply a glow effect to our highlights (in our case we will assign a glow effect to the
reflected boxes on the teapot to give the impression that there is a lot of energy coming from
the white panels). Select the "magic wand tool"to create a mask on the brightest parts (which
are in this case the white boxes)of the teapot surface like on image below.
Now press on your keyboard CTRL+C and than CTRL+V (copy and paste).You will see in the
layer panel (F7)that automatically you have created a new layer on which there is only the
masked part of the teapot. (Check image below)
Now make a left double mouse click on the blue bar of the new layer.You will enable a window
(layer style panel) with really great tools (try them,they are really interesting). Choose
"OUTER glow"and change the yellow glow color to white.Now select the size slider and move it
to the right side.Now you have a very nice glow effect on the teapot. Another very interesting
effect that you can create on a image is a Depth of field effect (DOF).In this way you can
simulate a sharp focus point on the teapot.The part of the object which is far away will be a bit
blurred (like in photography). First of all we must fuse the background image (original
rendering) with the glow effect layer. Just go to "layer"and select "flatten image" (Check image
below ).
Now make a right mouse click on the layer and choose "duplicate layer". Check image below.
In this way you will have two layers,one is the perfect copy of the other.Apply on the copy a
gaussian blur effect (check images below).
The last step is very important.Choose the "eraser tool"and delete the part of the image which
should be sharp (Check image below ). Try to use a soft brush and set it to opacity 60.
+ Here you have 15 of the most used Tips&Tricks of the FLORENCE DESIGN ACADEMY
(www.florencedesignacademy.com) to avoid mistakes, errors and imperfections in your projects.
Tip 1.)
Did you know that "architectural materials" and "self illuminated" materials are light emitting (for Mental Ray &
Vray) ? If you apply them on a box you will get a similar effect as a "photometric area light" or a "Vray light".
Tip 2.)
Try to use always soft shadows in your renderings if possible. Hard shadows are looking always very fake. In
"Mr Omni/Spot" scale the size of the light in the area light parameters (mental ray).
In Mental Ray you have to use the "RAYTRACED shadows" !
In Vray enable in the Omni/Spot the "area shadow" and scale the size of the light.
Soft shadows will take more render time !
Tip 3.)
To have perfect shadows it is necessary to create all objects with real dimensions.
Tip 4.)
How to decrease render time for test-renderings:
a) the main setting to decrease the render time is the image size. Normally I use 150x112 pixels as size. It is
too small to see the object's details but its is perfect to understand the light conditions.
b) Lower the Shadow quality !
c) Reduce the polygon number of the objects (try to use the optimize modifier if you don't have any
meshsmooth modifier on the objects)!
d) Reduce the photon number or/and the "sample" settings in the render engines. Vray/MentalRay/Brazil
RS/FinalRender/ etc.
e) Be careful with the amount of lights (too many lights will make the rendering very slow)!
Tip 5.)
Do not use editable MESH but ALWAYS editable "POLY".
Editable Poly is optimized for advanced modeling , creates less errors than editable mesh and has many more
settings than editable mesh.
If you were working on a object with editable mesh , you can without problems convert it to an editable Poly
object.
Tip 6.)
Instead to meshsmooth a box, use from the "extended primitives" a "chamfer box"... the result is the same,
but the chamfer box" has less polygons !
Tip 7.)
Sometimes all your Vertexes disappear during modeling of an object.
To fix this bug try this options:
a) Convert your object again to an editable poly.
b) Convert your object to an editable mesh and then to an editable poly.
c) Save the file, Exit from 3D studio and open again the file.
d) Save the file, Exit from 3D studio and merge the object in a new file.
Tip 8.)
The best light to create Highlights is the Omni light (or MR Omni).
Tip 9.)
Do not use "area shadows" in Mental Ray, they are very slow and not optimized for Mental Ray.
The best/fastest result is visible when you use Raytrace shadows.
If you are working with the "light-tracer" than you can use "area shadows". The result is the same as in
MentalRay with Raytrace shadows.
Tip 10.)
(for beginners) When you are working sometimes you can't anymore move your object.
Probably you have pressed the key X. Press again X to enable the move tool (GIZMO).
Similar problem: You can select only one object, all other objects can't be selected anymore: probably you have
pressed SPACE and locked the object. Press again SPACE to unlock it.
Tip 11.)
When you create a "loft" object it can happen that the end or beginning of the object has an error.
To fix the problem you should choose "CORNER" vertex on the first and last vertex of your spline.
Tip 12.)
Download ALWAYS the last service-pack for your 3D Studio Max version. It will fix important bugs.
Tip 13.)
There can be only 2 mistakes when your extruded (spline + extrude modifier) object has an error:
a) you have overlapping segments in your spline.
b) the shape is not closed-check where you did not weld the vertexes-.
Tip 14.)
If you use splines to create shapes, try to use a very small number of vertexes.
If you convert the vertexes in smooth/bezier/bezier-corner you can create very organic and round shapes
without a too high number of vertexes (same tip for loft in deformations-scale-panel).
Tip 15.)
If your interface/panel disappeared You have this options to fix the problem:
a.) Maybe You are in the "expert" mode...press CTR+x...
b.) Customize > Customize User Interface > Toolbars Tab > Reset!
c.) "Start"button on windows > Autodesk > 3D Studio Max > change graphics mode !
d.) There should be a 3dsmax.ini file in ur max folder...delete it and start 3D Studio Max again...
e.) Customize > load custom UI scheme.
CGIndia brings you another very useful tutorial for 3ds Max users. In this brief tutorial, Mario
Malagrino of Florence Design Academy explains how to create a Leather material in 3ds
Max. Leather is one of the most used materials in the field of Furniture design. Especially for
design of sofas or couches. It is quite easy to obtain a good leather material. The leather
material quality strongly depends on the illumination in your scene.Before you start to create
the leather in the material editor you must first analyze exactly the type of leather that you
want to simulate in 3D Studio Max. After this step go to choose an image which has the
pattern/texture of the real leather. Here in image below, you can see an examples of
images/maps which allow us to create a perfect leather texture in the material editor. The first
one is a simple image of a scanned paper, the second one is made with Photoshop.
b.) If you choose to assign a bitmap (an image) to the bump slot you must take care of the
tiling value. It has more or less the same effect like the SIZE parameter in NOISE (you can
assign to the object also a UVW Map from the modifier list and change the Gizmo size; it will
have a similar effect like tiling).
To have more control over the specular highlights in the rendering you can use after you have
completed the scene a SPECIAL "MR Area Omni" light. After you have placed the light in the
correct location right-click on the MR Area Omni and disable "AFFECT DIFFUSE". After this step
this MR.Area Omni will create only specular highlights on the materials. We will use that
MR.Area Omni ONLY to create the highlights that are normally visible on leather. In this way
we have much more control of the position, color and brightness of the specular highlights.
Disable shadows in that MR.Area Omni. This technique can be very helpful if you need more
highlights than the existing light sources are already creating on the leather material. To avoid
that this light affects all objects in the scene you should use the exclude option in the modify
panel excluding all other objects which should not receive an additional highlight (you must
select the light to do this) .
Photoshop
Le't see how to create the leather texture of image 1.
Go to Photoshop and create a new file. Go to the main tool bar to FILTER and choose Texture
and then Stained Glass (image 7).
This will give you a texture like the skin of a snake. You will have 3 parameters in that filter
that you can change. Basically this is already a "map" that you can use in 3D Studio Max as
BUMP map. It will give you quite good results.
To make it a bit more interesting you can return to Photoshop and duplicate the layer of the
leather. Change the copied layer from Normal to MULTIPLY. This will allow you to add different
colors on the original layer without losing the black leather shapes that the filter has created.
Choose an irregular brush and try to create a natural looking brown color.
Don't make it too clean, otherwise it will look very unnatural.Now after this step go to your
Multiplied layer and decrease the opacity. Don't leave the black shape of the top layer too
visible. Save the image as bitmap. Now you have 2 images. The first one which is only black
and white and the second one with brown color.
You must place the brown one into the DIFFUSE COLOR slot in MAPS, and the black and white
one into the BUMP slot (image below). If the leather effect is too sharp you can blur both
images in Photoshop choosing on the main tool bar FILTER and than Blur: GAUSSIAN BLUR.
The same can be done in the BITMAP settings from the BLUR slot.
In this tutorial I want to show the making of the image time is running made with 3ds max
2008, rendered with vray 1.50.SP1.
Everything is modelled in 3ds max 2008 mostly from standard geometry and some splines with
lathe like the lampshade. Modelling is not my favourite so I want to show the material and the
Then I start the modelling. Everything was made from standard forms in max and nothing
special. I almost did not use textures, because I wanted to create real metal materials and
silver effects. Just the little factory inside has textures like the ground and some buildings.
A standard vray material with a light gray colour in the reflection, refl. Gloss of .71, subdivision
of 12 to get nice results but still short render time. The IOR is at 2.97 and I used ward.
The glass material:
In the reflection slot is a falloff map set to standard and fresnel. Ref. Gloss. Is set to .98, IOR
is at 1.517 and set the affect shadow and alpha to get nice shadows on the ground. The fog
colour is set to white.
I hope you find this making of interesting and you get some help or inspiration from here. All
the best and thanks for reading!
in a very soft and for the human eye pleasureful way the shapes of you objects.To create two
specular highlights you must change the BLINN shader to MULTY-LAYER. This allows you to
have 2 independent specular highlights (in Multy-Layer they are called First Specular Layer and
Second Specular Layer). One must be very soft the other very hard/strong. Go to the first
specular highlight slot (it is called specular layer) and adjust it until you have a large shape
(glossiness) which is not too bright (level).
Then do the opposite with the second specular layer: small shape and very bright. After this
step go to Maps and add to the reflection map Raytrace. Set the reflection amount to more or
less 20 (like on image 1).
To have more control of the specular highlights in the rendering you can use in your scene a
SPECIAL "MR.Area Omni" light (normaly it is better to use MR.Area Omni if you use Mental Ray
to make your rendering, but in this case you can use also a normal Omni light). After you have
placed the light in the correct location make a right mouse button click on the MR Area Omni
and disable "AFFECT DIFFUSE" (like on image 2).
After this step this MR.Area Omni will create only specular highlights on the materials. We will
use that MR.Area Omni only to create this specular effects that normally is visible on metalized
car paint. In this way we have much more control of the position, color and brightness of the
specular highlights. Disable the shadows in the MR.Area Omni.
This technique is very helpful if you need a higher number of specular highlights than the
existing light sources (that you must create for normal illumination) are already creating on
the car paint material. It is also possible to create a specular color which is different than
white. With changing the specular color you can simulate the classical car paints that you can
see in the car-tuning environment where often we have a mix of two different colors (diffuse
color + specular color). This makes the material more interesting.
Here below you have a sample of a mix of more colors. In this case we have a red diffuse
color, a blue first specular layer color and a white second specular layer color (image 3)
Here below we have exactly the same scene, but without the EXTRA omni lights. The
difference is strongly visible. In this sample you can understand how important it can be to use
the technique described in this tutorial (image 4).
Tip 1: If you go to use many Mr Omnies for an object because you want to create many
different specular highlights, you will risk to create a less visible shadow of an object. In this
case it is necessary to use Ambient/Occlusion to avoid this problem.
Tip 2: If you have other objects in the scene that have normal materials and have NOT to be
affected by the Omnies, remember to exclude them from the Omnies with the exclude button
from the modify panel.
You can find more information for the illumination & render settings in other Florence Design
Academy tutorial. I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial.
The Making of - "A Morning In Province" Using 3DS Max + VRay by Julien CHIARI
OVERVIEW
For this 3D Scene, I have took reference from a very nice Photograph, which i have found in a
magazine. The whole 3d Scene is done in 3D Studio Max and using V-Ray Rendering engine for
achiviving realisim in the scene. I have divided the whole process into four parts : 3D
Modeling, Texturing, Lighting and Rendering. And Try to explain the steps i have used in
making of " A Morning in Province".
3D Modeling ;
The most part of 3D modeling in this scene is pretty much simple and old fashioned, besides
certain area's and portion of the scene has to be emphasized and lots of attention should be
given to amount of detailing for them. As every thing in the scene is quite close to the camera
or in focus, so a level of detailing should be maintained, besides emphasizing certain portions.
To increase the realism of the ground, a little displacement is required. For this, I have added
a VrayDisplacementMod modifier on the ground.
Than, I added small stones on the ground at the places where they are sensible to accumulate
a little more (near the steps and the walls)..
In Front facade, I have added lots of details on wall; in editable polygon mode (you may also
model the building using solids, and later convert the Mesh to Editable Poly) . I cut out with
the tool Cut and move the vertex. Than change the smoothing group of the detailed area.
More Details has been added to steps and other area's using the same method.
Here is the wireframe Screen Shot :
Texturing / Mapping ;
I have Unfolded of the UVW mapping in 3D Studio Max and save the UVW in a Bitmap, for
modifing and fine tuning purpose.
I open the saved bitmap of the UVW in Photoshop and mix several texture layers and
photographs to obtain desired level diffuse for final "Diffuse Map" texture. I improved the
sharpness of this texture and added another layer to make texture for Bump Map. To obtain
a good quality of texture when rendering, I used a resolution of 2048x2048.
Bump Texture :
Lighting
For the lighting of the scene I used only 3 lights: 2 directional spots (1 and 2) and a VrayLight
Dome (3). The Dome to simulate the ambient light coming from the sky, slightly tinted in blue.
2 directional spots to simulate the sunlight, slightly tinted in yellow. The first spot to light the
whole of the scene and the second right for the branches in foreground. These branches do not
project shadows on the scene. The shadows of foliage come from three plans (with a mask of
opacity) placed in front of the spot..
Than, I applied a small blur to the mask so that the shadow of the foliage becomes little
blured, for making it look more realistic.
Rendering;
I have Used VRay Rendering Engine for obvious reson to making the whole scene look as
realistic as possible. Check the Images (below) for the Vray Renderer, GI and irradiance
mapping Parameters.
I have also added a small depth of field. The focus is done from the target of the camera by
activating - Get focal distance from camera.
And here is the Final Rendering Output in Vray without any compositing or Touch-ups!