Dec 19
Tutorial topics for 2013?
I’m trying to form a game plan for 2013 and wanted your thoughts on topics you’d like to see discussed here. Comment below if there’s something specific that you’d like to see discussed. I’ll try to cover any provided topics with written tutorials or I’m also considering video tutorials via a youtube channel or vimeo, etc.. NOTE: If you have a preference between vimeo or youtube let me know that as well.
If you request a topic that I’m not familiar with or efficient with then I’ll try to locate a resource or person that can provide some insight.
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Tutorial Request: 3ds Max State Sets | jeffpatton.net
[...] of the tutorial requests I received in my post HERE was for state sets. I saw this free nine ...
I’ve never seen a good tutorial for render elements using mental ray. Once you get into the A&D render elements things get confusing fast.
Roger that, I’ll look into this.
I second to that.. I’d like to know how to create material ID pass like in V-Ray. Thanks!
I’ll second myself (I’m selfish). Right now I’m working on a scene and I want to add a z-depth rendered element. Render time before: 21min. Render time after: 38min.
“I want to add a z-depth rendered element. Render time before: 21min. Render time after: 38min.” – Unfortunately I don’t think there’s anything I can do about that one. For some reason enabling/adding render elements with mental ray in 3ds Max will increase your render times. That isn’t the case with other render engines.
I don’t see that topic (render elements increase overall render time) specifically listed on the 3dsMax feedback site. There is THIS listing, but it’s about not rendering the beauty/main pass and just elements alone…which obviously can’t be done on some passes without rendering the whole thing.
Bottom line, create a request for it on the feedback site. I would, but I’m currently out of votes. :/
i’d like to see tutorial internal or external architecture begining from importing plan from autocad to 3ds max till finishing with render mental ray or iray
i’ve found some tutorials on youtube but your tutorial explanation is wonderful and by the way congratulation for the award
wish u the best
That would be something like importing several plan views, importing those into 3ds Max, modeling the structure in 3ds Max, then texturing and lighting the model, and finally post work no? I don’t have autocad here so do you know of a site that freely provides some basic CAD files that I could use in a tutorial?
dear jeff
here is the link that u will find useful for u i hope : http://www.cadblocksfree.com/index.php?id=74
thank u very much
Thanks, I’ll bookmark it.
i’d like to see a tutorial on curtains material. not that blind material, but some light cloth. the difficulty is that they should pass the light through. this leads to ugly shadows and noisy FG. also A&D material does not provide any transparency fallof on folds.
Sounds good, I’ll add it to my list.
Hi Jeff, fantastic idea and very much appreciated.
Iray Matte Objects would be a great one, there are bits of info about it but I still can´t quite wrap my head around that one.
Also some Iray implementations, you know like some times is better to use an “emitter” object rather than a light and things like that.
Congrats on your very much deserved award, master!
Best regards.
Sounds good, I’ll put something together on the matte objects side of things.
For the emitter vs. typical light source: I ran some tests early on HERE and I saw no noticeable difference between render times with self-illuminated geometry or photometric light. With that in mind I’d say use whichever feels more comfortable to you. FWIW the only time I would personally use a photometric light with iray is if I needed to use an IES profile.
There are some situations that work better for self-illuminated geometric light sources like needing odd shaped emitters, television screens or other situations where you’d want to apply a texture map as a light source. TIP: Creating your own HDRs of real world light sources and assigning that HDR as a self-illuminated texture map is a neat trick too.
I would love to see a comprehensive and up to date iray matte r object tutorial!!! : D
This may sound silly, but I am usually unable to properly control the color of the sky in my iray renders. I do not use HDR images, the sky is either black or some sort of gooey yellow. I think I am missing something.
A tutorial on fully controlling the sun and sky would be nice.
Will do.
hi jeff
congratulation for the master!!
i’d like to see a good tutorial that explain how to light a scene using an hdri in mental ray…I see your post about it..but using a skylight whit hdri doesn’t really light a scene and i never see shadow unless I add a photometric light…i see that just a HDRI work well if i’m using iray,could you explain how it work properly?
best regards,Alex
The problem there is that in a standard/vanilla install of 3ds Max a user will not be able to achieve HDR shadows with mental ray without the use of typical light sources for the shadows or insanely high FG settings. The best solution (at the moment) is to use 3rd party tools to access hidden features like the IBL node or IP/Importons.
I’ll wait on this topic until the next version of 3ds Max appears (usually around April) to see if there’s an update in this area and then I’ll write an article to pull together all the needed resources in one spot.
Hey Jeff,
Really looking forward to this HDRI tutorial. What I don’t understand is why you able to lit up the scene on your Gnomon tutorial on lighting with a HDR image and achieving nice quality shadow + lights to the final render? I didn’t see that you use any 3rd party tools. You also described the use of exposure to properly display HDRI based render on this site, yet you seems to use the native max feature. Thanks
i’d like to see some tutorial about professional automotive rendering,eg what is the workflow, and how to useage cad models,how to lighting the car ,materials,uv and so on
Might be difficult to do this one as most auto manufacturers won’t allow usage of their files outside of work. FWIW from my experience though the process is really no different that using a non-CAD based model purchased at Turbosquid for example. UVW mapping doesn’t really come into play that much. The only thing I have to worry with UVWs on is the tires and maybe a few interior parts on convertible models.
Usually lighting isn’t too complex on automotive renderings either, it can be, but usually it’s pretty basic configurations. The real pain with automotive rendering (IMHO) is reflections. They have to be placed perfectly to emphasize body panels properly, etc.. For me, that’s where I spend most of my time.
I think I’m starting to ramble..lol. Bottom line, I’ll see what I can (and can’t do) for this topic.
Hey,
I would appreciate a tutorial of how to position and match a CG car and a backplate in 3DS Max. I’m quite familiar with this topic but I still get a bit confused when I’m trying to get it all right and ready to be rendered. Also, I often find it diffucult to figure out some basic things like the camera’s angle of view – it’s quite frustrating to realize the perspective doesn’t match with the backplate after spending hours in post-production. So, I’d love a tutorial covering this sort of stuff
- TB
Roger that. I’ll add it to my list.
Hi Jeff, I apologize in advance for my English … I’m from Czech Republic and I can not much English. but often I look at your work and I am amazed. I’d like to see you create a tree and its material – leaf and bark. Much I appreciate that you’re trying to show other people how to achieve these and scenes. and occasionally some one file to download … Thank you;-)
Sounds good, I’ll add that to the list.
I’d second the call for render elements and would like to add a request for the subject of GI in animation – avoiding flicker, keeping rendertimes low.
Will see what I can do. Not sure if low render times, animations, and no flickering go hand in hand, but we’ll find out.
How about a tutorial on making an animated timelapse background with an animated cloud layer in the background using also sun motion and getting a flicker free result?
Seems like something not a lot of people know how to do producing a clean flicker free result
LOL, is that all? Seriously though, it sounds like a cool project to work on so I’ll add it to the list.
Different type of photography (Landscape, Portrait, Product and …), finding the best view for render and handling a large exterior scene from start to end are important issues for me.
I would be really happy that an expert like you tell some tricks or workflow about that .
Good topics, will do!
Just saying Thank You Jeff ! I always appreciate your time, help and work! Outstanding, All my best
Thank you for the comment. My honor to help out when & where I’m able to.
I love Jeff
Hi Jeff
I agree with Matt that a topic of Render Elements together with Mr wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I would love it if the tutorial would be 16 bit related. I do not use 32bit images, cause most of the filters and tools in Photoshop (CS5) are not compatible with 32 bit.
Concerning your question about Vimeo or You tube: I suggest you contact Joep. He is using Vimeo at the moment for his tutorials, in the past it was using You Tube. He can tell you the pros and cons. http://www.maxusergroup.com
cheers
johan
I just want to second the HDRI w/backplate in iRay, and setting up a good exterior architectural render.
Thanks Jeff, you’re awesome.
Hi Jeff! this is a great idea, congratulations! I’ve learned lots of things from your blog. u know, “the making of” tutorials are very populer at these times. Maybe you can prepare a different type of “making of ” such as winter or fall scene of exterior. i ‘m not excepting full detailed project but with some critical tricks colud be great. Or maybe u can share a tuto about your Mercedes works. Again congratulations, and go on!
Hello Jeff,
it would be great if you don´t use any kind of background music, because it can be that this video will be blocked pending on the strong German regulations and owed to the not paid Gema fee, either it will be played on Vimeo or
YouTube this doesn’t matter.
Coming to the point what you will show, I will say please fell free to enlighten us.
With kindly regards and my best wishes to you
Franky
Hi Jeff.
I am start to study Iray render. I would like to see issues about Iray, What kind of diference there is in Iray to Mental ray render. How to make materials in Iray Shader. If there is some converter material.
I would like to know, if will be possible in a future use Iray render using memory RAM of computer.
Thanks for all posts here in your site, it always help me to do a better jobs.
Jeff dear,
I am still new (one year) in the 3d world, but among the group, I am the only one being hooked in Mental Ray. I am a lady. I am very much in love with mR!
Would you give me some tips on Fabric Material. Thank you so much.
Hi Jeff,
I’m always having a hard times when trying to create convincing architectural glass for building exterior. I wanted to create a material for curtain glazing, those exterior glass used most on skyscrapers/high rise. The reason this is so hard is that in reality the glass has that coating so it has nice reflection and I always fail to create this in A&D.
This is a very awesome example of what I’m trying to achieve but this was done in VRay:
http://www.cgarchitect.com/2012/07/the-making-of-paracete
Thanks in advance, I hope you’ll put my request on to your list because I can’t even put on Santa’s wishlist for this one..
Cheers!
Looks fun, will do!
hi jeff
i would like to see a tutorial on how to make an architectural glass material for exterior building , I’am always gets confused about adjusting reflections and transparency.
thanks alot
Roger that, will cover arch-glass and some other materials mentioned above. Probably sprinkle in a few other materials that haven’t been mentioned (yet).
A detailed Hdri And Backplate tutorial in depth with pleanty of information with some tips & tricks..
Would second the tree/leaf and cloudy sky requests.
Would just like to say in regard to vimeo/youtube, for me at least in Australia, I’ve found vimeo to be terribly slow to cache for some reason. Youtube doesn’t have this problem for me.
Thanks for the great blog!
Hi Jeff,
Would really like to see how you produced the Mercedes renders, importing a car model, adding environment, lighting it, rendering and then any post production. Workflows for interior and exterior renders in MR, Iray and Vray. A comparison between the renderers and what they produce. Switching a scene from MR/Iray to Vray, changing the materials, lights and render settings.
Thanks for all your blogging/tuts, really helped me out on many occasions.
How about iray caustics, or is that still not working?
Simple caustics, like basic reflected caustics, have always worked in iray. For example, note the reflected caustics on the ground in the iray renders HERE from October 2011.
From what I understand, deep/complex caustics are currently disabled in iray native to 3ds Max to help prevent fireflies in most scenes. If that changes in future releases then I’ll have something new to cover on that topic.
Going off the caustic updates/improvements noted HERE, I’d imagine we will see that trickle down to iray in 3ds Max (speculation on my part).
Hi Jeff.
I would like to see how to configure a scene for animation with mental ray.
Hi Jeff, congrats on the Autodesk Master for 2012 award.
Fist off would like to say thanks for all the work you put into the industry, you are truly an inspiration to many of us.
I would love to see a general “making of” workflow on an automotive viz scene. Setting up lighting and matching backplate perspectives in particular.
Thanks so much again
Chris
Hi Jeff,
I would truly appreciate a tutorial or advice on making a professional looking car paint material like the ones you use on Mercedes advertisings.
Best Regards,
Jacobo R.
Hi Jeff, first of all, congrats for this great blog, really helpfull entries.
I would like to ask about hardware, particularly if the performance of tesla cards (have u tested the new kepler?) and its double float point precission really affect the render speed in Mental Ray (I use it in Maya but guess that it´s the same in 3D max) and its, therefore, worth it the cost.
I know u have several install in your mobo, did u notice big performance in your scenes? It´s not exactly a tutorial, but it would be really helpfull to know since render with dynamics in MR (my case) are a nightmare in render times and light bilds.
Thanks
“performance of tesla cards (have u tested the new kepler?) and its double float point precission really affect the render speed in Mental Ray” – Currently mental ray is a CPU based rendering application and does not use the GPU. Only certain rendering applications (iray, vray r/t, and octane, to name a few) use GPU(s).
I would like to see lots of iRay stuff. Specifically how to incorporate various render passes into a workflow that primarily uses iray.
Waiting for tutorial about workflow using IP + Importon
Hey Jeff,
Im interested in the render elements for mental ray as noted somewhere above. Also including the new state sets for 2013.
Thanks a lot, for giving so much back to the industry.
Adam
Hello, Jeff.
I’m from Brazil, always follow your site.
Sorry for the english, I used Google yourself, hehe.
I would like to see a walkthrough of water drops in a glass of water in iray.
Thank you!
Hey Jeff,
I didn’t read all the comments, so I hope I am not repeating. for Arch/viz I would love to see how to get a raw render to final with post production. A lot of the post production stuff you find online has to do with buildings/structures with wear, and mostly a vintage look. Maybe even tips and tricks for a Architectural render to make it look more realistic.
Can you give me some links to reference images of the types of buildings/structures you’d like to see used? Or photos of the type of output you’d like to see, etc.. In regards to Arch/Viz projects with mental ray I’m not sure I can (or need to) offer anything better or more comprehensive than THIS.
I guess my point is that I don’t want to duplicate content that’s already available so I need to figure out something unique to offer.
Hi Jeff,
congratulations on the Autodesk Master award.
I’d like to better understand the HDRI lighting in Mental Ray, especially in scenes with cars.
Thanks for everything.
I am a bit late to the list but how about a tutorial about creating realistic translucent objects where you can have other objects affect the coloring of the translucency. A translucent SSS if you will.
Thanks for all the great stuff you have put out over the years.
Hi Jeff,
I have a question about sytem units in 3ds Max.
Is it right to match the display scale with the system units?
Or the right thing is to leave the system scale as inches even if i use cm?
Thanks!
Hi Jeff
I would like to see a tutorial for eye shader …
very very important …
Thanks for everything
For which render engine?
Mental ray in 3dsmax
Thanks
Hi Jeff ,
I would like to see how you managed to make the SSS lightmap from subsurface.mi file to be created in render time and not saved to a file. I was able to make an SSS Arch&Design Material that works great with render elements but only by saving the lightmap to disk. So it doesnt work for animation.
Sir Plz can u Make One Good Tutorials On How To USE Iray Properly In Interior Scene With Materials Also
I would like to see a tutorial how to create a realistic wood floor with reflection color map. I’ve seen a similar but for Vray. For mental ray nothing.
Hi Jeff,
It would be great to see a tutorial on how to create hdri images. All process from taking photos to end result. Which methods you use (chrome ball or others) which software etc.
http://jeffpatton.net/2011/10/creating-panoramic-hdrs/
Thanx
I also would like tut on Architectural modeling in MAX.
I have seen a few different ways but none from a Professional, mainly freelance do-it-yourselfer’s. Really interested in getting comfortable with one method that is best for poly optimization!
Hi Jeff,
I would like to know more on artistic side of thing rather than just technical, specially when it’s come from your point of view in image creation in terms of lighting and composition decisions and approaches.
thanx
Hello Jeff, i would love a video tutorial of illuminating interior or exterior scene with hdri images and backplates.