3dsmax 05: Gamma

3dsmax Mental Ray 05: Gamma

After dealing with all the settings to have a production rendering, we still have to deal with the image itself. By default, 3dstudiomax rendering will produce a dull and saturated image. This makes your image flat, almost removing the appreciation of depth and its colors are inaccurate.

This rendering sample shows the default image 3dsmax produces, the colors are dull.

now lets try and apply gamma correction to our scene before rendering, PRESS 8, to access the environment and effects window.

click the setup gamma / LUT settings

Enable the gamma/ LUT correction and put the value of 1.8 or 2.2 on the gamma, input and output gamma.

With Gamma correction, our image looks sharper, colors are more vivid and true. This will make our production render appealing for printing.

3dsmax 04: MR materials

3dsmax 04: MR materials

Material set up

Hi again for another installment of chitorial. This tutorial will discuss more on material set-up on mental ray 3dsmax. A big advantage of mental ray over other rendering engine is its template of good architectural materials. Mental ray made it convenient for us Architectural visualizers to just pick and drop materials for our everyday use, tough some of them needs a bit of tweaking to achieve a more convincing output. This is a large ground to cover so we will just cover the basic use of the template materials that mental ray has to offer. With that, lets begin by accessing the material editor.

Material editor hotkey = M

Material editor panel

1. Material Map Browser - where you can save and pre-load your personal materials

2. apply material to selection icon - discussed, scroll up

3. show material in viewport - shows the tiling of your material in viewport, always click this

4. go to parent icon - the "go back"  to main material menu icon

5. eye dropper tool - lets you get materials from a model, use it on aec models since it has standard materials by default. and change each to a compatible arch & design material.

By default, the material editor has standard materials set on its material samples (sphere). But since we are to use mental ray as our rendering engine, It will is logical to use a material that is compatible with mental ray. to change that, click on the standard button.

note: arch and design and architecture materials are 2 different things, do not use the latter.

tip: double clicking the material will view the 

This will automatically prompt you to a material and map browser, then select arch & design (mi)

It will change all the parameters of a standard material to an arch & design.

To speed things up, quickly look for the (Select a template) pull down options just above the arch+design logo. It contains a bunch of architectural template that is vital for our visualization. You can apply the material to your object by drag-drop it directly (not a really good way on doing it) or by selecting your model first then click the apply material to selection icon.

note: It is advisable to try every template.

Before we get excited testing everything, lets look into the first 3 templates

1. Matte finish - any object without sheen or gloss to it,

2. Pearl finish - can also be closely related to satin finish, this appearance can be generally used for low sheen/gloss objects.

3. Glossy finish - need is say more?

The other finishes are self explanatory and provides us with an accurate level of sheen and reflection values. Once you have a little familiar testing, lets try and apply it to a sample scene that will generally cover basic and the not so basic materials.

In this scene we try and explore the following:

1. Changing the diffuse map, changing diffuse color

2. adding bump to our material, displacement

3. playing with water material

4. use of eyedropper tool

1. Changing the diffuse map, color and managing tiling

Now that we are able to appreciate the wide array of materials, your mind is fast in processing "how can I change the material?" We can start by clicking the diffuse map then select bitmap.

 Or if you are already prompted to bitmap options, lets look at these 3 tabs. Coordinates tab, Bitmap parameters tab and Output tab.

Coordinates tab

lets you control the following:

- tiling (repetition of your material pattern) 

- angle of material

- blur, better leave it as it is.

Bitmap parameters tab

For starters, this is where you can change your maps(material), cropping options is in this tab also.

Output tab

If you have a decent pattern but wanting to change its color, or darkness. you can either do photoshop and change your bitmap file or just click on enable color map.

Above is the default bitmap image, and below shows how you can make your material darker, add point to your graph and the use the move (cross) icon to drag it up or down. The key is experimentation. This option is pretty handy for crammers that do not have the luxury of switching between programs.

2. adding bump to our material, displacement

One thing that separates a good rendering to a bad one is its good use of BUMP and DISPLACEMENT. Bump is a neat tool that add texture to your material, without this your material would look like a neatly gift wrapped package ahead of December. adding bump is relatively easy, drag down to your material editor panel and look for the special purpose maps tab. and add a bitmap file on your bump. the value in the middle is will represent how heavy the texture will be.

Same process goes for the displacement map, the displacement map like bump, can add texture to your material. but displacement can affect the geometry of your model. It can distort the geometry depending on the value you put in. Displacement is recommended for carpets and grass.

Diffuse map:

BUMP/ DISPLACEMENT MAP:

Difference between bump and displacement:

Bump

Displacement

The displacement map does give realism to our rendering at a cost of its rendering time. The bump and displacement maps reads the lighter shades as the protruded texture while the dark or black shades to be recessed.

3. playing with water material

This is what the water template looks like when applied.

It does not look anything like water at all, a distorted colored glass maybe, but not close to water. it lacks ripples and translucency. To add that lets use this material as a bump and displacement map, with a value of 0.9 and 0.01 respectively. 

Water bump and displacement map, set the tiling to 3 or more.

After a little tweak...

The ripples came out nice, we have the translucency left to solve, our water is still looking rock solid. lets adjust our transparency to 0.8 and color to white and give it another test render.

Way better than the previous two, this shows more depth and reflects better. if you think that the water needs more blue, then change the refract color to your desired result.

It takes time and effort to really get to know how each value and options will react to your scene, perseverance is golden. Happy rendering!

3dsmax 01

I know this really came in late, so before we proceed on rendering let us be familiar with our work space or user interface (UI). command panels are highlighted and details listed below.

3dsmax user interface:

Pink – Application menu – Open, save files. Etc. usually contains file management commands

Blue – Quick access toolbar - contains most of the file management commands

Green – Menu Bar - generic windows command bar.

Red- Main toolbar – contains the most basic commands needed for 3dsmax

Yellow – Animation tools - contains the time slider, track bar, and time control, all the tools you need for animation.

Orange – coordinate display – displays coordinates.

Purple – Command Panel - contains create, modify, hierarchy, motion, display and utilities panel.

Gray – View cube – standard 3d navigation tool.

Revit 01

It has been almost a month since I uploaded something on this blog, This post will basically give you a short review and refresher on your revit commands and menu.

To get us started, this is the all too familiar work space of revit, each toolbar has different color highlights, details below.

1. Gray – APPLICATION MENU, typical menu where you can save, load, etc.

2. Blue – QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR, sits above the ribbon, can be customized.

3. Red- RIBBON, Icons that represent each command called PANEL, usually has dropdown menus.

4. Green – PROPERTIES PALLETE, list of properties and options of a specific model. Open for editing.

5. Yellow – PROJECT BROWSER, This is like the table of contents of your project, this is where you can select and edit views.

6. Purple – MENU BAR, list of panels where you can hide objects, and change visual details.

7. Orange – NAVIGATION BAR, practically useless unless your mouse does not have a mouse scroll.

After getting re acquainted with revit, the list of shortcuts will help you do things with ease and makes you look PRO, But using the icon selection is not a bad thing to do.

List of revit notes and shortcuts:

Create shortcuts:

UN – units – first thing to do, used to set project units.

WA – create wall – can be accessed at ribbon, wall panel.

DR – create door – can be accessed at ribbon, door panel.

WN – create window - can be accessed at ribbon, window panel.

Drafting, annotations and text shortcuts:

DI  dimension

EL  spot elevation

GR  grid

LL  level

TX  text

TG  tag

RP  ref plane

RT  room tag

DL  detail lines

Edit menu shortcuts:

MD  modify

MV  move

CO  copy (Cntrl-C)

RO  rotate

AR  array

MM  mirror

PR  properties

DE  delete

GP  group

LO  lock objects

SA Select all instances

RE Resize

PP Pin Position UP=unpin

Navigation shortcuts:

SHIFT + MOUSE LEFT CLICK – navigate on model.

ZR  zoom in region

ZO  zoom out (2x)

ZF  zoom to fit

ZE  zoom to fit

ZA  zoom all to fit

ZS  sheet size

ZP  previous scroll/zoom

F8  dynamic view dbox

F5  refresh

DOUBLE ESC – reset command

View menu shortcuts:

VP View Properties

VG Visibility graphics

VH category invisible

Vi Other categories invisible

HH Hide object

HI isolate object

HC hide category

IC isolate category

HR reset temp hide/isolate

source:

Lynda.com/ revit architecture

http://davidddriver.com/Product/Freebies/Revit/Revit%20keyboard%20ShortcutsVert.pdf

3dsmax 02: Mental Ray Exterior

Hi again and welcome to another installment of 3dmax chitorial. Today we will tackle basic exterior setup for Mental Ray. In this exercise, you need to download the revit file found in our facebook group page.

Open a new 3dsmax file and on your [file link manager], open the revit file and select the [revit] preset and wait for it to load.

*Be sure that your unit set-up is on meters [customize][unit set up][system unit setup] select [meters]

After that the revit model will be linked to you 3dmax file. Then set-up your camera view[create][camera][targeted] similar to the image shown below.

with this view we could start with the rendering set-up. just follow the corresponding values below.

*terms and pick-boxes may vary depending on the software version. I am currently using 3ds max 2009.

press [f10]

common tab:

renderer tab:

indirect illumination tab:

For the lighting set up, go to [create][systems][daylight] and input the following values

date and time parameters:

skylight and sunlight tab:

The MR skylight will automatically adjust according to the date and time and will occupy your environmental map shown in the environment and exposure option when you press 8. With that, lets try pressing 8 and adjust it accordingly.

The mr Photographic Exposure control has this SLR camera settings, if you are familiar with analog or digital photography you can easily relate to this, modify at you own accord. If not, the setting specified here will give an acceptable output. To test if we have a proper rendering and lighting set up, we must specify a material.

Press [M] to launch the material editor window and create a test material for our model named matte1, set-up as follow:

After creating a base material, select everything in the model space and apply the material.

press [f3] to view the shaded model, and [f4] to view the wireframe. your model should look like this.

We then hit [f9] for a quick test render... rendering... ... ...

Your test render should look like this. If NOT, scroll up and read carefully! now! (bossy tone)

Skylight - check!
Sunlight - check!
Rendering speed - check!
Model - check!

We are doing good so far. Now lets add a little life to our model by placing some trees.

click [create] [aec extended] [foliage] [select a tree of your choice], image shown below.

*If the tree model is very small try scaling it up and duplicate it then randomly scaling its duplicate and rotation. you can modify the foliage by clicking the foliage and [modify], additional options will be shown.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Before you duplicate anything and if you want to add more trees without crashing your computer, select LOW on the level of detail option shown below. This will allow max to read the models with the minimum amount of polygon. Therefore giving you more freedom to move around your model.

*If you wish to create a unique tree, try clicking the [NEW] button besides seed option and it will randomly create a unique tree of the same tree specie.

total of 11 trees, If you are done composing your perspective view we can hit render again to see the result.

*You can change the mood to dusk, (^_^) happy skylight or dawn by changing the date/time set-up at daylight parameters, it will automatically change the sky. (less hassle)

If you are able to achieve the same or better result we can move to the material set up which we will cover in our next installment of 3ds max chitorial!

3dsmax 03: Mental Ray Interior Lighting

In this tutorial, we will learn the basic lighting setup for interiors using 3ds max 2009's Mental Ray (MR) rendering engine.  I have been in the Architectural Visualization for about 5 years and been to a lot of rendering programs.  In my experience, Mental Ray has one of the best quality rendering.  The only setback, however, is its rendering time.

I am always asked if there are "default" or "standard" set-up for rendering.  Yup! There are!  But don't get too excited yet, because there is no "CLICK HERE - ULTRA REALISTIC RENDER BUTTON".  The rendering standard requires a combination of 3d model, camera, lighting, material, and rendering setup that has a lot of options, values, and multipliers to consider.  Also, a missed checkbox may produce unwanted result.  So it is also safe to say that a series of trial and error is needed to create an acceptable standard for rendering.  And in reality, creating a convincing rendering requires a lot of time, patience, and a good computer.  In this tutorial, I will introduce a basic daylight interior setup, which you can consider a standard interior setup.  Like each individual, digital rendering will always vary form one person to another, that is why you should learn to understand the rendering language and explore.

*Note that this tutorial is only for lighting; material setup is another topic to discuss.

Before we start be sure that you assign Mental Ray as your renderer (F10> COMMON> ASSIGN RENDERER)

tips:
1. to switch between view port, right click to it
2. to maximize a view port, click the lowest right icon (maximize view port toggle)
2. F3 - shaded to no shade mode
3. F4 - wireframe on/off

Let there be Light!

Since this is a daylight setup, we will start by creating a daylight system.
Go to the top view window and (CREATE TAB>SYSTEMS>DAYLIGHT) shown in figure 1, then place it on the center of your model.  Also, notice that the camera angle is a bit distorted, so to correct the vertical shift, go to top view and right click on the camera, then select (Apply Camera Correction).

After placing your Daylight system, a bunch of options will pop at the modify panel. These are the date, time, location options.  Follow the date and time values shown in figure 2 and you will notice that the light source will move automatically.  I intended to place the main light source at the window behind camera.  To edit the location, select (Set Location) then change it to (Asia, Philippines, Manila).

Then select the modify tab button and follow the values and options on figures 3 and 4.  Scroll down to reveal additional options.

We will use MR Sun and MR sky since we will be using Mental Ray rendering, otherwise we will either produce a poor image quality or take a longer rendering time.

Multipliers - this will always be synonymous to intensity your light source, for now use the value of 3 for both sun and sky.
 

That would be your basic lighting setup! but you cannot render yet.  We still have to adjust the MR rendering set-up.  With this option, you can adjust the quality of your rendering.  Press (F10) in the (COMMON PARAMETERS), adjust the Output size width and height to 400x250 respectively.  We will temporarily leave it this small for our test rendering.  The bigger the output size, the longer it takes to render.  We will adjust this later for the final rendering.

Continue to the Renderer and Indirect Illumination tab and apply the following values listed below.

I will try to explain some of the options here in my own terms.  I cannot exhaust every single one.

Sampling quality: You can change the value of this, the bigger the value, the longer it takes to render.

Filter type: Choose Mitchell, this is just a personal preference.  Mitchell filter is good for soft objects.  It is the best choice since this is a bedroom setting.  You can select other filters as you explore the world of Mental Ray.

Final Gather: Enable this, the FG precision presets determine the quality of rendering.  Let us use the LOW setting for now.  We can render in HIGH setting once we are satisfied with our rendering.  This can highly affect the rendering time.

Diffuse bounces: Bounce bounce bounce!  Light bounces infinitely, but we leave this to value of 2.  So it means the light will bounce twice after hitting an object.  WARNING: this can highly affect your rendering time.

Also press 8 to view the environment and effects window. this window allows us to edit the background, global tinting and exposure control. set the tint to white and then select Exposure control to MR PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPOSURE CONTROL. This will let Mental Ray to correctly read the lights and materials to be rendered. Otherwise your render take longer and the output will definitely not please you.

Now let us render! press F9 to render.

TIP: pressing F9 will render your active view port, be sure that the camera view port is active.  If it is rendering another view than the camera, press F10 and manually select the camera viewport.

Er... nice sunlight, but not what we had in mind.  The skylight is not passing through our windows.  We can either increase the Skylight Multiplier, or apply a Skylight portal right at our window to fake the luminance of our skylight.  To do that, go to (create>lights>photometric>mr sky portal), the MR skylight portal is a rectangular light, now go to your RIGHT SIDE VIEW and place a rectangular light with the same dimensions of your window opening and apply the following values.

After applying everything in proper order, press F10 and adjust the rendering resolution to 1280x800 and press RENDER while on your CAMERA VIEW is active.  After the rendering time you should have something like this.

That's more like it!  If the sunlight is too bright for your taste, you can decrease the amount of its multiplier. Cheers!