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!