I'm sure most everyone knows about (and how to) adjust the look of your textures with the bitmap output settings. But since I've been using Max9 and the log. exposure control, I've found myself adjusting the output settings quite frequently to dial in my textures for use with the log. exposure control.

So here's some ultra simple examples on taking a single wood floor texture and creating several different versions by tweaking the output settings.

Here's the basic texture with no output adustments:


And here are a few adjusted versions. Of course you can also adjust the colors by using the "RGB" option and tweaking the colors to suit your scene.

I'm figure I'm not the only person who has struggled to understand how to control the physical SSS shader in mental ray/3dsmax. The info on lamrug.org helps a bit:
http://lamrug.org/resources/physsstips.html
Eventhough the information is based on Maya, it's easy to use the same settings in 3dsmax. Scale is of upmost importance when using this shader, so keep that in mind. Here's some examples & settings from my Max9 tests:

Milk (1 unit = 1 inch):


Here's a skin-like example (1 unit = 1 inch):


One thing to notice is that I used a similar scale conversion number for both examples. Oddly enough for centimeters some of the documentation states to use 2.54 for the scale and therefore inches scale would equal 25.4...but then in the examples they don't use either. So really, in all my tests I've found a range somewhere between 6.0 and 15.0 to work fairly well. I never had much luck with 25.4, even when my units are properly set to inches.

Might as well try to make this blog thingy somewhat useful just incase someone stumbles across this. So I thought it might be helpful to show some mental ray arch-viz examples/settings/tips/etc.

Mental ray is perfectly capable of creating nice exterior arch-viz lighting, and with rather simple settings at that. Here's an example light setup for Max7-8 and the corresponding render:
(click image for larger versions or links)
Setup:

Resulting render:


For Max6-8 & mental ray, I've found it to be a good practice to use an adjusted gamma with log. exposure control (or simply the adjusted gamma). However, more than likely you'll need to add a bit of contrast into the image in post (or with the built-in brightness & contrast effect in Max).

Some additional info on the gamma settings can be found here:
http://www.vizdepot.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3465

I haven't left out Max9 info. Arch-viz rendering has become even easier with the introduction of mental ray 3.5 in Max9. Arch-exteriors are as simple as setting up a daylight system, enabling the mrSun & mrSky, choosing a FG preset and rendering. Here are a few simple daylight conditions:


In Max9, it's also easy to create great looking interior lighting conditions, even with one light:

(Credit to Bryan Howard for creating the great test scene)

Keep in mind that in Max9 the log. exposure control has been adjusted to work better with mental ray. Therefore, it's recommended that you should only use either the log. exposure control OR an adjusted gamma setting...not both together.

Earlier today I was testing the panoramic output options with Vue6 and created a couple of simple skydomes. I've loaded them onto my website if anyone finds them useful:






So far I must say I find the spectral sky system in Vue6 to be simply amazing.

Well, I figured I might as well try this blog-thing out. To me, blogs often seem like an online diary at times. Sooooo, without further delay....Heeeerrrrrreeee's my very first blog entry:

Current Projects:
I'm working on a couple of 3dsmax/mental ray training videos. They cover Max 6 though 9 now. One video series discusses the settings, shaders/materials, lighting types, caustics/GI/FG, photon sizing, tips & tricks, unlocking & editing shaders, and lot's more. In other words it's a general discussion of all the various settings and differences between all the versions with some focus on project specific topics. This set will be available as an online download.

The second set is a Max9/mental ray project based training series with a focus on typical workflow. That of course includes lighting, materials, render settings, network/distributed rendering, etc. It's "generally" geared towards the architectural & product visualization communities. It will be available in DVD format.

I should have all of the video recording completed later this year and I'm guesstimating they will "hit the shelves" early on in 2007.

Beyond those, I'm working on creating a mental ray material repository area. It sounds like we'll make some good progress on this project next week. I'll post more updates here as appropriate.

I'm also working with another moderator at Vizdepot.com (Jason Addy) to review the craftanimations plugins http://craftanimations.com/ Thus far, I'm very impressed with these animation plugins. They really make animating vehicles & cameras easy...and fun.

Thankfully, I also have a few freelance jobs underway (can't supply details on these). The freelance side of things for me are what keep me afloat here (financially)...so the majority of my time is spent working on them.

I think that's about in regards to the "CG" side of my life right now. Between work and everyday life, there's quite a bit going on and that really makes the day's fly by (I'm sure that's the same for all of us). Thanksgiving seemed to sneak up on me, I'll have to make sure Christmas doesn't do the same.

I'll try to ensure my future blog entries aren't this long-winded (yaaay...and there was much rejoicing)

Cheers!