Jeff Patton JeffPatton Location: Lexington, USA Language(s):
English Member Since: August 2002 Last Updated: 14 November 2009 Portfolio Views: 1063536 Chosen as Favorite: 520
Dave - IMHO it would be best to direct your questions about Kizo's workflow & post production methods to him as I can only wildly guess at the methods he (or anyone else) uses.
As for the HDR questions, I'd recommend that you first view Zaps master classes at the AREA site because 1. The content is great. 2. You can't beat the price...as they are free. Here's a link to that content: http://area.autodesk.com/masterclasses/class09_mray so check that out and see if it helps answer your HDR questions.
I'd also recommend starting a thread about your HDR workflow questions at your favorite forum & be sure to post example renders of what you have now that doesn't look right to you. I'm sure you'll get some valuable feedback/tips...best of all, that's free also.
After that if you need additional info I have some video tutorials at Gnomon that may be helpful: http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/in.../jpa_bundle.php
I'm referring to the "Using HDRs", "Architectural Exteriors - Day", and "Architectural Exteriors - Night" videos.
loving those car renders with the hdr's from hdr light studio.
one question though, how have you used th hdri in your scene?
is it with daylight system?
the reason i ask is this, i've been having massive struggles for quite some time now with getting the correct workflow for using backplates/hdri's and matching the lighting.
i've been trying to study kizo's work for quite some time now aswel as i feel he does what i'm trying to achieve really well. he wond the last evermotion rendering competition and most of the other recent competitions (3d allusions) and is currently storming ahead in the vizdepot one too (the vizdepot one is what i'm trying to follow and study)
i notice he is creating hdrs in maxwell (i can do this in hdr light studio)
he also takes his own background photo's (sky's etc)
i'm still trying to work out how he gets to his final render though.
what is his sky/lighting workflow in 3d and then what else is done in post?
this is what i believe i should be doing
-take own sky photo to capture the sky i want
-in hdr light studio create a hdr matching similar colours from the sky photo
-create daylight system, mrsun and normal skylight (no mr physical sky)
-place hdr in 3ds max environment
-point skylight at max environment map
-adjust hdri position so sun direction aligns with how the sun will be placed after final backplate compositing
-position daylight system time of day to match backplate
-position mrsun to match the position of sun in hdr
-adjust exposure to suit
-render out
-add backplate in photoshop
thats where i'm up to so far. however it just doesn't look right. i'm not sure i'm using the correct hdr workflow with the daylight system in terms of exposure/output settings.
should my res output match that of my 'to be composited' backplate sky photo
is this the correct workflow in general
also the workflow i mentioned above will only give me the reflections from the hdri, however, if i have a lot of glass in the scene i would want to replace the environment hdri with the actual backplate jpeg, or i guess i could map the jpeg to a sphere surrounding the scene that is simply set to be only visible to reflections (however this may not match the final backplate after the composite)
sorry for the long post it's just something i can't seem to get my head round the workflow
Well, I just bought your cd from the gnomon workshop about the car rendering, and it seems to be quite interesting.
When I started off with max, I always wanted to make a photo-realistic car but was not able to model it (lol), so just thought of lighting,texturing and compositing.
I have a little bit of problem here:
I tried to setup the things as in the video,everything worked out to be great when i rendered but only the bg was irritating me as after the render completed, there was a big white spot in the image where the sun was actually in the bg(not talking about the mrsun). I lateron figured out that the problem was due to setting up the exposure value to 14 in the Environment and Effects dialogue box. So i set it up to 15 but then the render came out to be dull. The Physical scale was unitless and setup to 80000.
So what would you suggest?
A lower exposure value with a lower physical scale or let the exposure be 15 and higher the physical scale.
Or may be just photoshop it?
what would be the way that would be more accurate??
Thanks sir for answers. Gradient ramp to control light appearance, yes I heard that sometime but didn't connect it to this blurry effects. About translucent object, u're right, it'd be very time-consuming & hard to control the result (seem it's the way people make soft light boxes in reallife...?)
Oh, and of course I didn't mention about job 'coz you've join 3D since 198x and work in very long time as freelance artist. Surely job isn't a problem for you at all.
You wrote that you started to learning photography, ur gallery looks pretty eye-catching n beautiful. Especial those ones display animal & flowers. So beautiful~
nnq2603 - "Can u give some details about way you build that studio in 3d environment?" - Use self-illuminated meshes to represent the visible light sources & assign a gradient ramp or painted bitmap to drive the self-illumination. You could also put a translucent object in front of a traditional light source, but naturally that will increase the render times.
nnq2603 - "Why a lot of renders in your gallery here usually come out from another guy's model? Using pre-made models n deal with setup:light/mat/etc... for quality result is nice n not easy but portfolio seems looks weaker a bit by those models." - I'm sure it does weaken my portfolio to some extent. Especially true if I were looking for a job as a modeler and/or generalist. Bottom line, I'll have to add more of my own content in the future to balance things out a bit.
johannmoises - "I got some images in 360º very beautiful and I would use them in my studies as Background (Architectural and etc...) on 3ds max. They are those panoramic or 360 º images in .JPG, I do not know how to use them correctly, you could give me a HELP?" - Assuming they are daytime images and you want to use them in conjunction with the mrSun to help illuminate the scene I would:
1. Create a daylight system with the mrSun & skylight (no mrSky).
2. Assign your 360 background as the scene environment using spherical mapping & correct gamma settings.
3. Configure the skylight to use the environment.
4. Enable the mrPhotographic Exposure control & configure it for a daylight scene.
5. Use the unitless physical scale option on the mrPhotographic Exposure control and configure it for something like 80000 units.
6. Enable FG & render.
If you only want to use them for reflections/background and not illumination then follow the above steps but use the mrSky in the daylight system instead of the skylight & disable the aerial perspective option on the mrSky.
Hello Jeff,how are you?Well, I have a simple problem.I got some images in 360º very beautiful and I would use them in my studies as Background (Architectural and etc...) on 3ds max. They are those panoramic or 360 º images in .JPG, I do not know how to use them correctly, you could give me a HELP?And SORRY SORRY for bad english! I love your tutorials,I always buy what I can,they are perfects!!!
Thank you man,I´ll be waiting for the answering.
See you!
Hey man, can I ask you more info about "soft light boxes" that you mentioned in description of a image (which display a yellow car with blurry reflection)... Can u give some details about way you build that studio in 3d environment?
And another question... sorry if you don't like it. Just my quez... Why a lot of renders in your gallery here usually come out from another guy's model? Using pre-made models n deal with setup:light/mat/etc... for quality result is nice n not easy but portfolio seems looks weaker a bit by those models.
I've been a fan of your work for a long time now, and I have just recently purchased one of your Gnomon videos (interior lighting), and will be looking to get a few more in the future...
Just a quick question, when I downloaded the file from Gnomon, was there meant to be an attached scene file that I could follow along with? Or just the video itself? I always like to work through a similar scene as I progress through the video.
