3dsmax - annoyances no. 1

I'm not usually one of those people who resists change in computer software, but I do when 'new' is both less intuitive and also slower. So this post is really just a reminder to myself of what to do to revert the 3dsmax select dialog to the old style one, and the material/map browser (within the material editor) as well. Enjoy!

C: > Users > *username* > AppData > Local > Autodesk > 3dsMax(Design) > 2013 - 64bit > ENU > en-US > defaults > MAX.vray > Currentdefaults.ini

[Scene Explorer] SelectByNameUsesSceneExplorer=0

(If you aren't using vray then the path will be slightly different)

C: > Users > *username* > AppData > Local > Autodesk > 3dsMax(Design) > 2013 - 64bit > ENU > plugcfg_ln > SME.ini

UseOldMtlBrowser=1

EDIT:

And another thing while I'm at it. I prefer having the file menu visible rather than just as an icon, luckily this is very easy to do, just customize your UI, click the menus tab and drag the file menu back where it should be like this:

Thanks to Pixela I think it was who originally helped me with this!

45 Skies - 3docean update!

UPDATE: My HDR Sky shop is now open, please buy my products there instead, thanks!

Before I start making new skies, I decided to go back and work a bit more on all the old ones. If you bought any of them, you can now log in to 3docean.net and download the updated versions.

Changes include:

  • The original horizon has been removed from the HDR files, and the photos used to make the HDRi re-processed for a smoother, noise free image.
  • Radiance (.hdr) and OpenEXR (.exr) file sizes have been optimized to improve loading times.
  • 16 bit RAW versions of the backplate photos now included to allow greater freedom in post processing.

Enjoy!

EDIT: labelled version as requested.

EDIT 2: Any new skies won't be happening anytime soon I'm afraid, I'll probably wait till I have 9 ready so that I can offer them as a pack for a reduced price straight away.

EDIT 3: Lots of people asking how to get the updated skies. Just log into 3docean as normal, click on the downloads tab and you will see all the products you have bought from 3docean, then just download the ones you want. All my skies on 3docean have been updated so you will get the new version when you download.

Mot Renders and a mini c4d tutorial

house-roces-fog-cam-1

house-roces-fog-cam-1

house-roces-fog-cam-2

house-roces-fog-cam-2

house-roces-fog-cam-3

house-roces-fog-cam-3

Some more nice new work in my inbox this morning, this time from Mouton Burger (Mot Renders). What is a little bit different with this work, is that it was done using Cinema 4D. Good to see that my HDRi skies work just as well in c4d as they do in other packages.

The sky Mouton used was "1941 Dusk Blue", and here is a guide to using HDRi skies in cinema4d together with vray:

untitled-2_500

untitled-2_500

General: In c4d project settings, LWF should be disabled and the color profile set to sRGB Vray Color Mapping: Check the LWF tickbox and set the gamma to 2.2

1. Create cinema 4d arealight 2. Add vraylight tag to it

b

b

3. set the intensity to 1.6

c

c

4. Go to Area light tab and set the Area type to Dome

a

a

5. Add your Sky hdri in the texture slot and set the color Profile to sRGB

6. Insert the hdri in a Filter shader and set the gamma to 1.0 (or 0.75 if you wan't to boost the strength of the sun like this tutorial) 7. Add a vrayphysicalcamera tag to your camera in order to control exposure, depth of field etc.

rendering OOF* highlights

clamp-comparison2

clamp-comparison2

Just a quick comparison between rendering the quick way (A) and the sloooooooooow way (B). Guess which method I always use?

A: In vray's color mapping section, Sub-pixel mapping is ticked, as is Clamp output (set to a value of 1.0).

B: Both Sub-pixel mapping and Clamp output unticked.

Even if you aren't trying to get this particular lens effect, I still recommend rendering unclamped for trees (and many other situations), it just looks so much more realistic. When I get a chance, I'll render the same scene without DOF to show you the difference.

EDIT:

clamp-comparison31

clamp-comparison31

C: clamped, and sub-pixel mapping ON D: unclamped, sub-pixel mapping OFF

Even without DOF, I think it trees still look much more realistic when rendered unclamped.

* out of focus

Lighting test by Saiful Said

Saiful Said sent me a nice selection of images, one of which features my 1934 sky. Love the warmth of the direct sun contrasted with the cool skylight. You can read more about it and see the rest of the images on Ronen's blog.

minimalist test - dusk

minimalist test - dusk

ArchitecturePasteBook

archpastebook

archpastebook

Looking for inspiration? May I suggest having a look at ArchitecturePasteBook curated by Andy Matthews (photographer, architect). I for one am thankful for the work he puts into it as it saves me a LOT of time trawling round the blogs! (and it seems we have a very similar idea of what's good and what's not so good)

Hardware FAQ

I get so many questions about what hardware I use that I decided to write a short blog entry that I can direct people to rather than giving them Steve Jobs style minimal answers.

I use a Mac Pro as my main machine, and currently have 2 intel i7-980x based render slaves. The Mac Pro is about 5 years old and boots directly into windows, in fact I can't even boot into osx anymore as I stuck a non osx verified graphics card in it. Bootcamp works perfectly with windows. Essentially all bootcamp is anyway is a set of drivers for the graphics card, audio, bluetooth, wifi, lan etc.

After 5 years of working for myself I have come to the conclusion that what is most valuable to me in my main workstation is reliability. My ageing Mac Pro has been incredible in this regard and if I replace it I'll probably go for a similar type of machine. So even though it might be better value for money to get a couple of i7 machines and overclock them, I would prefer to go the non-overclocked xeon route, with lots of ECC ram. Having your own mini render farm is great, but often for quick test renders what you really want is a very powerful main machine. Thats my preference anyway.

If you are on a budget then of course a single processor machine will be a better bet, especially as you can stuff them full of ram these days. I'm not very up to date on what the latest and greatest is in cpu technology and even less so when it comes to graphics cards. The best I can do is send you over to 3datstech.com as Andy Lynn's amazon lists are pretty handy and fairly up to date.