How do I turn on those hidden shaders in Max 2009 Design?

[Joel C.]

Hi guys...

I tried a Google and a search here, but have yet to actually find a "This is what to do". I came close once on Google, but it was a dead link.

In Max 2009 Design, how do I make use of those wonderful and highly secretive 'hidden shaders' with arcane names like mib_blackbody and the like?

I've never known how to use it, but it seems to be different for Max 2009 Design than, say, Max 2008. In 2008, there seems to be a rollout under the modify tab that says "mental ray Light Shader". That doesn't seem to exist in 2009 Design.

Randomly clicking like a trained monkey, I found under Sky Portal that I have an "Advanced Parameters" rollout, with a CUSTOM section that I can click on to load one of those fancy shaders.

But I don't have anything like that under my materials.

It's quite perplexing.

Any hints or tips would be greatly appreciated.\

Cheers

[Jeff Patton]

http://jeffpatton.cgsociety.org/blog/archive/2007/10/

[Joel C.]

Thanks Jeff - I'll have to have a play with it.

[Brian Bradley]

Hey Joel,

Pretty sure you bought How To modules 7 & 8
for MR? I go through the process of getting to
those shaders in there! At least I think I do?

Gonna check.

Regards
Bri

[Tay Al-Rawi]

I think the Mip Shaders are not hidden in Max (Design) 2009
They are now swupported and you dont have to unhide them.

[Joel C.]

Hey Joel,

Pretty sure you bought How To modules 7 & 8
for MR? I go through the process of getting to
those shaders in there! At least I think I do?

Gonna check.

Regards
Bri

D'oh! I told ya I needed to re-visit what all I got from you, mate.

I think I'll have to spent the afternoon tripping down memory lane...

Thanks for the heads up.

[Joel C.]

I think the Mip Shaders are not hidden in Max (Design) 2009
They are now swupported and you dont have to unhide them.

Ah... hmm.. okay. I browsed through the base.mi and architectural_max.mi files and saw a bunch of things with the hidden parameter.

I think I'm not experienced enough in this area to say for sure.

Tutorial time!

Thanks for replying.

[Travis Schmiesing]

So, if I enable some hidden features, and then send out to render on the Backburner, what happens? Do I need to enable these hidden features on all machines, or will MR use them without a problem?

[Joel C.]

I found a white balance tutorial on the 'net (a mental ray forum/blog) that had a max file and when I opened it, the rollout was there.

I closed the scene, reset max, made a light, not there.

I've gone through and unhidden lots of things now, as well as following Bri's advice to get that rollout to appear:

In Max 2009 Design, to get the mental ray Light Shader:
Customize Menu> Custom UI and Defaults Switcher. Set it to 'Max' or 'Design
Viz', which will assign the scanline renderer, then just go and assign MR as
your renderer through the 'Render scene' Dialogue, assign renderer rollout.

[Stan Zaslavsky]

Joel - u'r a champ - i'm going through the book Rendering w MR & 3D Max and it also talked about some MR light shader and i couldn't find a reference to it anywhere.

thanks to the above - it worked perfectly!