Gus_Rayvus

I think you might lose that one John.

Not to be a smart ass, but are your transforms set to view or are they set to something else? That or you might have constrain to edge checked if you are working with editable poly.

Hey Tom, Whatever program you are using for post will have the option to animate you DOF. If you render your z-depth element as a floating point 32bit file, you will have the full range of z-depth even if you cant see it. If you need a hand setting it up just fb message me.

Nic, you should post some of your work so I can give you valuable crits like, Amazing!, I didn't think you where alowed to post photographs, can u share your settings pleaze, or pleze give us that texture. Or something simillair in that circle jerk, can I steal your work sort of vein. I understand we all have to make a living, peddle books etc., but it would be nice if there was a real crit area, like cgtalks hardcore crit tab, were people aren't looking for a pat on the back and a preset.

You could use Ghost Trails a plugin, or a partical system. The easiest and cheapest way I can think of would be to convert you animation path to a spline, copy that for each of the tires, make is square and renderable and have texture coordinates, put you tire print texture on that, and animate a gradient ramp in the opacity, to revel it after the tire goes over it. Sounds like a cool project, would be great if you posted after it was done.

Someone has made a nice dynamic rig for free with spring weight, etc. I cant remember who it is, but it was on cgtalk, do a search on cgtalk. To script what you described would be a nightmare.

b = $ thelastframe = sliderTime thelastframe = lastframe - 1f at time thelastframe print b.pos Above is how you look one frame back on the position of an object, but seriously though Sergey, I just told you why one way is so much better than the other and you still want to go that route? Anyways, good luck.

Well it does and doesn't. it understands frames and position. You can run a script after you have animated the vehicle, that would look back a frame or frames and see the position of the vehicle and calculated the distance and then update your rotation key frame, but any changes you make in the animation you would have to clear the keys and run the script again. Or you could use a scripted controller that would rotate the wheel the correct amount when ever you moved the car. In real time, animated or not. Velocity and speed are not important in what you described earlier. I think all you need is rotation based on distance so the tire surface moves accordingly to the road surface and rotates the correct amount per movement.

A couple of general things I think that might help you. 1) as a rule of thumb you should be able to look at an interior and without looking at windows know what time of day it is. As you can see in Tom's cranking of contrast and vignette. The rendering looks like a night rendering with glowing windows. 2) what is this rendering of? compositional ask yourself that. Is it about the chandelier or is it about the room, if its not the chandelier you need to loose the zdepth blur and pick a stronger camera angle. 3) also add some detail in self illuminated material especially if you are going to be so close to it. 4) a interior light bulb will never be brighter than the sun. For someone just starting out, its looking really good. there are some more nit picky things, but I think I would focus on the big picture first. Good Job.

You need to unwrap it. search "unwrap uvw" in max help or google.

You need to "wire it" based on position rather than velocity. Since, in max's "brain" there is no speed just position. You could use a "scripted controller" and work out your circumference of your wheel to distance traveled from 0,0,0to rotation. if your vehical is turning it becomes more complicated.

The square pattern makes me think it is a rendering issue. Are you distributing it? If so, it looks like a machine is dropping the maps.

Studio/Institution: Freelance Client: Personal Project Genre: Other Software: 3dsmax Vray Website: http://www.wildman3d.com Description: Still from a personal animation

nice one!

I think Jeff is completely correct. When and if people pay that for a rendering, they are not paying that for a break down of costs, they are paying that because they know the end product will be excellent and delivered on time. It is peace of mind money. Most companies or individuals make a couple of good renderings (stuff they showcase on their website), the people who can charge in that direction, always make great renderings.