andymaw

Very useful, thanks very much. It was definitely a question of modelling it over using displacement. I have one view closer up and 3 from much further away annoyingly. I'll use a bump this time I think as it's not so important and I don't think there will be any complaints (it's one of those where they don't even know wha they want yet). Good to know I was thinking the right thing though, so thanks again.

I need to recreate this steel composite cladding material: What is the best option for this? Do I need to model it or can it be created as a material? On a ridiculous deadline so any help v much appreciated!

I know what you mean. I did the same thing yesterday and kept having to up the number of max items, then looked at the stats and it was always above, so kept upping it until eventually it worked. I suppose you may be having the issue because the size of your model is so large. It might be worth trying what the others are suggesting and use a texture, or cut down the area to only what's ever seen by the camera. Sorry can't be more helpful!

If you want to stick with FP, take a look at the stats in the general rollout, that should tell you how many rendered objects there are in the scene. Then adjust the max number in the Display rollout. Keep the max number of visible objects as the default though or the program will become unresponsive, at least it was in my case.

Definitely. I've got another project that I've already taken the photos for so I'll have a test on that one to see if it was project specific. They're not out by a huge degree at all. Maybe it's me being picky and wanting to get it as close to spot on as possible.

Yep, it's 1.5. I render each frame at exactly the same dimensions as each photograph and then stitch in the same way so I don't think that should be causing the problem.

The panoramas are usually about 4 to 6 frames, but I take them at 20 degree intervals and crop them to the centre 50%. I'm also using a macro lens to minimise distortion (there's almost none on this lens I use). It's expected that they won't line up 100% perfectly in a panorama but the control points I've used should definitely be at the same scale, or very close to, as the photo using the 'correct' focal length wouldn't you say?

Thanks for the link Chris. Interesting read. I've been playing with the renders at different focal lengths and am finding that producing them using the 47.233mm that the VRay analysis tool gave me is working out best. I took a surveyor with me when taking the photographs so I have accurate locations to within 25mm of the camera position and the control points I used (survey rods). That said then, the renders should line up almost perfectly in the panorama using the correct camera settings (i.e. 50mm focal length) so it's very odd that it doesn't. If I render at 50mm the control point rods are too large, but at 47.233 the rods are pretty much the correct scale but positionally not quite right. Very frustrating!

I'll be honest, I've never tried camera matching with the native camera. I've always gone for VRay as I like how close it is to a real life camera. I'll have to give it a shot at some point though. Still can't figure this out, trying lots of different settings. Just rendered without the lens file to see if that makes any difference at all though I assume that's purely for the distortion so shouldn't have any noticeable effect.

Recently I used the VRay lens analysis tool on a photo I took using a Canon 5D MkII with a Sigma 50mm Prime lens. Weirdly, after analysing fine, it put the focal length as 47.233. Any ideas why that might be? All the tech specs online say that that the lens is 50mm bang on. Then in Max, when I set the VRay camera to 50mm using a film gate of 36mm I'm not getting a perfect result. If I drop the focal length to around 48mm it's a lot better. I really need to get this spot on for the work that I do so any help greatly appreciated.

I'm no expert but I had to transfer from sketchup to max recently. I needed to weld all of the vertices to get a decent render. You may also have to flip the normals too if it looks like faces are missing.

Hi there, I'm working on a project of an industrial park, trying to get a clay render but with correct lighting using the daylight system, vray cameras and lights. I'm using GI and Indirect Illumination as well as the vray sun but can't work out why the shadows (highlighted by the red boxes in the attached image) seem to radiate up from some of the edges. Any ideas? If you need more render settings just say. I'm figuring it's something quite simple I'm missing as I'm quite new to this.

Managed to set up the render using GI alone which is producing a better output. Could anyone tell me why the wireframe lines are not crisp though? It's coming out looking a bit sketchy in style. On a tight deadline and starting to get that element of panic!

I'm struggling to see how that can be right. When I change the opacity back up to 100% it renders the shadows as pitch black, which you surely wouldn't get from the sun. Could it be because the models are all in space? There are no planes because I need to be able to put the render into a photo. Are there any other methods of getting to what I want to achieve? Perhaps just with GI? I just want the buildings to be white with black wireframes.

Spoke too soon! I want the buildings to be semi transparent white with black wireframe but this is what I'm getting. Any thoughts?!