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Kirsten Zirngibl

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  1. I have the need to create a tapered strut effect on some heavy geometry. I have tried a few different ways to do it, and feel like I still haven't struck the optimal one. Here's the type of effect I'm going for. The "best" method I've found so far is to use the morpher modifier, but I am unhappy with it: 1. Apply lattice modifier, struts only, with multiple segments 2. Store a thin version and a thick version in the morpher modifier. Set the thick version to 100%. 3. Duplicate the object, remove modifiers, then add a lattice modifier this time with joints only. Collapse to editable poly. 4. Go back to the strut/morpher version, and place a volume select modifier under the morpher modifier. Set the selection object mode to mesh and then pick the joint geometry just created in Step 3. Activate soft selection within vertex mode so that it interpolates between thick and thin state. So, yes, it does work, but... - It's really, really slow. It takes me many minutes of Max locking up to apply any changes, and it takes a long time just to select. - It's dependent on strut length. Ideally, I would have each strut taper in the same manor, regardless of how spaced the joint "volume select" meshes are. - Opening a scene with this applied takes a really long time for the file size. --------------------------------------- I have also tried using the graphite strip selection tools to get this effect, by selecting ends in poly mode, inverting selection, converting selection to edges, then shrinking until I have the central edge of every strut automatically selected, then activating soft selection and resizing in local coordinate mode. However, this method was even laggier, and requires collapsing the strut geometry first, barring me making changes to strut geometry as easily. It also has the same problem as the method above, as in, the soft selection is fixed, meaning that the taper amount applies differently depending on the length of the strut. --------------------------------------- I have also tried the TySplineMesher (From TyFlow plugin). This requires converting all edges to splines first, though, which is problematic because "create shape" will often create one continuous spline where multiple struts would be, so without exploding the whole thing to individual spline segments and attaching in chunks to prevent Max from crashing, it's not very feasible. --------------------------------------- I suspect this is a common effect people would want to achieve for modern architecture, so I may be missing something much easier/resource-efficient. Anyone have better suggestions for solving this problem? Thanks!
  2. Also worth mentioning, my current workaround is to rotate all my cameras 90 degrees. The problem is I'll have to do this hundreds of times, and it would disrupt my workflow in other ways, but at least it's something...
  3. I need to generate a cube map in V-ray, one like this: However, when I render in Box mode, it comes out "vertical" like this: I don't see any settings for changing the configuration. I need to make hundreds of renders in this mode, and edit them in Photoshop where I have a consistent panorama around the horizon line. I don't like the way V-ray is breaking it up and turning part of the horizon line upside down, any tips? Thanks.
  4. I'm considering building a new system, as my main work machine is currently a laptop. I was going to go with the AMD Ryzen 3900K processor for handling very heavy scenes, optimizing more for test renders over final renders, but still doing some very large final renders occasionally. I decided to benchmark it against the Intel processor in my laptop, an Intel i7 8700K, and surprisingly, the AMD is only 2-7% faster depending on core use (though it didn't show all 12). I was expecting it to be a lot higher. I would want at least a 25% increase to consider it worth the hassle and cost of building a new system. I'm assuming that system doesn't pay attention to core count or something? Yet when I go to ChaosGroup's benchmarks (I use V-ray), the Ryzen 3900X gets almost double the score. So are sites like UserBenchmark at all useful for the type of work we do? As I understand, the ChaosGroup benchmark only is about final renders, and I don't know where to go to look for modeling with heavy geometry/scenes. I also assume that software like 3DS Max is optimized for the Intel chipset. Is the 3900X still the way to go compared to something like the i9 9900k, if my primary goal is to reduce lag and secondary is to speed up test renders? Does Turboboost work similarly for either for the work we do? Thanks.
  5. I'm creating a mirror room (like one of these). I need a completely enclosed piece of hollow geometry which will infinitely reflect the objects inside. What I'm running into is that I can't get rid of the "pure black" in the scene. I want to have some kind of GI/ambient light in there. I have tried adding a V-ray ambient light, which does light up the OBJECTS but there is always a dead space of pure black where the walls are. There are no diffuse surfaces (like painted walls) to scatter around the point lights in the scene. VrayEnvironmentFog works OK, but seems to increase render time by a lot and kinda obscures the scene more than I'd like. Any alternatives to it, or other tricks for getting a better result/effect? (Version: V-ray Next CPU)
  6. Update: Also tried the "push" modifier. This thickened the water beyond the walls. (I had a crinkled surface problem just like shell, but flattened it manually in edit poly mode). However, I am still getting seams. So I think it's not because of negative space between water and vessel, but instead something about the shape of the vessel itself and how it interacts with the water, an artifact from the merge. It's worth noting that the geometry doesn't have the seams when rendered without water.
  7. I'm trying to do something that seems simple. Filling a pool with water. My original way to do it worked well: I took the open basin geometry, removed the Shell modifier, capped holes, then applied Scalpel (a Cebas plugin that slices/flattens geometry cleanly) so that it was just below the lip. It gave me a perfect inverse of the original geometry, so that the water was flush with the inside of the basin. However, once I applied a Turbosmooth modifier to the basin geometry and some minor tweaks to the juncture points, it doesn't match the original geometry of the water perfectly, creating ugly seams. To eliminate the seams, I have tried modifying the old water geometry to make it a bit "thicker" so that it overlaps all inner surfaces of the bowl. For example, I added a shell modifier it and selected the inner surface and deleted it. However, Shell adds artifacts to the top surface (little seams). Uniform rescale also does not work because of the irregularity of the object. I have tried meshsmooth/turbosmoothing the water geometry as well, but that creates other surface irregularities, and alters the geometry in such a way that I can't flatten/fix the surface using Scalpel anymore. I then tried the original water creation method, selecting the inside of the basin after Turbosmooth had been added, creating a new object with that selection, capping holes/applying Scalpel again. This however created some weird problems with the normals, making the water black despite applying a "Normal" modifier. It appears there's something that Meshsmooth or Turbosmooth does to the basin's topology that makes this old method fail. I have also tried using ProBoolean to create an inverse water shape, but still had issues with artifacts/normals. What would you do in this situation? Do people use fluid sim tools for static renders because of these difficulties? Seems like there's gotta be something simple I'm missing. (I am in 3DS Max 2017. I have uploaded a .max 2015 version of the basin/liquid in question if anyone wants to take a crack at it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yrjhxhq3rguiosr/BasinFillTestScene.max?dl=0) Also, here is a link to some of the failed attempts to fill the basin flawlessly: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/iy33hj4cbq1f8gj/AABKgByLxGleZMdNqQ47fmada?dl=0 Would appreciate some insight! Thanks.
  8. Just to follow up, I beat at this some more with trial and error and managed to get this working (somewhat). Hopefully it'll be helpful to someone with the same issue. For MultiScatter: The .vrmesh Display Mode must be set to "point" for Multiscatter to work. However, no previews are shown in the viewport, the scattered objects are effectively invisible there and yet render fine. For MultiPainter: The .vrmesh Display Mode must be set to "bounding box" for Multiscatter to work. Now for the next problem... for both modes, the scatter instance renders black. The only way to get vertex-color-in-the-diffuse-slot-VrayMtl rendering properly is to use the Multiscatter Utility (in the utilities panel) to "generate objects from selected scatters." This is not a good solution though, since I would want to go in and edit my scatters and not have to "bake" them out all the time. Would really hinder my workflow. Any thoughts on that one?
  9. I have many point cloud objects I'm trying to scatter in 3DS Max 2017 and render via V-Ray. (According to iCube's site, they support all .vrmesh objects for scattering.) I used V-Ray's "OBJ GEO PLY to .vrmesh Converter" utility to convert a .ply point cloud into a .vrmesh. It renders great in V-ray. However, when trying MultiScatter or MultiPainter and using that .vrmesh as a scatter/paint object, nothing shows up in the viewport. When trying to render, Max crashes. Any way I can get this working? And if it's impossible, is there an alternative scattering package that supports point-cloud based .vrmesh objects? Thanks.
  10. Oh, awesome, thanks for following up about it. I'd lost some hope last night when I realized that GPU rendering doesn't support VrayWireColor render pass. Seemed like that meant that it was blind to that aspect of a Max scene in general.
  11. Hey, just an update. I'm on the V-ray Next v4 trial right now and just noticed that this technique only works for the CPU renderer. The material's default diffuse color is the only thing that shows up when using Vray Next's GPU render. Any insights as to why this is?
  12. I have a custom mesh with an environment fog within it. I am trying to get a nice gradient transition at the edge of the bounding mesh that the regular gizmos afford. Yet no matter what I set the "Gizmo falloff radius" to, I am unable to get that falloff. (I have ticked "per gizmo falloff enable" in the VrayEnvironmentFog nodes rollout, as well as setting it in general parameters. There does seem to be SOME difference between a crazy high number and zero in "gizmo falloff radius" but it's just lower fog opacity all through the bounding mesh. I have also tried adjusting max steps, falloff mode, merge mode, and ticking "deep output." Through this, the sharp transition at the mesh gizmo edge remains. Any idea what's going wrong? Thanks in advance.
  13. This works beautifully, so many thanks, Morné! I knew there had to be some way to do this... I see "diffuse_col_from_wire = 0.443137,0.529412,0.0235294" in the User Defined Object Properties field for one of the objects I ran the script on. Multiplying those decimals by 255 yields the wire color. Nifty!
  14. I'm working on a 3DS Max 2017/Vray 3.6 project with hundreds of objects, each with a unique wire color. I want to apply a single material to all of them such that its diffuse color is whatever that specific object's wire color is. This was possible in Mental Ray, via the object color shader, but I'm not finding it in Vray. Here is an example of applying a metallic material to everything in the scene via Mental Ray while using wire color (bottommost image). I found and fixed a script that allows you to generate a Vray material for each object with its wire color as diffuse. However, it doesn't really do what I'm asking because now each object has a separate Vray material. The whole idea is to use one material (and one I already have in my library) to apply to all the objects at once... I'll put it in here in case anyone if it's helpful to anyone stumbling on this thread, though: objs = selectByName title:"Select the objects you want to create a VRay material for" for obj in objs do ( newMat = VRayMtl() newMat.diffuse = obj.wirecolor obj.material = newMat )Really hope there's a way to do this. It's practically a necessity if I'm to stick with Vray for this type of personal work. Thanks!
  15. Many thanks for taking a look! The script indeed works great for the lathed objects. For the irregular surfaces, things got pretty funky. I've been playing with the body object's initial parameters with some success, although it seems impossible to get it "perfect." But being able to select partial edge loops still saves me considerable time when I need to wrap geometry around the surface. I still can't figure out what's happening with the flat shape information, though. It shows up in the FBX but not the IGES. Another missing piece of information from the iges import is "stroke" information (basically, lofted splines). In a different test, it appears something is coming in, but nothing is showing in the viewport. (below) (Test file fbx/iges here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vscqhlokh5g72bx/AAA0n0nswHqitZ1RtWx-l-HEa?dl=0) Indeed I am! I haven't been using it for long, but already I see it as a gamechanger for how I work. One caveat: I'm not using it for the traditional architecture industry, but instead for design work in video games (sci fi architecture and vehicles), amusement park design, and the creation of environmental assets for a trippy VR project. It's amazing for design work because it seamlessly combines the 2D composition/shot design with the 3D form design, facilitating a kind of dialog between the two that feels natural. I have been trying various ways to design straight in 3D, and the tool always tended to mold my vision to its paths of least resistance. Rough work in gravity sketch is the "purest" approach I've encountered so far. Another utility it serves is the creation of splines and surfaces that curve in >1 dimension, quickly and intuitively. (Dealing with those in Max was always a pain in the @$$.) This is why I'm so keen on importing those into 3DS Max as well as possible. Also adding geometry exactly where I want it (whether than having to create then move it afterward) is very useful. It also blows the likes of Tilt Brush out of the water because of its edit-ability, the ability to adjust each stroke/surface after creation. I do agree the price is steep, and would not commit to a year subscription, especially since I haven't ironed out all the Max import issues yet... But at the same time, I do really want to support early efforts to create art tools for actual professionals rather than toys. This method of creation has so much promise, and they are probably fighting an uphill battle right now.
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