RJL

The ideal method would be to ensure that everything you need to render lives in the center portion of the stitched image so you can view match to one photo. You can then render your CG elements to that aspect ratio to bring into Photoshop and locate in your stitched image using the extents of the center photo as a guide. If you need to render content for all pieces of the stitch it's much tougher because the optics are much harder to figure out. You may end up having to stitch your CG as well...?? I've had to do that before and it's not fun, especially if you do a lot of post (render mattes, passes, etc.)

The Onyx tree plug-in does not generate textures, only texture mapping coordinates. You have to use your own maps for the leaves, trunk, etc.

Nice job on the image. Is that space in the background with the stone wall supposed to be an exterior? It seems like I'm reading grass on the ground plane and an inkling of skylight toward the top of the stone wall. If that is an outdoor space I would opt to bring more of that skylight into the room and turn down the artificial lights. I think a little contrast would suit this scene nicely.

Cesar, I'm assuming since you're in the US that it refers to 1"=200' - that's called an engineering scale, for whatever reason. It's typically used for large scale drawings - site plans, etc.

Maybe this will put things into perspective: Autodesk has been waivering back and forth on the issue of Viz. A little over a year ago they said they would not be releasing any more versions of Viz, only to change their position some months later when they announced the release of Viz 5. You can rest assured that the same thing will not happen with Discreet and Max so my vote would be to go with it even if there are things you wouldn't use. Plus, once you get a taste of the functionality of Max (over Viz) you may want to expand your repertoire.

Other than the ceiling, my only other suggestion is to straighten out the view (parallel verticals) in this case. The apparel looks good. Nice job.

The prior suggestion of activating a few snaps at a time is a good one. That being said, however, snaps have been one of MAX's weaknesses for a long time.

I would draw a plane object and apply a Free Form Deform (FFD) modifier - usually the 4 point one. In my experience it does a nicer job of simulating the stretching of a mesh than soft selection. This is of course assuming that your tensile object has only four corners.

A couple of suggestions: 1. check your ambient color again - make sure it is pitch black 2. if you're relatively new to lighting in Max I would suggest assigning the default material (gray color) to all objects and, assuming all your light sources are similar, start testing one light at a time. Play with the Decay first rather than attenuation - which is a bit more complicated. By using this additive method you may arrive at better results quicker than trying to do everything at one (materials, multiple light sources, etc). Lastly, are you using MAX 5? If so then look into the Advanced Lighting features (Radiosity, Light Tracer, etc). Those methods calculate Global Illumination which helps.

Doodler, First off, your site is nicely done so there's nothing to be embarrassed about there. The comments above regarding text size and navigation are definitely valid, although they don't detract much. Your work is also impressive - I like the softness of your images. The one thing that sticks out on some of your renderings, however, is the lens flares that sometimes seem misplaced. In your case it's a minor issue but one that for me, personally, always sticks out. Oherwise your work is very good. Keep it up.

I think I've fallen in love with VRay!

I just started doing some tutorials with Final Render and Viz4 and I'm getting an error on an almost consitent basis. It happens when I go to render a scene, which happens quite smoothly and quickly... but then when the image is done rendering the error pops up: something along the lines of an application error, very non-specific. Has anyone encountered this?

Hello all, I'm new to these forums so here goes my first post. I wanted to hear some feedback about Mental Ray vs. Final Render from those of you here with the real practical experience. I use VIZ and Max, and now that I'm getting pretty nimble with it I wanted to try and push the envelope a bit and experiment with some new rendering engines to improve the quality of my images. I'm particularly curious about things like learning curve, GI vs physically based lighting, etc. Any feedback would be appreciated. Also, please instruct me as to whether this is posted in the correct forum. Thanks in advance. Rod