jojoduah

So what your saying and from the article, I should not use Fresnal IOR and IOR for metal materials at all? Also for other materials, I should leave the Fresnel IOR locked and just change the Index of Refraction to reflect something listed under the Index of Refraction list such as: Acetone 1.36 Actinolite 1.618 Agalmatoite 1.550 Agate 1.544 Agate, Moss 1.540

I've been reading up on this explanation of vray materials and I'm getting confused with the whole Fresnel IOR or Index of Refraction. In the guide it says: As a general guideline, here are the Reflect IOR values for some common object types: water 1.33 plastic 1.45 glass 1.5-1.8 diamond 2.4 compound materials like wood, stone, concrete etc 3-6 metals 20-100 I know that in vray the Fresnel IOR and IOR are linked. I believe that the Fresnel IOR is actually locked by default. My thing is which one to use.? Later in the guide it says: Index of Refraction has been calculated for many materials, so you don’t need to guess. You can find various IOR tables on the internet. Here is one of them: Steel 2.50 Chrome Green 2.4 Chrome Red 2.42 Chrome Yellow 2.31 Chromium 2.97 I thought that since the two were linked that you would use the same value for both, but as stated in the Fresnel IOR section metals are 20-100. If you look in the Index of refraction list, steel is 2.5. By the way this is the guide: http://viscorbel.com/vray-materials-theory/

Is there a way to edit the model without that issue and also not breaking the link?

I'm looking into creating my own materials/shaders in 3ds Max now. My rendering engine I use is Vray. I've done a lot of searching (Google) and I pretty much have a good understanding. When it comes down to materials, I'm confused as to bump vs. displacement. I know what the difference is, but when should I use them? I know bump should probably be used for every material, but when does displacement get used? Should I always use that too, or only with certain materials such as brick, tiles, and etc? The next question is when using a bitmap in the diffuse slot, does it matter what the diffuse color is being that its a bitmap? Thanks in advance.

If your using 3ds Max 2013 or higher, you can just link a Revit file. I usually just group them objects by material which seem to work really well for me. The only thing I hate about linking is that you can't edit single faces, polygons, or elements of the building. The only way to do that is to bind the link and then your able to edit. If anyone can provide information otherwise, that would greatly be appreciated.

I always wonder if I should add glass to my openings or no? If so, should the glass be a plane or have some thickness? What would be some good settings for window glazing?

Okay thank you. One question pertaining to windows, should I use a glass material or should it just be a void in the windows? If their is a glass material would it be better as a plane or something with some thickness. I'm most likly going to start this scene over again, but I think I'm going to start from figuring out the lighting be just using a material override set to default grey first. Also if anyone could recommend a good material setting for white interior walls that would be appriciated.

So a subdivision of about 2000 is good enough? Regarding the white balance of the camera, would you also recommend a pure white or should I go with the neutral preset? Also any suggestions on how to achieve the effects that your talking about with the sun contrast in the interior and exterior? I've just downloaded the floor generator script and am going to give it a try to fix the wood. By enviroment light, do you mean from the sun? Also one thing I might of failed to mention is the fact that outside every window, I have a light plane with about 20-30 on the multiplier. Should I just use those as skylight portals instead of an actually light plane? Regarding the camera, that was actually my hardest challenge. I read on the internet that the human eye sees a focal length of 45mm, so that was recommended to achieve a realistic view. You could offer any advice regarding the camera that would be greatly appreciated. These are really good comments and I appreciate you guys taking the time to provide them.

Render time isn't to bad, at the current settings, I'm getting about 30 mins for a 2250 x 1950 res. Will reducing the light cache to 1500 take away the quality of the final image? I guess I'm under the assumption that higher is better. Also I think im already at screen for my light cache, unless you mean switch to world?

Thanks for the advice. I'll look into the script. As with the current wood flooring, I had a bump, diffuse, and displacement map. If I use the scrpit, would I still need all those maps or would just the diffuse be enough? In regards to the stairs, I tried using a Uvw modifier but had a hard time. Your saying a Uvw unwrap will work better? Thanks

It's from a real file. I guess if might have to do with the camera settings. Can you elaborate more about the material? Also I really appreciate the advice. Like I said, I'm kind on new to the program so I guess a little more information would be great.

Care to explain?

Hello! I'm relativly new to vray, and I am seeking some help into achieving more "real" like renderings. This interior scene uses a V-ray sun and sky with the default settings. The position of the sun is about 45 degrees. I'm using Vray light planes in each window with a multiplier of 20 and a bluish color. The image seems a little flat to me and also their seem to be quite some noise on the walls. If anybody could share some advice, that would be greatly appreciated. Also if you would like the file to look at I can provide that too, so you could further help. I've attached the image and settings.

I've been searching this topic like crazy, so these are comments from notebook review. Well, I have no plans on getting either gpu or a new laptop at the moment. However, the AMD (7970m) is a lot better compared to 680m in compute performance (OpenCL). 3d Studio Max has yet to transition fully to OpenCL (though it will). Other programs you mentioned will definitely benefit from 7970m. Plus, the 7970m is cheaper compared to the 680m. Max currently utilizes CUDA , yes, however... the CUDA capabilities of latest Kepler graphic cards have been severely downsized by Nvidia (intentionally) to focus more on gaming. To sum it up, Kepler cards are MUCH slower in CUDA oriented tasks compared to Fermi. Realistically speaking though, the AMD variants are offering same/similar performance for much lower cost which is why I'd personally go with them and the increased support for OpenCL. Also... there are few external plugins for 3dsMax if I'm no mistaken that can use OpenCL. They are in experimental stages (sadly), but as I said, its probable that Autodesk will officially transition to OpenCL relatively fast. Its entirely up to you. My advice would be to further study the differences between the 2 gpu's. Also... did you use CUDA up until now heavily or not and on what kind of computer/laptop? Check with Autodesk and see if they have any news regarding OpenCL integration into Max. I'm using Max myself on a heavy basis, but hadn't really kept up with those news because of lack of money to get anything new. Its a pretty powerful laptop in its own right. What was the previous configuration (computer) you used for Max if you don't mind me asking? As I said before... Vray RT is currently using predominantly CUDA, but I wouldn't really opt for the Kepler variant because its a lot slower compared to last gen Fermi. You will benefit either way because an IB entry quad is pretty fast already for that kind of work - granted it doesn't come close to the gpu, but either way. The way I see it, you have several options: 1. get the 7970m and pay less, and you will be able to use OpenCL on other programs (excluding Vray RT for now - until they decide to implement OpenCL). 2. get the previous generation Nvidia top end gpu (renamed into 675m - its Fermi, and on the previous manuf. process, just renamed) - you will get pretty good CUDA performance for what you need, but that gpu is over 50% slower than 7970m or 680m. 3. get the 680m (by paying through the nose) and live with the diminished CUDA capacity compared to Fermi (though honestly, you WOULD see acceleration in Vray RT with it either way). I wouldn't get the 680m simply because its overpriced. 7970m is basically its equal power-wise in games (and it BLASTS it into oblivion when it comes to compute performance - OpenCL), but much cheaper, and the market is going towards OpenCL (so its just a matter of time before Vray implements it). The comments above were given to me

I was told to stay away from Kepler based GPUs. How do you fell about the AMD 7970M?