I've always struggled with this and have never found a great solution. I'd like to know your thoughts. When creating color elevations for a client they tend to get very picky when it comes to colors and shadows. They want to hold a paint chip to the printout and they want it perfect. There is no "explaining it away". So here's my dilema.
What is the best and most comprehensive way to render architectural elevations or perspectives in 3DS Max using a standard camera and VRay materials with each material and the shadows exported or saved out with Alpha Channels as a file (be it Tif or Targa) where I can compile them in Photoshop and control each material individualy. I saw a tutorial where render elements were used and each layer in PS was set to multiply I believe so each layer was transparent. This is good but not a great solution because the act of setting the layer to multiply etc will slightly change the colors. I am looking for a true alpha channel where I can physically remove everything but the color from a layer.
I saw another tutorial where the materials were given ID's and rendered seperately as bright colors and then each of those could be "selected by color" in Photoshop. This work soso as the edges of each material in photoshop were not slightly feathered or pixelated but rather very crisp showing very defined edges which made the image look bad.
How do you guys render materials and shadows efficiently and accurately in Max for later compositing and control in Photoshop using "alpha channels"?
Thanks for any ideas.
T
