Sky Dome help

[Geoffc]

I'm trying to create, map, and light a correct skydome for test environments and animations.

 

I have purchased the maps from Ambient light, which also come with a premade hemisphere mesh.

 

I need some basic help here, materials and mapping are still my weakest point in Max.

 

I create a new vray material and use the ambient light sky tiff for the diffuse map.

I then take the hemishere mesh, scale it up to 2000' or so, and give it a UVW map, with a cylinder shape. I hit "fit" to get the map to the size of the hemisphere, in the Z direction. I then apply the sky material to the hemisphere.

 

Here's a couple basic questions:

-how do I get the dome/map to show without the light affecting it? right now in my test environment, i only have one direct light, within the dome, so the dome is not being lit. for the life of me I can't find the tick box or property area to exclude the dome from having to be lit. does that make sense?

 

-and, is there anything I'm missing on the hemisphere size/type, or application methods?

 

Thanks!

[jkletzien]

Geoffc, I just took a look at the ambient light website to gather whether you wanted to map cylidrically or spherically, and couldn't come to any conclusions with the size of their previews...but if cylindrical looks bad you might try sphereical ( you'll have to put your vertical tiling at 2 and your vertical offset at .25 to get it to fit)

 

You should be able to access the VRay properties of the object and exclude it from GI,etc... just by right clicking however my own preference would be to avoid using it on geometry altogether - and instead using it in your environment slots.

 

So...load it up into your material editor, change the mapping type to environment, then instance it over to your MAX background slider, as well as your VRAY environment light, and environment reflection slots.

 

This avoids many of the problems you are facing now in terms of having to contend with a large piece of geometry that is going to play havoc with your global illumination and the only way to have it lit uniformly is to have it as a VRAY light material (or a wrapped self illuminated standard material - which will offer other problems).

 

Hope that helps, this method is a little unwieldy at first but if you can not treat the envirnment as geometry it tends to demand less workarounds.

[Geoffc]

Jon, thanks for the detailed response.

The Ambient Light instructions mention using cylindrical mapping, but I like your idea about spherical with 2 on the vertical tiling. I didn't think of that.

 

Here's my biggest question though: I believe these maps were meant to be used on a sky dome, and are spherical in nature. If I were to use one in the environment slots instead, wouldn't they appear fixed if used in an animation? ie, you they sky/clouds would look the same no matter which angle you looked? (I suppose I could just experiment before asking...)

 

 

 

 

btw, excellent website. Yours is one of my fav's.

 

 

 

edited to add: wait a sec. I just noted that when you change the map to 'environment', you can choose a spherical mapping option. Now this is making sense. Thanks!

[jkletzien]

btw, excellent website. Yours is one of my fav's.

Geoff-

 

You're welcome and thanks for the props! Good Luck.