milfora Posted February 25, 2008 Share Posted February 25, 2008 Hi, I have been using max for a few years now, and being the only person in the office doing viz work, I rely on these forums heavily for advice. I primarily do roadworks animations, some of which get up to approx 40km long. I use 3dsmax 2008, Forest Pro for foliage and Dynamite for roadside object placement. I still use the default scanline renderer for animation work using a multi-light rig to simulate bounced light. As I am starting to come into a lot more viz work, I was curious as to an ideal software setup for this kind of work. Is mental ray suitable for such long, large datasets? Is VRay the way to go with its proxies? Are 2D billboards (such as Forest Pro) more ideal that 3D trees (Onyx etc) I just want to hear your thoughts on these issues. Thanks AM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claudio Branch Posted February 25, 2008 Share Posted February 25, 2008 I believe that your set-up is good as is. I work on projects similiar to yours and use many of the same elements. As for V-Ray vs. Mental Ray, each has it's pro's and con's and I think it really comes down to personal preference. MR is supposed to be developing a proxy solution themselves, so even that V-Ray advantage may soon change... BTW, can you do any terrain/road modeling in Dynamite and export to Max? I would like to see some samples of that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milfora Posted February 26, 2008 Author Share Posted February 26, 2008 Claudio, Dynamite is a plug-in that sits on top of 3dsmax. Whilst it does not handle any road modelling capabilities, it does import 3d string and triangle data from a variety of packages and formats (MX, 12D, Civil 3d, LandXML etc). Dynamite also excels at object placement - like placing hundred of vehicles at a specific design speed, light posts, gantries, linemarking etc. I use Bentley MX for my road/earthworks design and export my triangles into MAX via Dynamite's import functions (which makes texture mapping a real pain! - can't wait for max 2009's UV spline mapper) AM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claudio Branch Posted February 26, 2008 Share Posted February 26, 2008 Claudio, Dynamite also excels at object placement - like placing hundred of vehicles at a specific design speed, light posts, gantries, linemarking etc. This sounds really useful, especially for car traffic! I will definately have to take a closer look at Dynamite for my own road projects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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