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MR & Bionatics


nisus
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Hi all,

 

I've been running the EasyNat demo together with the max6 demo and got some weird results:

 

1) Creating one single hybrid tree takes about 20-30 minutes... (I've been using the file for extensive MR-testing with an daylight system before adding trees, maybe this got something to do with it...)

 

2) Hybrid trees render gray... (image 1)

 

3) 3d-trees render very very slow because my daylight system uses raytraced shadows. How can I speed this up, while still having good glass? (Btw, I still assume that SM blocks light through transparent objects, but is this still the case with GI calculations?)

 

4) The tree in image 2 is 6.5m, whereas the building is no more than 3m high. How can I solve this scale issue?

 

AMS_bionatics_01.jpg

 

 

AMS_bionatics_02.jpg

 

Can anyone pls shine a light? Tnx!

 

rgds

 

nisus

 

[ December 16, 2003, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: nisus ]

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Taking a stab in the Dark here... Can you use the "Eye-Dropper" tool in your Material Browser to Extract the BioNat Plant Materials and then correct the Materials for use with Mental Ray? I use this technique with the AEC Foliage all of the Time ovcourse they seem to render ok with MR out of the box any how.

 

You're right about the Scale issue and I think it's a goof on their part. When you type in 2.0 for tree plant diameter for instance, you get something that is somewhere between 4 and 5 feet in girth. I like the 3D Plants the best. The 2D and Hybrid just don't live up to my expectations. Your second Image looks pretty cool.

 

[ December 17, 2003, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: MegaPixel ]

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Originally posted by nisus:

Hi Stefke,

 

What kind of problems did you have? How did you solve those?

 

rgds

 

nisus

They render so slow on my machine. I retried a model with Mental Ray GI (default settings and then erase a "0" from every setting, to make it render faster ;) ).

It seemed to work, but too slow.

 

I heard that technically Mental Ray is not that slow, but it needs a very good comprehension to tweak it. In that opinion, tools like VRay & FinalRender give much faster results for most people that don't work in movie-productions (for which Mental Ray is known as the next-best-thing to Renderman).

 

I do like it's displacement. Motion Blur should also be good, but I don't often move things around in architecture ;)

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Hi Pen,

 

Nice results you got... but how was it made? Is it done with a 3d-model, or a hybrid tree?

 

In the scenes we usually do, we can't effort full 3d-models so only the hybrid method is usefull for us. Unfortunately, we don't get good results with that method yet...

 

Really, I just want to find out how to use the hybrid trees with MR... SO if anyone got some tips or similair problems, we might find a good solution for all?

 

rgds

 

nisus

 

[ December 18, 2003, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: nisus ]

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Nisus,

 

I think that Distance is the Hybrid Plants best friend. The difference between the 3D Plants (Like the image above) and the Hybrids is night and day. You can almost always notice a perpendicular plane on the Hybrids that doesn't really blend well with the Plant. Plus, to render the Hybrids correctly, you need to stick with Raytraced shadows to keep from seeing the mapping planes.

 

I'm currently working on an Exterior where I'm using dozens of 3D Oleanders and Spiders at their Highest Organ counts. In order for me to acheive this, I've created a Seperate Scene with a Matching Camera Angle to my Main Scene specifically for the Plant Composition Render. I can handle about 40 Unique Plants on screen currently with a Geforce3 Vid. Card. Once I am Happy with my Plants size and Location, I change their properties to "Display as a Box" for much better on screen performance.

 

Another trick I use is rendering a few seeds of each plant up close at high res. with alpha maps and then I'll manually pick and place these 2D objects into my scene in Photoshop. I guess the moral of the story is, "Where there is a will, there is a way".

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