3ds max mental ray GRASS

[wybenga1]

Hi,

I was just wondering if any one knows how to make grass look real in mental ray (3ds max) I tried following tutorials and it still dosnt look real. also how to do spandrel panel.

thanks

[SandmanNinja]

Techniques vary.

Some use a simple photograph of grass with a displacement map.

Some use particles (pflow).

Some use models - Onyx has a nice looking new grass plug-in.

[wybenga1]

I tried using a grass photographs with a bump map but it dosn't look real. How do you use Onyx grass plug-in. Is that on 3ds max?? and do you have to put bitmap and bump maps with it? I'm new at this.

thanks

[manta]

Did you try this...

 

http://www.jeffpatton.net/MR_Grass_Displacement.htm

[wybenga1]

I did try that tutorial but when I applied it to my project it didn't work at all. At first I thought it was the scale but when I changed the scale it still didn't work.

[Ky Lane]

Theres no 1 "correct" way. I spent a day getting grass looking good in a plane, so I could just import it into any project I wanted and save myself the time - but for every project Ive done, Ive had to do it differently.

 

Grass-o-matic is a good plugin to help though.

[WAcky]

I used to do it by creating a mask and just masking in a large field of grass in Photoshop. It's so easy and you don't need to be concerned about it looking right in 3ds because photoshop is so easy to use. Oh and you don;t need to worry about your computer being able to handle it and it renders a hell of a lot faster.

 

I use vrayDisplacement now. (Yes I am aware you're talking about MR)

[solidbox]

You could use Mr Displacement for the forground, and use mapping image for the mid and further away.

[MasterZap]

A good friend of mine made SUPER grass by taking some grass geometry, making an mr proxy out of it (and some 5 different variation of some grass) and instancing the mr proxy some quadrillion times.

 

Fast rendering, nice looking.

 

(Tip: try the rasterizer for thin geometry.)

 

/Z

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Tip: try the rasterizer for thin geometry.

 

But also, ....proxies and rasterizer do not work well together in all cases. Rasterizer requires scanline, which is not flushable. At least this is the way I understand it.

[Justin Hunt]

I tried a combination of Ky's and Zaps trick and works great, better than displacement

 

Made a plane of grass with Grass-o-Matic then proxied it and instanced that around, very cool. By varying the rotation and scale of the planes help eliminate tiling patterns too.

 

Grass-o-matic also makes nice hedges

 

jvh

[MasterZap]

But also, ....proxies and rasterizer do not work well together in all cases. Rasterizer requires scanline, which is not flushable. At least this is the way I understand it.

 

Rasterizer and proxies should work fine together.

 

Rasterizer is not the same as traditional "scanline" mode. The UI in 3ds max is rather confusing at this point, makign it seem as rasterizer is a superset of "scanline". It's not. There isn't even a relation, really.

 

Basically, mental ray have three totally distinct modes of handling primary rays

- raytracing

- "scanline"

- rasterizer

 

Of these, "scanline" can get you into memory problems, and since mental ray raytracing is so blazingly fast, sometimes, maybe even often, raytracing for primary rays are faster than "scanline". So in most cases I suggest you turn it off, at least as soon as you start to run into memory issues.

 

Do *not* confuse rasterizer w. scanline, though. Rasterizer has none of those memory issues.

 

/Z

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Rasterizer and proxies should work fine together.

 

Rasterizer is not the same as traditional "scanline" mode. The UI in 3ds max is rather confusing at this point, makign it seem as rasterizer is a superset of "scanline". It's not. There isn't even a relation, really.

 

Basically, mental ray have three totally distinct modes of handling primary rays

- raytracing

- "scanline"

- rasterizer

 

Of these, "scanline" can get you into memory problems, and since mental ray raytracing is so blazingly fast, sometimes, maybe even often, raytracing for primary rays are faster than "scanline". So in most cases I suggest you turn it off, at least as soon as you start to run into memory issues.

 

Do *not* confuse rasterizer w. scanline, though. Rasterizer has none of those memory issues.

 

/Z

 

I am still not understanding. I need to check the tick box under scanline to Enable it, before I have the options to enable Fast Rasterizer. This is the only area I can find mention of Rasterizer in the MR roll outs. Am I missing something?

[MasterZap]

Yes yes, that is correct. I'm just telling you the UI is suboptimal; it implies that "rasterizer" is a subset of "scanline" (as you describe) but on a technical level, this isn't really true, rasterizer is actually sometihng *different* to scanline, rather than a subset.

 

The flag inside mental ray to enable the rasterizer historically was related to the scanline flag. This historical dependency was replicated when the 3ds max UI was designed - unfortunately.

 

/Z

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Yes yes, that is correct. I'm just telling you the UI is suboptimal; it implies that "rasterizer" is a subset of "scanline" (as you describe) but on a technical level, this isn't really true, rasterizer is actually sometihng *different* to scanline, rather than a subset.

 

The flag inside mental ray to enable the rasterizer historically was related to the scanline flag. This historical dependency was replicated when the 3ds max UI was designed - unfortunately.

 

/Z

 

Got it. This unfortunate. I also just glanced at 2010, and the MR scanline/rasterizer is laid out the same.

 

I guess my next line of thought would be along the lines of custom shaders to work around the problem. Are there shaders out the in the www universe that handle things like AA and rasterization?

[Justin Hunt]

There is one that handles AA on a per object basis, I dont know how to use it myself

 

jhv

[wybenga1]

Hi,

Does anyone know where to find the vray displacement modifier. Do you have to download it? I have 3ds max 2009 and in the modifiers I don't have the vray displacement. I only have Displacement and I was told that the v ray (2d) displacement modifier would be good for grass.

thanks

brent

[wybenga1]

Hello,

I was also wondering about spandrel glass. Does anyone know what the best way to make spandrel glass is? I have tried glass spandrel and aluminum spandrel. I haven't got one to look good yet.

thanks

brent

[jinsley]

Hello,

I was also wondering about spandrel glass. Does anyone know what the best way to make spandrel glass is? I have tried glass spandrel and aluminum spandrel. I haven't got one to look good yet.

thanks

brent

 

Vray is a third party rendering plug in for max.

 

For spandrel I have been sticking to the "pro materials" metal material and setting the finish to glazed... then just picking the colour I prefer...

[wybenga1]

I printed of my drawings today and they don't print out clear at all. They are the highest quality Jpeg that 3ds can produce. Even when I try to print them from a bitmap or an PNG it dosn't look clear either. I just want them on 8 1/2" x 11". I'm rendering at a size of 600x800 and they look really clear on my computer screen but not on high quality photo paper. Can any one help?? Also I was wondering how to get a PDF on 3ds max It dosen't seem to have it and a digital print shop said that it would be the clearest if I could print from that.

thanks

[WAcky]

You need to render to a higher res first. You should probably either try the search function or start a new thread first as this thread is related to grass in mental ray.

 

You can use print size wizard the function in side of max under the rendering menu.

 

When it comes to resolutions, a screens resolution is 72dpi (dots per inch) or ppi (pixels per inch) where as print resolution is typically around 300dpi. So to print out your image it needs to be quite a lot larger. For example, by using the print size wizard in max an A4 print needs to be 3507x2480 pixels in size.

 

You dont need to make your image a pdf to print clearly, you just need to render it much larger. Your render of 800x600 will only print out at about 67x50mm in size. If you size it up it will start to get blurry and blocky. For an image of 8 1/2" by 11" then it will need to be rendered at 2550x3300 pixels @ 300dpi.

 

I printed of my drawings today and they don't print out clear at all. They are the highest quality Jpeg that 3ds can produce. Even when I try to print them from a bitmap or an PNG it dosn't look clear either. I just want them on 8 1/2" x 11". I'm rendering at a size of 600x800 and they look really clear on my computer screen but not on high quality photo paper. Can any one help?? Also I was wondering how to get a PDF on 3ds max It dosen't seem to have it and a digital print shop said that it would be the clearest if I could print from that.

thanks

Edited April 21, 2009 by WAcky

[Justin Hunt]

For questions that are not related to the original thread ie mental ray grass you will get more answers if you post in new threads, titled accordingly. At the moment you will only get answers from people either following this particular thread or those who happen to stumble across it.

 

jhv