[hw to] soft render output

[jassh]

hi there.. i am tinkering with cinema 4D with this laptop i'm babysitting

 

if its not too much, i just need to know how do i achieve this soft look on the render output..

 

 

is it lighting? is it radiosity??

i have played with all the setting in radiosity/caustic...

(i do not have any sort of light, if anyone was wondering that)

it doesnt give me anywhere near that look..

 

and yes, i found out that i do have the advanced render module installed..

(or else i woulndt even been able to play around with it )

 

any pointers, tutorial, or article i can read?

thanks in advanced guy!

[Fran]

Hi,

 

Could it be some type of ambient occlusion shader - some call it a "dirtmap"? The attached render was created with max and mental ray. The Dirtmap shader is useful for simulating or enhancing global illumination.

[Ernest Burden III]

Could it be some type of ambient occlusion shader - some call it a "dirtmap"?

 

C4D r8.5 w/advanced renderer does have a 'dirtmap' function. I saw the links posted by NISUS recently and one led to a tutorial for MAX for 'ambient occlusion'. Since I am coming to understand that C4D is MAX by another name (so why the hell did I buy it?) but with a much better native renderer (OK, maybe that is why) I think the tutorial will apply to C4D.

 

But your example could also have been done with an illumination map--either HDRI or any image used in a luminence channel of an environment object's shader. (Damn! See? Now I'm talking like all you MAX nuts).

 

I think the second is the more likely on your example. Try that with a stochastic radiosity and relatively low samples but high quality settings.

[Daf]

Hi,

 

Could it be some type of ambient occlusion shader - some call it a "dirtmap"? The attached render was created with max and mental ray. The Dirtmap shader is useful for simulating or enhancing global illumination.

 

Hi,

 

I've been seeing references to "dirtmaps" and like the look...

 

Where can I find these maps and more info on using them?

 

I use Viz 2005 and Vray mostly. I haven't experimented much with Mental Ray yet.

 

Thanks

Daf

[Fran]

Hi Daf,

 

Here is the tutorial I used. I didn't follow through on the Shake compositing because I don't have that program. It should get you started. You can use it with Viz 2005 and mental ray. There is probably a similar shader somewhere for Vray, but I don't know anything about Vray.

 

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/ronchin.basket/umxprime/tutorials/AO/index.htm

[Ernest Burden III]

Here is the tutorial I used

 

Fran

 

Would you export the MAX file as 3DS and post it somewhere, if that is possible. Is there anything in the scene that would not translate? If you do that I could try the tut in C4D with it's version of the same stuff and see if it works...

[Daf]

Hi Daf,

 

Here is the tutorial I used. I didn't follow through on the Shake compositing because I don't have that program. It should get you started. You can use it with Viz 2005 and mental ray. There is probably a similar shader somewhere for Vray, but I don't know anything about Vray.

 

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/ronchin.basket/umxprime/tutorials/AO/index.htm

 

Thanks so much, Fran! I'll have a look and go with this.

 

Daf

[Fran]

Hi Ernest,

 

Are you talking about the scene in my image, the interior in the tutorial, or the widgets in the tutorial?

[Ernest Burden III]

Are you talking about the scene in my image, the interior in the tutorial, or the widgets in the tutorial?

 

I guess the cone, box , torus scene. Not that it would take long to re-create--just that it would be nice to be using the same stuff in the same position in the same size so a comparison of results, should I be able to get results from C4D, will be moe meaningful. We C4D'ers cannot read MAX files, just 3DS

[Fran]

Hi Ernest,

 

Here is a similar scene I constructed for you.

 

http://www.surrealstructures.com/Ambient_occlusion_test_scene.zip

 

It has the same basic materials (you'll have to do your own metallic) camera and light.

 

Attached is the output from mental ray. [edit] I should mention this took 18 seconds to render.

[Ernest Burden III]

Here is a similar scene I constructed for you.

 

I get a 'special' scene?

 

Attached is the output from mental ray. [edit] I should mention this took 18 seconds to render.

 

Well that look a whole lot better than what I've rendered so far. Some of the objects have flipped normals, and now I have to learn how to adjust normals in C4D. Usually I only give it pre-aligned models (since normals are so EASY to see/fix in Lightscape).

[Fran]

I get a 'special' scene?

 

 

 

Well that look a whole lot better than what I've rendered so far. Some of the objects have flipped normals, and now I have to learn how to adjust normals in C4D. Usually I only give it pre-aligned models (since normals are so EASY to see/fix in Lightscape).

 

C4D must be doing something "special" to the 3ds objects for the normals to be flipped. They come in just fine back into max and into Rhino and Lightscape.

[Ernest Burden III]

C4D must be doing something "special" to the 3ds objects for the normals to be flipped. They come in just fine back into max and into Rhino and Lightscape.

 

Yes, very special. Not all the normals, just some--like the top of the cube, but not the sides.

[Ernest Burden III]

OK, this is getting to be much more fun.

 

 

Since I had the normals problem, and since Fran had prepared a modified version of the original file anyway, I just created primitaves in C4D, but using her scene and camera.

 

Here is the fake GI, I mean 'ambient occlusion' pass. This took about 25 seconds.

[Fran]

Looks like you got it Ernest.

[Ernest Burden III]

Looks like you got it Ernest.

 

Indeed, I did. Or more to the point--Cinema4D got it.

 

Here is the radiosity pass--area shadows on your omni light, stocastic

 

And the the amb-ocl layered on the GI pass, as per the tutorial:

 

There is a step to render several more passes, which if I had understood the full tutorial I could have done with a layered file.. I'll get to that

 

Oh, and Fran---it's almost 10 on a Sunday night. Aren't you expecting? Shouldn't you be in bed by now? Growing babies is hard work! (Now you know what my wife went through being pregnant).

[Ernest Burden III]

OK, I screwed up my radiosty pass--forgot that the light was set to 'ambient' and burned out the image. I thought that looked rather awful. Here are the two revised:

 

Oh, and back to the original point of the thread--I can tell you for sure this 'ambient oclusion' technique was not how that sample was produced. It must have been an HDRI or more basic general scenic luminence.

[Ernest Burden III]

More fun...

 

Now this is a beautiful image

[STRAT]

getting back to the original question, it looks like a single low strength omni/spot light with area shadow. the ambient lighting looks like standard gi with a high diffuse level and maybe a grey/blue sky object too.

[CHE]

Hello guys,

 

I decided to give ambient occlusion a try so I did a quick test and these are the results:

 

Software:

VIZ 2005, Mental Ray & Photoshop.

 

PC:

Xeon 3.07GHz

1 GB RAM

Quadro 4 980XGL

 

What do you think?

[STRAT]

http://www.keindesign.de/stefan/cinema/ao.html

 

a c4d ambient occlusion plugin