Creating Envirnments in 3DS

[underscore2749]

Hi, I'm a lab tech at a local school and have been working on a big project that's pushed me through a lot of new software and techniques. At this point my model and site plan are all done and I want to add some final touches. I was think along the lines of a tree line type deal to fit realistically in but didn't know the best way to go about that.

 

Are there any programs that will tie into max that you might suggest? Or is there an easy solution for this built right into max?

[Stephen Thomas]

Take a look at the Visualisation Insider series on this website, in particular Week 13: A Little Background Information. There's a PDF and scene files to get you started.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/upclose/VI/default.asp

[Camby1298]

Groundwiz...

 

http://www.gugila.com/

[jinsley]

Does it need to be rendered in 3d? If not, I vote for a few proxies placed and then ps.

[underscore2749]

Well I used the week 13 tutorials advice to make my own sky, it looks really nice at the right angle but im having issues with shaodws hitting it, I have some pictures for example.

 

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

The light source is an MR sun. I went to the light source in the modifier panel and clicked the "Exclude" button, thinking I could exclude it from casting shadows on my sky cylinder but struggled with getting the sky object to ignore shadows. The scene is rendered in full 3D so I need the sky to look proper from a 360 view, and help in this matter would be amazing =]

[jinsley]

have you tried putting the bitmap into the environment slot -> instance the environment slot into your mat editor and set it up from there?

[underscore2749]

have you tried putting the bitmap into the environment slot -> instance the environment slot into your mat editor and set it up from there?

 

I've never done this before but I tried, and when i instance the bitmap from the environment into the mat etidor, it looks proper ad goes in the slot fine, but it will not let me apply the material to the cylinder.

[underscore2749]

I do believe I set everything up properly... made the sky's material an instance of the environment with the same map on it.. it comes out exactly the same, the same shadow in the same spots =[

[jinsley]

delete the cylinder...

 

1. bitmap into the environment slot.

2. set environment units to unit less with value of ~140000

3. set mr photo exposure to 100, 14, 100

4. drop environment map into mat editor

5. set up map,

 

mapping set to spherical

mirrored vertically with offset of .5

set filtering to none

6. "alt+B" gives you the viewport background dialog box... check "Use Environment Background"... check "display background"

7. use the U offset to line up the sun in your image with your sun in your scene

 

hit render... should work fine... you will have to adjust your environments units for different sun intensities, etc...

 

give that a shot, let me know what happens.

 

JI

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