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Real-World-Materials-for-Improved-Accuracy-in-Renderings


Ismael
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Fantastic, thanks :- ) I'll dive into it over weekend.

 

Hah, interesting, I almost forgot that Mental Ray AD material is pretty bomb with custom BRDF function slot ! So much easier than re-creating that with fallof curve.

Edited by RyderSK
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Thanks for posting this.

 

The documentation on the MR AD materials has always been a little lacking so having some of the functionality explained was really useful... especially that part on who wins as the energy is conversed across transparency, diffuse and specular... assuming specular==reflection I hope hehe.

Read all the docs and manuals and none of this is explained anywhere.

 

Also some great techniques for grabbing real world values. The colour checking part for example was an excellent write-up to check materials from real world capture to digital re-creation and see everything is simulated properly!

 

 

It's quite funny though that the arch vis material maps that come with Max 2009 are all levelled so white is ~ 255 intensity and the darkest areas are ~ 0 rgb... despite the article specifically saying that reflectivity for a white material probably isn't much over 85-90%... so half the concrete textures are bright white by that guide hehe!

 

Thankfully we know to adjust them, but it's interesting how good the MR renderer and AD material framework is, but how bad the built-in stuff that comes with Max is...!

 

 

 

 

 

For anyone interested more in real world values, then reading up on game industry info for real world material values is also very useful.

 

It's fairly vogue these days for game rendering engines to use all real values for materials so you'll get some great reference data for all manner of material properties there. Given the vast diversity of games content there are good values for reference for anything an arch vis artist might want to use!

 

And as you'd expect there are loads of good articles on how to capture good values too.

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Dave

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  • 4 months later...

I'm trying to nail this Procedural Map Scale problem in 3ds Max. There are various tips & tricks for dealing with the scale of Procedural maps, but none that I have found address the Real-World Scale issue.

 

Example:

 

I have a procedural map that is displayed correctly in: a) the Material Editor & Preview, b) Viewport, and c) Render.

 

(That's all good) ....but .... when I check "Real-World Size" on my object's Parameters Dialogue, the viewport ceases to display the map correctly! although it renders just the same. (Note: the 2D Checker map is fine, but 3D Noise and Cellular etc. are most frustrating).

 

Now if like me, you do use real-world scale for practically everything, and you don't wish to use a second UVW channel (implying more UV'ing to do), what is the solution?

 

I have tried using a Custom Sample Object (a 100cm diameter sphere) in the Classic Material Editor Options Dialogue. I have also adjusted the Render Sample Size, and the scale of the map itself, however, it seems the combination of settings that delivers the desired results remains elusive.

 

Does anyone understand why this is so?

 

The best solution I have so far is to use Activeshade.

Edited by TomasEsperanza
clarification
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  • 7 months later...

yes this was a good article. there were some other PDF's from a while back that talked about using the light meters when they were first introduced with mentalray and max. they had some good explanations in there too like the one in here with the gretag color checkers and estimating. a lot of it comes down to test renders for the given lighting but also relationships between the colors in the scene. sometimes for fun i put in a virtual black/mid-grey/white board in my scene to see what i get on that when i render. or do 0-10%-20%...90%-100% black to white non-reflective boxes. in the end though, it's hard to convince people that yes, that grey preform concrete will look pretty white given the camera angle and daylight. :)

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  • 3 months later...

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