Cynthia Hansen Posted April 6, 2005 Share Posted April 6, 2005 this is my first time using mental ray with max, so any c and c would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted April 6, 2005 Share Posted April 6, 2005 Hi Cynthia, pretty good for a first timer. Good glass material. The sun coming in is perfect. How about some nice shadowsettings? Good luck, Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynthia Hansen Posted April 6, 2005 Author Share Posted April 6, 2005 Hi Dennis, could you be a little more specific in regards to "shadowsettings."? I'm feeling a bit dim, as I don't quite understand what you mean by that. thanks, Cynthia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Posted April 6, 2005 Share Posted April 6, 2005 Excellent sun! What part of California? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pickle Posted April 6, 2005 Share Posted April 6, 2005 nice walls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IC Posted April 6, 2005 Share Posted April 6, 2005 I hope you don't want technical help as I know nothing about Mental Ray but the image needs some soft shadows and bounced light. At the moment it looks very scanline apart from some nice falloff from the sun. Are you using GI? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynthia Hansen Posted April 6, 2005 Author Share Posted April 6, 2005 thanks for all of the comments. between Dennis and Iain's suggestions, I think I finally understood what I need to do. Anyway, here's an updated version but I think I'm going to do one more as the shadows seem a little too diffuse. And yes I'm using GI and I live in Santa Barbara, Calif.! And as always, c and c is most welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 like others, i don't know mental ray, but here is my opinion. it looks like you have ambient light cranked up, this is part of what makes it look scanline. i say this because several of the surfaces don't get dark where they are supposed to get darker. which usually means the ambient light is to high, preventing the dark areas from happening. i am also guessing that you don't have shadow casting turned on the lamp. it kind of looks like it by the slight shadow cast by the top vase, but nothing else, including the important couch, see to have a shadow. does the couch have a bright underside? it looks as though the couch has a white underside or light blue, and is bouncing light down. the coffee tablke materials are nice, but maybe beveling the edges will make a nice specular reflection on the edges. to give it that extra touch, i would put a book or something personal on the coffee table. because the lamp is on, it gives the feeling that someone was recently sitting there. reading, or doing something else. if this is morning, mayeb a coffee cup and newspaper would be nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynthia Hansen Posted April 7, 2005 Author Share Posted April 7, 2005 Thanks Travis for your input. Very helpful. Yep, I forgot to turn on the shadows for the lamp. The ambient light is low. Other than the lamp I have one mr Area Spot(for sunlight) and one mr area omni(for interior). I adjusted the settings on these and further adjusted the renderer. This is what I have so far.Again, thanks to all of you for your kind help and suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted April 7, 2005 Share Posted April 7, 2005 Thanks Travis for your input. Very helpful. Yep, I forgot to turn on the shadows for the lamp. The ambient light is low. Other than the lamp I have one mr Area Spot(for sunlight) and one mr area omni(for interior). I adjusted the settings on these and further adjusted the renderer. This is what I have so far.Again, thanks to all of you for your kind help and suggestions. actually, i think i liked the lamp better with no shadow casting. maybe if the had falloff or something. the shape cast from the shade seems distracting to the image. ...but i still don't understand what is going on witht he couch. in theory, it should be slightly darker under the couch than the area around it. the couch would block a lot of the bounced light coming into the room from hitting the floor below the couch, causing that area to be darker than the rest of the floor. i thought the light from the lamp was partly causing this, but i guess that was wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vertexART Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 Hi Cynthia, very nice for the first attempt. Though some serious light issues bring it down. U should turn off the lamp also, the day is clear enough Anyway, could you take a screenshot of your GI window, and light set-up, so we all could set them straight. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynthia Hansen Posted April 8, 2005 Author Share Posted April 8, 2005 Well, the ambient light wasn't the issue with the floor. It was actually the material that I had on the floor that was causing the problem. So here's the latest version. I think that the lamp light looks better since I diffused it's edge.Still not perfect but I think better? Please keep the comments coming as they are quite helpful in getting me to figure out what I need to work on. Like the fact that I would give you a screen shot but I haven't a clue how to do it? I know that I'm not great at this yet, but I can't imagine doing anything else as I love it so much! Thanks again to all of you for your input. Cynthia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jd0000 Posted April 8, 2005 Share Posted April 8, 2005 I could easily be way off base here, but I think you could almost try cranking up the overall brightness of the image and see what it looks like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voltaire_ira Posted April 9, 2005 Share Posted April 9, 2005 render lacks the soft shadows, too much ambient or your G.i. photon radius is too large. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted April 9, 2005 Share Posted April 9, 2005 Hi Cynthia, sorry for not answering your reply to my comments.... can you make a wireframe screenshot from at least two viewports (top+front/left) so the lights in the scene are visible. I can not place some parts in the right perspective here. The main issue is the lack of softshadows, as mentioned in earlier replies as well, but the room has enough light and is probably coming from somewhere else than the sun (nice angle) and GI. Maybe you have some omni's (without casting shadows) in the scene to light it up a bit? Or your GI settings are not correct but this nicely modeled render can be much nicer with some improvements as it is allready if you finetune the lighting/gi/shadowsettings. Once you get a grasp on that, you'll be quite a step ahead with your future-artwork.... Lets see, good luck. Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vertexART Posted April 10, 2005 Share Posted April 10, 2005 Like the fact that I would give you a screen shot but I haven't a clue how to do it? Cynthia Try 'tools>grab viewport' with one of the views maximized...., or 'print screen(Sys rq)' key on your keyboard, which will put the image on clipboard, then paste into your fav image editor......, or use program named 'fsscreen' or any other from internet search. Hope it helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynthia Hansen Posted April 30, 2005 Author Share Posted April 30, 2005 Sorry to have taken so long in getting back here but felt I should study the mental ray renderer a little more to get somewhat of a grip on it. I've included a couple wireframe screen shots of the set up but haven't been able to get the print screen command to work for me. So, thought I would type in info here: Max num photons per sample : 900 max samp radius: 2'6" volumes: max num : 100 Light properties avg GI photons per light: 9000 global energy mult: 2.0 decay 1.3 final gather samples:125 Again, thanks so much in advance for any c and c! Cynthia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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