Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, 2nd Edition

Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, 2nd Edition

by Joep van der Steen, Ted Boardman
Released October 2012
Publisher(s): Routledge
ISBN: 9781136141416

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

Create stunning renders of your 3ds Max models in mental ray with this concise guide. Learn all of the essential concepts such as indirect illumination, materials, render options, shaders, and lighting. Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, Second Edition is now revised to cover Autodesk Revit and special effects. The companion website includes all of the necessary project files from inside the book.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Halftitle
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. 1. Getting Started with mental ray® in 3ds max
    1. 1.1 Introduction
    2. 1.2 Getting started
      1. 1.2.1 Setting 3ds max and 3ds max Design interface and defaults
        1. 1.2.1.1 Exercise: Switching defaults and user interface
      2. 1.2.2 Units in 3ds max
        1. 1.2.2.1 Exercise: Setting display and system units in 3ds max
    3. 1.3 Concepts
      1. 1.3.1 Global illumination
        1. 1.3.1.1 Direct light
        2. 1.3.1.2 Bounced light
        3. 1.3.1.3 Environment light
        4. 1.3.1.4 Shadows
        5. 1.3.1.5 Materials and shaders
      2. 1.3.2 Final gather
      3. 1.3.3 Photons
      4. 1.3.4 Exposure control
      5. 1.3.5 Ambient occlusion
      6. 1.3.6 Gamma correction
    4. 1.4 Companion website
  9. 2. Rendering with mental ray®
    1. 2.1 Introduction
      1. 2.1.1 Gamma correction
      2. 2.1.2 Indirect illumination
        1. 2.1.2.1 Final gather
        2. 2.1.2.2 Global illumination
      3. 2.1.3 Ambient occlusion
      4. 2.1.4 Render presets
    2. 2.2 Gamma correction
      1. 2.2.1 Exercise: Enable gamma correction
    3. 2.3 Indirect illumination
      1. 2.3.1 Final gather—Exterior scene
        1. 2.3.1.1 Exercise: Enabling final gather
        2. 2.3.1.2 Render Frame Window
        3. 2.3.1.3 Exercise: Render Preset
        4. 2.3.1.4 Exercise: Image Precision (Antialiasing)
        5. 2.3.1.5 Exercise: Area to Render
        6. 2.3.1.6 Exercise: Trace limits
        7. 2.3.1.7 Exercise: Monochrome button
      2. 2.3.2 Final gather—Interior daylight
        1. 2.3.2.1 Exercise: Interior scene with direct light
        2. 2.3.2.2 Exercise: Final gather with bounces
      3. 2.3.3 Global illumination—Interior daylight
        1. 2.3.3.1 Exercise: Enabling global illumination
        2. 2.3.3.2 Exercise: Systematically increasing Photons per Sample and Radius
      4. 2.3.4 GI and FG combined
        1. 2.3.4.1 Exercise: Applying final gather to a global illumination scene
      5. 2.3.5 Ambient occlusion
      6. 2.3.6 Render presets
  10. 3. mental ray® and lights
    1. 3.1 Introduction
    2. 3.2 Standard lights
      1. 3.2.1 Rendering in mental ray with standard lights
        1. 3.2.1.1 Exercise: Standard lights with shadows
        2. 3.2.1.2 Exercise: Mixing standard lights and photometric daylight
    3. 3.3 Photometric lights
      1. 3.3.1 Target photometric lights
        1. 3.3.1.1 Exercise: Adding and adjusting photometric lights
    4. 3.4 Sky Portal
      1. 3.4.1 Channeling daylight with a Sky Portal
        1. 3.4.1.1 Exercise: Sky Portal
      2. 3.4.2 Sky Portal and scene environment
        1. 3.4.2.1 Exercise: Sky Portal artifacts
    5. 3.5 Daylight system and Physical Sky shader
      1. 3.5.1 Creating a scene using the mr Physical Sky shader
        1. 3.5.1.1 Exercise: Placing a Daylight system with Physical Sky background
      2. 3.5.2 Haze and clouds
        1. 3.5.2.1 Exercise: Adjusting the haze in the sky
        2. 3.5.2.2 Exercise: Using a background image
  11. 4. mental ray® and materials
    1. 4.1 Introduction
    2. 4.2 Arch & Design material
      1. 4.2.1 Arch & Design templates
        1. 4.2.1.1 Exercise: Setting Arch & Design templates
      2. 4.2.2 Controlling reflections
        1. 4.2.2.1 Exercise: BRDF control of reflections
      3. 4.2.3 Self-illumination
        1. 4.2.3.1 Exercise: Self illuminating headlights
      4. 4.2.4 Cutout maps
        1. 4.2.4.1 Exercise: Cutout maps for transparency
      5. 4.2.5 Ambient Occlusion
        1. 4.2.5.1 Exercise: Ambient occlusion for contrast
      6. 4.2.6 Round corners with Arch & Design materials
        1. 4.2.6.1 Exercise: Arch & Design round corners
    3. 4.3 Car Paint material
      1. 4.3.1 Fancy paint for the hot rod
        1. 4.3.1.1 Exercise: Experimenting with the Car Paint material
    4. 4.4 ProMaterials
    5. 4.5 Multiple materials on single objects
      1. 4.5.1 Multi/Sub-Object material type
        1. 4.5.1.1 Exercise: Material ID numbers
        2. 4.5.1.2 Exercise: Multi/Sub-Object material
      2. 4.5.2 Masking techniques
        1. 4.5.2.1 Exercise: The Blend material
        2. 4.5.2.2 Exercise: Adding a Mask map to the Blend material
      3. 4.5.3 Utility Bump Combiner
        1. 4.5.3.1 Exercise: Masking glossiness and reflections at the map level
        2. 4.5.3.2 Exercise: Combining bump maps in Arch & Design material
  12. 5. mental ray® and shaders
    1. 5.1 Introduction
    2. 5.2 Material/Surface shaders
      1. 5.2.1 Landscape shader
        1. 5.2.1.1 Exercise: Applying and adjusting a Landscape shader
      2. 5.2.2 Water surface shaders
        1. 5.2.2.1 Exercise: Materials for a water surface
        2. 5.2.2.2 Exercise: Adding bumps for waves
        3. 5.2.2.3 Exercise: Stain Underneath
      3. 5.2.3 Water shadow
        1. 5.2.3.1 Exercise: Water Surface Shadow shader
      4. 5.2.4 Multi/Sub-Map
        1. 5.2.4.1 Exercise: A different use of Multi/Sub-Map shader
    3. 5.3 Volume shaders
      1. 5.3.1 Submerge shader
        1. 5.3.1.1 Exercise: Applying a Submerge shader
      2. 5.3.2 Parti Volume shader
        1. 5.3.2.1 Exercise: Parti Volume shader to define a volume
    4. 5.4 mr Shader Element
      1. 5.4.1 Ambient Occlusion shader element
        1. 5.4.1.1 Exercise: mr Shader Element creates an external file
    5. 5.5 Camera shaders
      1. 5.5.1 Mist shader
        1. 5.5.1.1 Exercise: Applying and adjusting a Mist shader
      2. 5.5.2 Shader list
        1. 5.5.2.1 Exercise: A Shader list to hold multiple shaders
      3. 5.5.3 Beam shader
        1. 5.5.3.1 Exercise: Adding a Beam shader to the Shader list
      4. 5.5.4 Night shader
        1. 5.5.4.1 Exercise: Using a Night shader to fool the eye
    6. 5.6 Hidden shaders
  13. 6. Special effects
    1. 6.1 Introduction
    2. 6.2 Materials and shaders effects
      1. 6.2.1 Animated maps
        1. 6.2.1.1 Exercise: Accurately sizing an animated mask map
      2. 6.2.2 Using animated maps as masks
        1. 6.2.2.1 Exercise: Masking the Blend material
      3. 6.2.3 mental ray material and Material to Shader map
        1. 6.2.3.1 Exercise: 3D Displacement with Blend material in mental ray
    3. 6.3 Lighting effects
      1. 6.3.1 Caustics effects
        1. 6.3.1.1 Exercise: Reflective caustics
        2. 6.3.1.2 Exercise: Refractive caustics
      2. 6.3.2 Volumetric effects
        1. 6.3.2.1 Exercise: Adding volume to blinking lights
    4. 6.4 Rendering effects
      1. 6.4.1 Atmospheric effects
        1. 6.4.1.1 Exercise: Fire Effect 3D clouds
      2. 6.4.2 Motion blur effect
        1. 6.4.2.1 Exercise: Enabling motion blur object properties
        2. 6.4.2.2 Exercise: Enabling motion blur in the renderer
        3. 6.4.2.3 Exercise: Fast Rasterization for rendering efficiency
        4. 6.4.2.4 Exercise: More motion blur
      3. 6.4.3 Depth of field
        1. 6.4.3.1 Exercise: Depth of Field (mental ray)
        2. 6.4.3.2 Exercise: Depth of Field (mental ray) in the real world
      4. 6.4.4 Contour rendering
        1. 6.4.4.1 Exercise: Contour renderer component
        2. 6.4.4.2 Exercise: Contour material component
        3. 6.4.4.3 Exercise: Contour Composite (contour) shader
        4. 6.4.4.4 Exercise: Contour material shaders
      5. 6.4.5 Matte/Shadow/Reflections shader
        1. 6.4.5.1 Exercise: Viewport background
        2. 6.4.5.2 Exercise: Environment background
        3. 6.4.5.3 Exercise: Matte/Shadow/Reflections (mi) material
        4. 6.4.5.4 Exercise: Product rendering against a white background
    5. 6.5 Viewport effects
      1. 6.5.1 Introduction to mr Proxy objects
      2. 6.5.2 Geometry proxy
        1. 6.5.2.1 Exercise: Creating a mr Proxy
      3. 6.5.3 Creating multiple proxies at once
      4. 6.5.4 Using mr Proxy in Particle Flow
  14. 7. Revit and mental ray®
    1. 7.1 Introduction to Revit
    2. 7.2 FBX import
      1. 7.2.1 FBX tips
        1. 7.2.1.1 Exercise: Import FBX file
        2. 7.2.1.2 Exercise: Scene troubleshooting
    3. 7.3 ProMaterials
      1. 7.3.1 ProMaterial type
        1. 7.3.1.1 Exercise: A look at ProMaterials
      2. 7.3.2 Imported ProMaterials
        1. 7.3.2.1 Exercise: Imported ProMaterials
        2. 7.3.2.2 Exercise: ProMaterials can be inflexible
    4. 7.4 Large scenes
      1. 7.4.1 Efficiency
        1. 7.4.1.1 Exercise: Objects and polygons
      2. 7.4.2 Coordinate systems
        1. 7.4.2.1 Exercise: Centering a scene on the 3ds Max origin
    5. 7.5 Camera composition
      1. 7.5.1 Rule of Thirds
      2. 7.5.2 Camera shots
    6. 7.6 Architectural animation
      1. 7.6.1 Camera motion and scene editing
        1. 7.6.1.1 Camera motion
        2. 7.6.1.2 Scene editing
      2. 7.6.2 Flicker-free animation
        1. 7.6.2.1 Exercise: Flicker reduction for animation
    7. Summary
  15. Index

Product information

  • Title: Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, 2nd Edition
  • Author(s): Joep van der Steen, Ted Boardman
  • Release date: October 2012
  • Publisher(s): Routledge
  • ISBN: 9781136141416