Getting Started Video Tutorial
Here is a quick video to help all those who requested help on getting started. If video does not play on your system you may use the download ling below the media player to obatain the video.
Blog
Quick note on gamma issue (dark textures)
I wanted to take a few minutes to explain the current gamma setup of the 3ds
Max matlab scenes, and what to do if your output doesn't look similar to the default render that comes with the scenes.A&D Clay material (and other random stuff)
Recently I wanted to create a somewhat realistic clay material. After making a few variations I thought it might be helpful to others out there if I share my settings.Creating your own A&D preset materials
How the heck did I create my own templates? It's a fairly simple process, but it can be rather confusing due to the various path locations of the required files.
Before I explain how, let's get the standard disclaimers out of the way first:
YOU PERFORM THESE EDITS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR FILES BEFORE MODIFYING ANY OF THE FILES I'M ABOUT TO DISCUSS.
Hopefully you know how to load & edit .mat files with the material editor in 3dsmax. If you don't, spend some time reviewing the help file for instructions on the process before starting this "tutorial".
Grainy Reflections (A&D material)
If you haven't reviewed the WONDERFUL A&D help document that ships with 3dsmax9, please do so. Zap put a lot of time into that and it's a huge leap forward from the "usual" mental ray documentation that's in 3dsmax.
Along those lines, I've seen a few posts on various forums about noise in the reflections of the A&D material. That noise is primarily controlled by the reflection sample settings, not the FG settings, etc.. here's some examples to illustrate the point.
PARTI...woohooo!!!
I've received several emails, and seen several forum posts from people wanting some assistance/guidance on using the parti volume shader(s). Most say the "cryptic" documentation that is included with Max on this shader doesn't really help them easily understand how to use it. So, I thought I'd throw together some makeshift documentation to try and make learning the Parti Volume shaders a little easier.
Displaced Terrains in mental ray
Some people have asked for more information on an example displacement terrain scene I created. So, here's a little breakdown on the process & tools used:
Caustics & HDR lighting samples
For those that need to examine a 3dsmax9 caustic scene, I'm providing a simple setup that uses A&D materials and illustrates both reflective and refractive caustics. In this entry I've also provided a few HDR configurations that you can explore.
Washed out bitmaps with Logarithmic Exposure Control?
If you're using logarithmic exposure control with mental ray and finding your texture bitmaps a bit washed out, then you may find this tip useful.
