Topics

1

[Max] I need help! / Interior lighting for Exterior Renders and Reflections

« on: 2023-01-26, 20:10:40 »

Hello, there are two things I'm struggling with.

One of them is adding interior lights to an exterior render. Is there a good way to do it quickly? I place lights in each room and it is tedious. Any tricks up your sleeves? I have a huge building to render with 100+ exterior windows.

Secondly, how do you guy deal with reflections from behind the camera on a large exterior scene? I'm working on a large building (see attached) and I would prefer not to have to model an entire scene behind the camera to have nice reflections. Using an HDRI helps but I really like using the new Corona sky and clouds.



Thanks for the help!

2

General CG Discussion / Working with calibrated monitors- which color space?

« on: 2022-11-16, 17:07:13 »

Hello,

I've recently bought a monitor calibration tool which gives me an *.icc file. Should I be using this profile for all my programs that allow it? Photoshop, Substance, etc.? Does anyone have some insight on this? Color space is a deep well that I'm just scratching the surface of.

Thank you!

3

[Max] I need help! / Corona Decal - Transparent Colour Map?

« on: 2022-11-01, 17:10:26 »

Hello,

I've been trying to make some reusable decals for my projects that matches the aesthetics of my city. I do a lot of commercial retail projects so half the render is always a parking lot. Today I was working on some tire depressions and got it looking good but I had to add the base colour and roughness from my asphalt material. Is there a better way to do this? I'd love a decal that just turns the brightness down on the base material and add displacement. My asphalt and decal material are shown in the attached screenshot.

4

[Max] I need help! / Displace on the X/Y-axis only?

« on: 2022-06-14, 22:10:01 »

I'm working on a rendering of a building which has multiple metal panel profiles. I figured it would be easy to make the different profiles with a simple displacement map but they are also displacing in the Z-axis and over lapping where the profile changes. Is there any way to prevent this? I've tried Corona Tri-planer on a whim and it didn't work.

Thank you

5

[Max] I need help! / Lighting the Interior of a Building - Exterior Shot

« on: 2018-07-09, 21:07:14 »

Is there any trick to uniformly lighting the interior of a building for an exterior night shot?

6

General CG Discussion / Smooth Animation - Need Help (3ds Max)

« on: 2018-03-29, 17:09:29 »

I've been playing around with animating my architectural visualizations recently, but I'm having trouble getting them smooth. Is there a rule of thumb for how fast my camera should be moving in 3ds Max?

I rendered out an image sequence overnight. I panned across the front of my building from frame 0 to frame 60, and rendered all 61 images. When I brought it into Premiere Pro it was either way too fast, or way too choppy. I got it looking okay eventually, but nowhere near as smooth as a typical animation.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for setting up animations? Is there an ideal velocity my camera should be moving at? I have a big animation to do at work in May so I'm trying to get a solid grasp of it beforehand. Thanks for the help everyone.

7

[Max] I need help! / Dichroic Laminated Glass?

« on: 2017-10-26, 19:01:28 »

I was wondering if making this type of glass would be possible in Corona: https://www.goldrayglass.com/products/dichroic/

It's seems to be a film laminated in between two layers of glass. Anyone have experience with this? Thanks!

8

[Max] Tutorials & Guides / Substance Designer > Corona (3ds max)

« on: 2017-06-16, 23:37:34 »

Updated the images and attachments with thanks to Njen!

I've been trying to streamline a Substance Designer to Corona workflow. I've made some substances and a material library that I'd like to share, and to ask for some help tweaking the process. I'm no expert in 3d, so I'm guessing this isn't 100% correct, but I thought it may serve as a stepping stone to people more adept than myself.

First off I made a Corona converter substance (see attachments). I used a Material Transform node to allow for easy input and then the BaseColor/Metallic/Roughness Converter. The outputs have all been renamed to correspond with a Corona Material.

Diffuse
Reflection Color
Reflection Glossiness
Normal
Displacement
Metallic Mask (used for materials that are mixed metallic and dielectric)



Any substance should be able to plug into the Material Transform. Just adjust the substance to your liking then export the outputs as bitmaps. I rename the Corona converter before export to match the material name to save myself from renaming all the maps individually.

Once that is finished you can head over to 3ds Max. I've made a material library (see attached).

Dielectrics



Metallics


Mixed dielectric/metallic material that uses a mask to differentiate between the two.


All that you need to do is pick the map that is named the same as the CoronaBitmap. You must import the Reflection Glossiness and Normal with a Gamma of 1.0. I'm not sure if there is a way to set it so these couple maps automatically import at gamma 1.0, it would be great if someone could let me know.

The only problem that I can see (remember I'm an amateur), is that the Reflection Glossiness doesn't import correctly. To fix this I've added a CoronaOutput after the map, all you have to do is adjust the brightness/contrast to suit your scene. I've been finding I have to lower the contrast a bit, and raise the brightness a bit. I'm not sure if that works for every scene but it seems to be a good rule of thumb.

This is the most efficient method I can come up with. I would love some advice, comments, criticisms. Here's a final substance from Substance Source I got into Corona in about 60 seconds:



Thanks for reading. I've attached the substance and the material library to the post.

References/Thanks:
NicolasW for this great Polycount thread: http://polycount.com/discussion/155524/pbr-basecolor-metallic-to-vray-3-2-corona-redshift-arnold-converter
Wes McDermott and Allegorithmic for their rendering documentation: https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/integrations/Rendering

9

[Max] I need help! / VizPark's Real Grass - Corona Preset Question

« on: 2017-06-08, 21:02:47 »

I had a couple questions about VizPark's Real Grass and was hoping I could get some clarification from the Corona pro's.

First, when I open a scene I get this message:

If my gamma is set to 2.2, when I import these bitmaps I should override to 1.0 correct?

Secondly, the materials seem to be made differently than anything I've read or watched about Corona. As you can see they use a Fresnel IOR of 999, and a refraction level of 1.0.



Is this a correct way of doing it? Or should I be adjusting them? Thanks for the help in advance!

EDIT: Not sure if the images are showing, I've added them as attachments as well.

10

General CG Discussion / Best way to save assets..?

« on: 2017-03-14, 03:04:43 »

I've been practicing my shading recently and was hoping to start creating a collection of assets to use in my scenes. I've tried saving them as *.fbx last night but it doesn't seem to save the settings on my outputs. Is there a better way to save assets with the finished materials embedded?

Thanks for the help.

11

[Max] I need help! / Corona 1.5 PBR Clarification

« on: 2016-10-25, 23:49:36 »

Hey everyone. I've been out of the loop for a bit with school and was hoping to get some clarification on the PBR changes in 1.5. Am I right in thinking we still need to use this method?:

http://polycount.com/discussion/155524/pbr-basecolor-metallic-to-vray-3-2-corona-redshift-arnold-converter/p1

But now Corona will render the materials more accurately? Or is there more to it that I'm missing? I've been reading what I can for a couple days around this forum and others but can't find a solid answer. Thanks for the help!

12

[Max] I need help! / Best way to make materials from a bitmap? (Asphalt)

« on: 2016-06-14, 01:53:22 »

Hey everyone, I've been trying for ages to wrap my head around materials. I'm getting close with all the great tutorials but I'm still having some trouble with what I feel is pretty basic stuff. I've found an asphalt texture here that I've been trying to use:

 http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UUSt0te5EW8/UZKbqonoLXI/AAAAAAAAEzw/M25s4Q9Qpy0/s1600/Texture%20seamless%20asphalt%20asfalto%20drenante%20simo-3d.jpg.

During all the Corona tutorials they only use one bitmap and plug it into the reflection slot, and the bump slot with an output node. Is that the correct way to do things? I can't seem to get any decent reflections with this image. Or would it be more correct to put it through Substance Designer (B2M node) and use the material converter to convert to Corona? Is there something else I could be overlooking? I can't seem to get my asphalt (or a lot of other materials) to look anywhere close to some of the renders I've seen around the forums.

Thanks for the help.

13

[Max] I need help! / Best way to apply spec/gloss materials? (eg Arroway)

« on: 2016-03-30, 15:48:57 »

Hey everyone, I was curious to what would be the recommended method for applying textures like Arroway in Corona, with a diffuse, spec, glossiness, and bump? I'm trying to get a better understanding of materials because it's easily my weakest area of rendering. I know there isn't one magical solution but I'm hoping you guys will have some good advice.

Obviously the diffuse and bump aren't a problem but I'm a bit lost on what to do with the spec, gloss, etc. Would it be wise to make standard materials then using the material converter? Or is there a better method?

Thanks for the help.

14

Work in Progress/Tests / Advice for a beginner

« on: 2016-02-09, 03:18:14 »

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to the whole 3d world. I've been teaching myself 3ds Max, Corona, Substance Designer/Painter, and UE4 for the past year. I'm trying to do quick little rendering and was hoping to get some advice, criticism, hints, tips, etc. I'm using a simple HDRI to light the scene (one of the freebie ones around the web) and some very basic materials.

I'm not completely satisfied with the rendering but I'm not good enough at this to understand why. I know the sky is washed out, I had some trees behind the brick wall to block that out but took them out to for temporarily for rendering speed. Would you be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong? I will try to responda s quickly as I can. Thanks everyone.

James G

15

[Max] I need help! / Lit Acrylic Sign Material

« on: 2015-12-09, 20:31:20 »

I've been trying to make a Corona Material for a lit acrylic sign like this:

I've tried using a translucent material with a light behind it, a lit material, and even scattering but I just can't seem to get the look right. Does anyone have any suggestions or solutions?

Apologies if this is an easy material, I'm fairly new to the 3d rendering world. Thanks for the help!