Topics

31

[Scatter] Feature Requests / Don't change item name to <deleted>

« on: 2022-11-11, 15:02:26 »

Hi,

Would it at all be possible to change the behavior in the lists (includes/excludes and scatter item lists, mainly, I guess) that when an instanced object is deleted the list doesn't simply say <deleted>. This makes it very very hard to figure out what is missing when items are accidentally deleted.

I'd be much more user friendly if it listed the name as usual with the appendix of "Deleted".

Hope this is clear and achievable?

32

[Max] I need help! / Texture based on light occlusion?

« on: 2022-08-26, 11:13:08 »

Hi all,

I thought this would be simple enough, but it's turning out to be trickier than expected.

I thought I'd have a go at replicating this BlenderGuru tutorial in 3DSMAX. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YZzHn0iz8U&t=1016s&ab_channel=BlenderGuru

I'm stumbling on how to show the lights only on the dark side of the earth. AKA; How can I make a texture appear only when no light is bouncing on it?

Of course I'm using a Corona sun and no environment, and I thought that light/dark fall-off node would work, but it doesn't.

I've had some success with TextureObjectMask (putting a plane in the middle of the Earth/Sphere and locking it's 'lookat' constraint to the sun. This method works... but it's kinda heavy and buggy.) I've never used this texture node before.

Side-note bug report: It seems if I plug this TextureObjectMask into a CoronaPhysicalMtl and I want to replace it later with a different texture I can't - I just get a little red dot disallowing me to plug it in.. what's going on here?)

Anyway, any other tips for me to do this dark/light occlusion?

Many thanks!

33

[Scatter] 3ds Max - Bug Reporting / Spline scatter wrong when converting to mesh

« on: 2022-06-22, 15:08:19 »

Hi,

I have planks of wood scattered across a curvy spline (it's planar in one direction), they are scattered with Chaos Scatter.

If I hit the "convert to max geometry" button, I don't get expected results. Each plank is slightly off from where it is/where it should be.

Hopefully screengrabs tell the story better... cheers.

34

General CG Discussion / Virtual production - camera rigs

« on: 2022-06-13, 14:34:32 »

Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with 'virtual production' in 3ds max?

I'm basically wanting to use my Oculus Quest 2 (or any other device, iPhone is most likely, I guess) to capture a camera movement and import it into max.

Something like this (but  this looks quite cumbersome and not well developed):

fbclid=IwAR0EqsjHRtz-PTFcboWf5XJlxaVFPQS-OIW74-Xq3bIgRLBS1Vsexs3Xmiw
or this: https://virtucamera.com/

Any leads? Much appreciated! Cheers

35

General CG Discussion / Off-topic; Animating biped people

« on: 2022-05-04, 13:08:37 »

Hi all,

I've recently been working on some projects that have required a lot of animated 3d people.

It's been difficult to find the right people doing the right actions so I've had to resort to rigged biped humans from various sources.

However, I am most certainly not a character artist and my skills at animating these pre-rigged people is laughable at best.

I noticed there are biped files (*.bip, if I remember correctly) which are sort of pre-sets that I can load. However, from what I can tell this seems to be an outdated file type? I couldn't really find any packs available for purchase or download.

My query; if I have a rigged human model from some popular source (axyz, for example) how best can I animate it, preferably with some sort of pre-sets?

An ideal scenario would be that I have a mocap suit which I can use with said models, but I think this is a bit unrealistic at the moment for me...

I tested out MetaHuman but discovered it's only useable inside unreal and not exportable at all... :(

Any tips much appreciated!

36

[Max] Bug Reporting / Crash when deleting distance object in IR

« on: 2022-04-21, 15:09:23 »

Hi,

Pretty sure this is a newish bug. I'm running Corona 8.

If I'm using IR and I delete an object that is being used as a distance object, the whole Max instance instantly crashes.

I recorded this if you'd like to see it in action, but I'm pretty sure it's straight forward and hopefully is easily reproduceable.

Windows 10 / Max 2022.

37

Jobs / Camera path tracking work

« on: 2022-03-01, 15:28:07 »

Hi,

I have a bunch of Drone footage of an empty plot in a city that I need camera tracked. The drone flies above/past the empty site location for which I will need to patch in the 3d render (which I will do myself with max/corona once the camera path is tracked).

I would usually do this myself but I've found I often don't get very good results and my current workload is quite busy.

I don't care which software is used, but the output path/site will need to be compatible with 3ds max.

It will be 4k footage. I suspect approx 1 min long. I will be rendering the animation at 1080p.

If you're interested in this please send me a PM, along with some example work of previous successful tracking attempts. A quote (per second, 10 seconds, 1 minute, whatever) would also be necessary.

Thanks!

38

[Max] General Discussion / Reducing RAM usage

« on: 2022-01-17, 10:22:24 »

Hi all,

I'm working on a huge scene and topping out my 128gb of RAM very quickly.

I've come across 'Bitmap Tracking / Resizing' by Pixamoon which I highly recommend after only about 5 mins of usage...

I'm just checking in to confirm if the following is true and or helpful for my situation: will JPG use less RAM than PNG? And JPG less than Tif? Or am I kinda thinking of it wrong; will lower sized files use less RAM? So it doesn't matter the file type?

And I'm presuming that a 1mb file will use less RAM than it's 10mb counterpart?

What other tricks can I use? I'm already using xrefs (about 20 of them!). many many proxies, corona and forest scatter. The file opening time is becoming a MASSIVE issue, but I guess there isn't much to do about that.

Any other advice/tips MUCH appreciated :)

39

Off-Topic / Multi-cultural 3D people

« on: 2022-01-13, 16:50:21 »

Hi all,

I have a busy London streetscape 3d scene in the works.

A constant comment I'm getting from the client is that the majority of the 3d people are white! Which is fair enough, especially for a multi-cultural place like London. (The scene is a mix of 360's and many different camera angles so I don't want to be putting in 2d Photoshopped people.)

I'm looking for tips if anyone knows a good resource to acquire (legally) reasonably priced, reasonably good 3D people of mixed ethnicities? I see places like HumanAlloy have about 1 non-white person in each of their 5-pack basics, but as I already have about 200 white people (thanks to Humano) I'm looking for a better option.

Any leads? Much appreciated!

Edit: the resources I've checked: HumanAlloy, Humano, RenderPeople

40

[Max] I need help! / Find displacement materials

« on: 2022-01-13, 09:19:52 »

Hi all,

I'm rendering a big set of very large scenes (not large as in 1,000,000 trees) but many London city blocks from eye level with many many 3d people, buildings, vehicles etc. The biggest, heaviest scene I've ever built + rendered.

Anyway, I'm finding that generally the rendering is going smoothly. Surprisingly. (Side note; I'd recommend staying away from Humano 3d people - I bought their full collection for a sweet €1,000+ and they've been nothing but trouble!)

But if I turn on displacement it basically doesn't render (or displacement calc takes hours).

I'm almost certain there is only 1 object in the whole scene that has displacement, and is quite small, but important.

But I'm guessing, given the long displacement calc, that there must be more in the scene somehow.

My question: how do I find which objects/materials have displacement? The scene has thousands of materials (and about 10 xref files). So I'm struggling to come up with a solution as to how to find the troublesome displaced texture, remove it, and hopefully allow the render to get past the displacement calculation.

Many thanks for any tips!

41

Off-Topic / Best PS plug-in for film grain and bloom/glare

« on: 2022-01-05, 15:13:16 »

Hi all,

As the title suggests. I was under the impression that this was still arionfx, but I just checked out their website and I don't think it's changed in about 5 years. Looks like this plug-in is unloved and outdated.

Any suggestions for a photoshop plug-in to achieve some more cinematic film-y results? (Or workflows if plug-ins isn't your thing).

Cheers

42

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Bug: Objects disappear from IR when moved.

« on: 2021-12-14, 12:15:16 »

Hi,

This is a new and weird one. I'm using latest daily (6th Dec 2021), Max 2021.2, Windows 10.

The video screen capture should be self explanatory - I move an object and it disappears from the IR. I'm not sure if it's always happening (probably not, but I can't not make it happen unless I do a max restart).

Not shown in the video: An 'undo' makes it reappear, and restarting the IR makes all the objects come back. Also, it's not happening to all objects. I tested moving a car proxy and it didn't disappear... very odd.

The only third-party culprit I can think of that might be to blame here is FP.

Tough I do suspect this is a Corona issue. I'm using the CoronaSlicerMaterial in this scene (for the first time in a real-project scene), so maybe that has something to do with it?

Good luck and thanks for any tips!

43

General CG Discussion / Looking for a professional Realtime service

« on: 2021-11-29, 10:32:02 »

Hi all,

I have a big scene I'm creating for a client. It's a cityscape covering 2-3 blocks of a real London location.

The client threw me a bit of a curveball half-way through the project and said they now want the ability to view the whole scene in VR. This isn't a service I generally offer. Typically I'd test it out myself, either porting it into Unreal or converting it into Vray and using Vray vision (is this compatible with VR?). I don't really have the hardware either, unfortunately.

However, as this is quite a high-profile project and client so I want to give them the best.

Does anyone know a company, person, or service that can do a good, professional job of taking a 3DSmax model (in Corona) and convert it to be used in realtime software and with VR headsets?

The software/hardware doesn't really have to be of any particular type, though I guess Oculus with Unreal might be the best option?

Thanks for any tips!

44

[Max] Bug Reporting / Proxy materials get confused

« on: 2021-11-26, 16:05:21 »

Hi,

I make a proxy and the materials all get messed up. This has been happening to multiple objects/files today. Never noticed anything like this before.

Hopefully the video explains the situation well...

45

[Max] I need help! / Scene crashing immediately upon open

« on: 2021-11-15, 09:36:02 »

So, I have quite a big problem.

This isn't necessarily a Corona related issue but I thought I'd consult the brains trust here first...

I have a scene (it's only happening with 1 particular project) which crashes when I open it. BUT it crashes approximately every 6 in 7 times I open it.

I open the file, it loads, before the geometry is visible 3DS max immediately crashes. No error, no warning, nothing. I open it another 4, 5, 6 times and eventually it doesn't crash. I can use the file as usual, although sometimes a render in IR does cause another crash.

Now, I've tried restarts. I've re-imported everything into a fresh scene. The problem persists.

The scene is quite large, but I've split it up into multiple xrefs - the problem remains. Almost all of the materials are converted from ArchiCAD imported files.

I'm not using any forest pack (I did suspect this was a culprit early on). I'm on Max 2021, Windows 10. Corona daily Oct-15 (but have changed the daily build multiple times through this project, and even rolled-back once with no success).

Any ideas? Thanks!