Topics

31

[Max] Feature Requests / Rendering Performance Suggestion

« on: 2020-09-06, 06:23:25 »

Hi,
I've been trying to catch a deadline waiting for an animation to finish for about a week. Currently each frame takes 67 seconds to finish and total expected rendering time is reported as 51 hours. I just thought what if I hide the exterior objects while the camera is inside, it should at least reduce some object preparation, and in the course of 2500 frames, even a 2 second gain matters.

I hid the objects and the rendering time is reduced down to 31 seconds. This is a serious gain.

It may not be possible but, an object visibility check after the camera motion is determined and auto hiding the occluded objects would drastically improve rendering time. If it can be done fast enough this might even improve the rendering times of still renders.

Regards

32

[Max] I need help! / Matte/Shadow (Shadow Catcher) Help

« on: 2020-07-27, 10:17:31 »

I'm trying to mask some objects in the foreground by using Shadow Catcher material but I don't want the Shadow Catching foreground objects to receive any shadows, reflections (diffuse GI whatsoever).
I just want the Shadow Catcher assigned objects to appear transparent in Alpha Channel. There is always a diffuse reflection like AO in Alpha of the shadow catcher objects.
I have turned down reflection and shadow (to 0.1) as well for the Shadow Catcher material.

I guess it is due to some sort of GI coming from the HDR in the Scene Environment. How do I turn it down?

Thanks



Edit: I see from this tutorial that I need to use a RaySwitch Material (or map) to handle the job, however I still couldn't figure it out.

https://coronarenderer.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000529341

The attachment images contain full building, one of the parts of the building that's supposed to rise out of the full plan and come forward towards the viewer. There is also the alpha I'm trying to get rid of. The black blocks receiving illumination in alpha are shadow catcher objects.

I was actually trying to assign the catcher material to all other parts of the building and render the part that is supposed to come out with real materials, but as the GI or shadows in Alpha didn't give a good result (There were never dissappearing grains and shadows different than those on the full building image) I put the seperate rooms in alpha boxes. Tried to render without any shadows on catcher objects. I couldn't get rid of the GI reflections on catcher materials.

33

[Max] I need help! / Recommendation to make this scenes materials more cool

« on: 2020-07-23, 10:09:42 »

Hi I'm working on a presentation to display certain parts of a building.

I wish the entire building to stay at the back, somewhat faded as a sort of wireframe, and the rooms to be displeyed will come to the front as a full render version just as in the sample image.

I'm still working on it but I couldn't find a better material alternative for the background wireframe model. It doesn't necessarily be wireframe but I wish to make it more distinct. May be more Hidden Line rendering (Background Occluded lines less visible) The building also has two floors. Lower floor is not to come forward but it is there and it should be more faded may be.

Any material suggestion fading by distance is appreciated. Please feel free to recommend your choice of rendering such a scene any ink-paint material plugins etc. compatible with Corona.

34

[Max] I need help! / Help on Changing Materials of a Group of Objects into One

« on: 2020-07-13, 14:33:40 »

I have a 3d building plan scene with a hundred materials assigned to the objects. Walls, tables chairs etc. I wish to fade all rooms (to a transparent or wire -technical drawing style- material) except one to reveal its details. The revealed section will be in original materials. Then it will be faded while another room is revealed back to its materials.

I can do it with material morphing, attach several objects then I'll then blend the multi sub object material into the faded material.

I just wonder if it is possible to do it without attaching objects and directly to groups?

A second question is do you have any material recommendation for the faded material type to make it look appealing and not a crowded line mess? Some transparency some wire some falloffs... Wireframe rendering is definitely a mess for what I'm trying to do. :)

Thank you

35

[Max] I need help! / Erratic Behaviour of mParticle Position with 360 Degree Camera

« on: 2020-05-30, 23:16:43 »

I have rendered a 400 frame 360 degree stereoscopic medical animation that consists of a boxfull of mParticles. (See attachment)
Particles represent 3 particles in the blood. (Neutrophyl, Macrophage and Natural Killer Cell) My camera is in the middle of the box, surrounded with a collision sphere so that particles don't come very close to the camera. Scene is rendered perfectly.

I need to add the names of these three different particles on one of each type over the rendered frames.

As the viewport is not capable of correctly previewing 360 degree projection, it is very hard to place the text in the correct position.
I noticed -however- that Interactive render somehow moves the particles to the correct position in the viewport. (Just as in the rendered image) I determined the particles which I'll link the texts to, displayed their particle IDs and linked the texts to three particles by using Script Controller.

When the Interactive render window is active, (After moving the time slider one time) I see the texts perfectly aligned throughout the entire animation. Texts move with their corresponding particles. They are in the middle of the rendered image as they should be.
If I start production render the texts move to the lower left corners of the stereo pairs, totally incorrect place.

Only moving the time slider in IR mode updates the text positions to the correct place. (See the attachment with region render)
I'm literally out of ideas. What might it be, that updates the text and particles during interactive rendering, but not in the final rendering?

Edit: I ve attached the 2020 version Max file file for those who are interested in. It is originally created with Max 2020. (Saved from Max 2021 though) Didn't include the maps as they are only background files. I tried to convert it to the oldest version possible to make the file available to more folks around here, but the  particle positions change completely when converted to version 2018, so the oldest version I could save was 2020.

36

[Max] I need help! / Help on Constantly Crashing Scene

« on: 2020-03-17, 11:49:16 »

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zSURcrmreRLzAyqOw8jMpMSfClMRTJx9

This is a 3dsmax archive file of a 2350 frame stereoscopic VR animation scene I'm working on.

The scene is created on 3dsmax 2020 Update 3 and frequently crashes (especially after frame 1450) while being rendered with Corona 5.

I've tested the scene with a Ryzen TR PC with 128GB ram, too, so I believe it is not a low memory issue.

The two omni lights at the center of two spherical objects are supposed to emit volumetric lights with 3dsmax's native Environment Volume Light effects. It is visible until frame 1500, and scene rendered fine until around 1450.
After frame 1450 both spheres gradually become invisible (via invisibility), two instanced omni lights' intensity gradually decreases by the Multiplier parameter. They're totally off after frame 1500.
(Rendering time at frames 1450-1500 are relatively long compared to other frames probably due to visibility change. Rendering times change from 3 minutes to 20 minutes)

They're currently both turned off. I have even tried deleting them but I could at best render 50 frames without a crash, and at  worst had an immeadiate crash.

There is an HDR file in Corona Environment and a Sunlight illuminating the scene. One of the two seems to be worsening the isssue as I have once rendered the scene completely without any lights, but only a white colour as Environment. Crashed a few times at the time though.

I appreciate if you can help me find the culprit. Right now I'm sitting in front of the PC waiting to restart rendering at every crash.

37

[Max] I need help! / Help on Camera DOF

« on: 2020-02-14, 23:54:49 »

I have a camera, targeted and focused onto a glass marble.
When I turn on DOF and set some parameters, my glass marble is focused and sharp, while the background and foreground are blurred.
I need to make the scene behind the marble blurred but the marble and the scene in front of the marble sharp and focused.

Near will be in focus with the marble and the back will be blurred. Any help on this?

38

[Max] I need help! / Urgent Help Needed on Global Volume

« on: 2020-01-26, 15:45:16 »

I could never achieve a volumetric light effect with Global Volume, very probably because I can never manage the range of settings which creates the correct effect. I only have fog covering everywhere.

I need to achieve the effect in the image and I need it to be created in 3d (not in post) because this is going to be a stereoscopic animation.

Can you help me walk through this?

39

[Max] I need help! / VR Render for Oculus Go

« on: 2020-01-04, 11:23:25 »

I see that there is VR rendering in Corona. That's amazing. I wonder if it is compatible with Oculus Go?

Are there any prerequisites to create Oculus Go compatible stereoscopic, panoramic renders? Resolution, codec, specific settings etc.

40

[Max] I need help! / Transparent Material with Hidden Backfaces

« on: 2019-11-18, 15:21:26 »

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-5362736-medical-animation-tennis-player--visible-skeletons

I'm working on a medical animation and trying to create the body material used in the above video. 
Some opacity with sort of Fresnel Falloff used in Self Illumination does the trick to some extent but backfaces whose front sides are looking at the camera are also visible. In the video, the effect is like the Hidden Line Viewport Shading mode. The lef at the back is not visible at all. What could be a simple approach to such material.

Thanks in advace.

 

41

[Max] I need help! / Help on Seeing the Interior of a Tube

« on: 2019-11-12, 16:15:59 »

I'm working on a medical animation. My particles are supposed to be moving through the small intestine (sort of a tube) and I need to see them from outside. A fully transparent material is not so appealing.

I need a material and/or map type, to keep the concave interior a solid material, but the sides looking at the camera transparent, just like the tube is sliced to half with the slice modifier in 3dsmax. Or some sort of top/bottom material would do the trick but I might be looking for something literally impossible since the tube is not uniform but moves in several direction.

The hemisphere (or hemi-cylinder:)  looking at the camera should be transparent. The other opaque. And the model has thickness.

42

[Max] Resolved Bugs / Assigned Maps Not Updating

« on: 2019-08-02, 09:59:33 »

3DS Max has been extremely slow in viewport playback in versions around 2012 due to the updates of literally hundreds of parameters all around the UI. I've had experiences of not being able to complete an undo operation of deleting a single object within a group, as the program goes back and forth in a nightmare number of objects. Fortunately they have come up with a solution and the program seems to work much better since a few versions back and getting much better every upcoming version?? But at the expense of what? I guess many parameters are not updated anymore. Sorry for the gibberish talk; the problem I'm about to mention may be about 3ds Max's new UI update strategy, and may not be a Corona bug, but it really sucks:

I have added maps to the Environment Overrides slots. I have instanced them to a Material Editor slot. If I change any of them in the Material Editor, the names in the assigned slot do not change. As the bitmap name is also visible in the slot it causes serious misunderstanding from time to time. If I instance a 'modified-in-Material-Editor-but-not-updated-in-slot' override to another override slot (eg.from reflection to refraction) the new instance gets the correct name but the old one still remains the same incorrect map name.

 I'm pretty sure this assignment misrepresentation it is the same all around the software. This type of update issues disrupt your workflow and cause serious waste of time.

43

[Max] I need help! / Opaque Alpha for Refractive Material

« on: 2019-08-02, 09:40:41 »

I have a refractive glass material in my scene and naturally it has alpha with shades of grey. Is there an option to render the alpha of that certain glass material as (white) opaque. (If I remember the name correctly; like the Transparency Propagates Alpha Channel option in Mental Ray.)

44

[Max] I need help! / Pinning Active Shade Viewport

« on: 2019-07-17, 10:02:26 »

When you start Active Shade for a perspective viewport and try to move the objects in other viewports, like top or front, Active Shade window turns to the viewpoint of that viewport. That is not an efficient workflow.
I wonder if its possible to pin the Active Shade viewport to the view I want and have it stay that way even if I click and move the object in the top viewport.

45

[Max] I need help! / [solved] Environment Background Switcher Alternative in Corona

« on: 2019-07-11, 08:12:15 »

I'm looking for the Environment/Background Switcher feature alternative in Corona. With E/B Switcher you could assign a different background image (or leave the background a solid color) while illuminating the scene with another environment image.

I have noticed a Corona RaySwitch material type in no time, assuming it would do the trick but couldn't figure out how it works. Direct visibility appears nowhere, Global Illumination is just as assigning the image to the Env. slot.