Mental ray test renders (Update 5)

First topic message reminder :

Hello po CGpeeps and calling all MR masters and MR users...

I have done another set of MR render exercise in terms of Lighting and textures/materials. I am hoping our MR masters could give some pointers on how to improve this... I'll be posting finished output soon.

Please note that models are not mine but did a few adjustments on them. My aim is to concentrate on the Light settings and materials to come up with a decent render output with Mental Ray.

More Test Renders:
Office Scene 02


with PS blurring for DOF effects... napaglaruan lang po

Office Scene 01 - Another render exercise only. Just found the design online. This one's more on Indirect Illumination tests.. FG Point=4, Rays=500



with bits of PS (adjusted brightness & color)

BOKEH DOF
2nd Bokeh DOF with PS kalandian effects

Same view without DOF and a bit PS


Finally, my first Bokeh Effect DOF! After so many attemps. hehe I should be getting the hang of it by now, I'll be doing one more! anyway, the rendering time isn't good, took me the whole night to finish the render. The next one should be faster, I'll take the masters' advice, I'll lower down the sampling and sudivisions of some materials and we'll see how it goes. Sensyahan niyo na po ang mga flaws, sana makagamit na din ako ng magandang carpet later on, probably hair and fur... sana!


and here's the bokeh set btw, notice i have the focus plane at value 5000mm, which means, I focused far to the dining area to get the effect. Didn't really knew before how the focus plane works. The value you set is meant for the distance of the Focus Plane from the camera. Hope that helps you guys. Thanks to our Sir Logikpixel.


New Scene!
ok... test renders pa rin, but I'm a bit contented with the lighting, minor issues on materials...



(more views to come) tried to lower some samples but it isn't looking good... and I think I now know why I have that big shadow going on by the sides of the windows... I'll discuss with my new/next render solution...







I'll be posting a more descent image for my next update...

Image 1 (NO Post process)
Render setup: sampling min 1 max 16, no FG, default GI/photons
Render size & time: 800max px for 2 1/2 hrs (my PC couldnt handle a bigger size render for this set... or maybe due to my material samplings kaya po mabagal... Any suggestions or recommendations Masters?)
MR Lighting: 2 portal lights with 2-different mib blackbody assigned. 1 portal from window (exterior) and 1 portal from the inside.
Environment Setting: MR Photographic Exposure, Shutter Speed adjusted from 500-350 for brighter output.
Materials: Max10 Special effects: AO and sampling max 20 & 32 for Refraction and Reflection respectively.


Image 2 (NO Post process, some errors and unfinished material settings)
Render setup: sampling min 1 max 64, FG points=1, ray=500, Interpolation=300, Ave. GI photons per light (Light Property)=200000
Render size & time: 1500max px for 2 hrs (used my Office PC here, quite better than mine)
MR Lighting: 2 portal lights of with 2-different mib blackbody assigned. 1 portal from window (exterior) and 1 portal from the inside. MR sun + MR sky
Environment Setting: MR Photographic Exposure, Shutter Speed adjusted from 500-350 for brighter output.
Materials: Max10 Special effects: AO and sampling max 20 & 32 for Refraction and Reflection respectively.


Image 3 (NO Post process)
quick render with 1 portal light of with mib blackbody assigned, MR sun + MR sky



Comments will be appreciated. I'll be posting finished output soon.



God Bless po sa CGP!!!

-Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

MENTAL RAY LINKS & INFORMATIONS (for Sir Nomeradona and all)
Disclaimer: This MR links & infos collection is a journal and personal collection used for the authors exercise and test renders. All links were taken from different websites including here at CGP.

MR TUTS & INFOS
http://www.3dallusions.com/forums/mrmaterials-blog/3218-3ds-max-2009-design-importons-irradiance-particles.html importons-irradiance

recap:

If you have GI enabled, Importons and IP. Only Importons(together with photons) will be used (if a merge is specified for the importons param, while set to 0 for the gi photons param) and IP will be disabled.
If you have GI and FG enabled. Same as above.
If you have FG only enabled. Both Importons and IP will be disabled.

that ends to these workflows:

- photons only
- finalgather only
- photons + finalgather
- importons + photons
- importons + photons + finalgather (cool here is to use the 'Precompute Photon Lookup'.. so you'll have a kind of fg importance-drived)
- importons + irradianceparticles

by thorsten harttman
importons:
emitted: 50.000
density: 0.5
merge: 0.05m
trackksize: 32
depth: 4
traverse: off

irradiance particle:
Ray: 1000
Pass:3
interpolate mode: always
interplate ray: 180
EnvRay: 1000
EnvScale: 2.5
Scale: 2.5

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=87&t=621727
http://www.mrmaterials.com/jeffs-blog/56-importons-irradiance-particles.html imp/part discussions

http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/search/label/mental%20ray
http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/search/label/rendering
http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/ ramy hanna
nice tips / grass disp / fast render...

http://www.textureking.com/

http://www.gnomonschool.com/master/ mr secrets unlocked

http://www.cgdigest.com/category/rendering-tutorials/
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/3DS-MAX/Lighting/1
http://www.3dtotal.com//ffa/tutorials/tutorialsmax.php more

http://www.infinity-vision.de/PhotoStudio/de/index.html photostudio pro/translate here: http://www.infinity-vision.de/PhotoStudio/de/index.html

http://translate.google.com.ph/translate?hl=tl&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.infinity-vision.de%2FPhotoStudio%2Fde%2Findex.html
MR PROXY PROCEDURE

http://www.germanmentalray.de/ german MR

http://www.maxplugins.de/
http://animus.brinkster.net/index.html plugins!!!

MODELLING, LIGHTING ETC EG EDUC
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm


FOR MR RENDER SETUP
http://www.tokeru.com/t/bin/view/Maya/MayaMentalRay ALL

http://www.secondpicture.com/tutorials/3d/mental_ray_in_3ds_max.html
http://www.theqball.com/tutorials/memory-optimization - PERFECT RAM OPT AND PC PERFORMANCE
http://www.theqball.com/tutorials/mr-links REF
http://translate.google.com.ph/translate?prev=hp&hl=tl&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.treddi.com%2Fforum%2Findex.php%3Fshowforum%3D54%26topicfilter%3Dicon_id_3&sl=auto&tl=en&history_state0= ref

FINAL GATHER, PHOTON & GLOBAL ILLUMINATION FOR FAST RENDER
•Turn on Photon Map, use Read/Write File, then render
•Turn on Final Gather, use Read/Write File
•Lower samples to 1/64 - 1/64
•Render active time segment at every 10 frames
•Turn on final gather Read Only (FG Freeze)
•Increase samples to 1 - 16
•Turn on Save File for Render Output
•Render active time segment at every 1 frame
http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/search/label/final%20gather

GI:
I set the Maximum Num. Photons per Sample to 100. This is so low because I also use a low number of photons per light. There is no need to shoot so many photons per sample when I am using such low photons per light. The important thing to consider when calculating GI is being able to light the scene evenly, and get a consistently lit space.

I also turn on Maximum Sampling Radius. I start with something small like 1’ and increase the amount by 5’ until I get a generally smooth result without seeing any discs in the rendering. Often I will go up to a value like 30’ before I get a smooth result. This is not a typical use for GI, and in a way it’s cheating your photons to get bright values with such low numbers so the render times are fast.

FG:
I slide the FG Precision Presets all the way to the left to Draft setting. I’ve found that I can get away with low FG settings if I add an occlusion pass later in post.

For Diffuse Bounces I set it to 2 typically, just to I can get enough bounce and increase my light values. Changing the bounce number significantly reduces rendering speed so be careful with this one.

I didn’t change this setting, but I’ll mention it. I sometimes change the Noise Filtering from Standard to None, if I can get away with it. When set to None, the render is much brighter because you are taking into consideration all of the FG points, but at times will have noise. When you set it to Standard the scene is much darker, but smoother generally. So if you can set it to None and still get smooth results, then you just got more light into your scene for free.
http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/search/label/global%20illumination


Mental Ray Sampling (adaptive sampling settings)
http://www.impresszio.hu/szabolcs/MentalRay/MentalRaySampling.htm

CAMERA:
•Shutter Speed (exposure)
•Aperture (f-stop)
•Film speed (ISO)
•Whitepoint (color temperature)
1. http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/2009/04/understanding-cameras-for-renderings.html
2. http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/2009/03/parti-volume-shader.html (render tab-camera shader: parti volume)


IMPORTONS & IRRADIANCE PARTICLES
If you have GI enabled, Importons and IP. Only Importons(together with photons) will be used (if a merge is specified for the importons param, while set to 0 for the gi photons param) and IP will be disabled.
If you have GI and FG enabled. Same as above.
If you have FG only enabled. Both Importons and IP will be disabled.

- photons only
- finalgather only
- photons + finalgather
- importons + photons
- importons + photons + finalgather (cool here is to use the 'Precompute Photon Lookup'.. so you'll have a kind of fg importance-drived)
- importons + irradianceparticles

by thorsten harttman
importons:
emitted: 50.000
density: 0.5
merge: 0.05m
trackksize: 32
depth: 4
traverse: off

irradiance particle:
Ray: 1000
Pass:3
interpolate mode: always
interplate ray: 180
EnvRay: 1000
EnvScale: 2.5
Scale: 2.5
http://www.3dallusions.com/forums/mrmaterials-blog/3218-3ds-max-2009-design-importons-irradiance-particles.html importons-irradiance

BLACKBODY
http://xgeek.org/2009/08/mental-ray-cie-d-illuminant-and-blackbody-radiator-shaders/
BOKEH EFFECT
http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/2008/03/bokeh-effect.html

Various CG forums:
http://www.cgtalk.com/
http://www.vizdepot.com
http://www.cgarchitect.com
http://www.evermotion.org/
http://www.3dallusions.com/
http://maxforums.org/
http://www.cg-cars.com
http://area.autodesk.com/
mental ray specific links:
http://www.mymentalray.com
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/
http://jeffpatton.cgsociety.org/blog/
http://3dlight.blogspot.com/
http://www.djx.com.au/blog/ (maya)
http://www.pfbreton.com/cgtechniques/
http://www.dmmultimedia.com/3dtips_01.htm
http://lamrug.org/
3d artists websites:
http://www.todddaniele.com/
http://www.jaddyportfolio.com/
http://danielbuck.net/
http://neilblevins.com http://neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm
http://www.nikclark.com/
http://www.martincoven.com/
http://www.xenomorphic.co.uk
http://www.garryclarke.com/
http://www.ak3d.de/
http://www.ag-systems.net/
Other links:
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/
http://www.theqball.com/l
http://www.dmmultimedia.com/
mental image links:
ftp://ftp.mentalimages.com/data/pub/shaders/
http://www.munkmotion.com/tutorials/nsx/2c.htm car mod

mherfc wrote:nice sets of renders....IMHO lng sir, wag mo masyado kalikutin ang mga default settings..from there adjust ka lng...MRay user din ako...importante materials to be used....and lighting....try mo rin ung filter mo e Lanczos...

hi sir hehe kakareply ko lang din sa work mo... ok sir, salamat sa payo, well taken po!!! try ko din yun Lanczos filter

yun about sa default setting sir, ibig niyo ba sabihin sa material default or render settings??

cadav3r17 wrote:GRABE SA GALING BRO HEHEHE

salamat sir cadaver17 sa pagdaan.. todo practice pa din sir e..

ang ganda master

marcelinoiii wrote:

mherfc wrote:nice sets of renders....IMHO lng sir, wag mo masyado kalikutin ang mga default settings..from there adjust ka lng...MRay user din ako...importante materials to be used....and lighting....try mo rin ung filter mo e Lanczos...

hi sir hehe kakareply ko lang din sa work mo... ok sir, salamat sa payo, well taken po!!! try ko din yun Lanczos filter

yun about sa default setting sir, ibig niyo ba sabihin sa material default or render settings??

Well I guess what mherfc is trying to say is the default render settings. Gaya nung sinabi ko on this same post that the default setting is usually enough for you to get started rendering out nice images. Only turn up the notch when and only when you encounter problems and when you make the resolution higher. Filters and anti-aliasing usually do most of the trick. On the materials side of things your sampling values also helps.

Hope these advices further enhance your knowledge of your craft. Cheers man!

Very nice design & visualizations Master
Keep inspiring bro

ayos.....

renren wrote:ang ganda master

salamat sir! glad you like the images... more to come po, I'm now cooking my first dof to share... abangan niyo sir

logikpixel wrote:

marcelinoiii wrote:

mherfc wrote:nice sets of renders....IMHO lng sir, wag mo masyado kalikutin ang mga default settings..from there adjust ka lng...MRay user din ako...importante materials to be used....and lighting....try mo rin ung filter mo e Lanczos...

hi sir hehe kakareply ko lang din sa work mo... ok sir, salamat sa payo, well taken po!!! try ko din yun Lanczos filter

yun about sa default setting sir, ibig niyo ba sabihin sa material default or render settings??

Well I guess what mherfc is trying to say is the default render settings. Gaya nung sinabi ko on this same post that the default setting is usually enough for you to get started rendering out nice images. Only turn up the notch when and only when you encounter problems and when you make the resolution higher. Filters and anti-aliasing usually do most of the trick. On the materials side of things your sampling values also helps.

Hope these advices further enhance your knowledge of your craft. Cheers man!

Sir Logikpixel, maraming salamat ulit sa tips. Actually regarding render settings, I only tend to put to high values the GI and FG, they help a lot in making my renders more smooth and crisp. As for the default sets ng materials, I always do encounter problems with refraction default so I always raise them to 16-20 subv... Actually same goes with reflection sampling, always put the important materials to 32 subv especially for walls and woods, including chrome/shiny metals...

I never use noise filter by the way, not even standard... and tendency is, I raise the FG and GI quite a bit, kaya din ba mabagal ang renderings ko Sir?

Anyway, salamat talaga Master Logik and Sir mherfc sa mga tips.

btw, Sirs I'll be posting my first DOF after so many attemps, well I think it was all worth it, I'm still cooking the render, but it's coming out well and good... Thanks sa inyo mga Sirs!!! Really got inspired with all your works.

rangalua wrote:Very nice design & visualizations Master
Keep inspiring bro

salamat sir hehe render and material assignment lang ang sa kin sir Inspired lang din ako sa inyo!

panalong panalo lahat to sir.. galing mo sa mental ray^^ sana kasing galing mo rin ako... post more sir!

zildian_nico wrote:ayos.....

salamat sa pagdaan sir

jolicoeur030488 wrote:panalong panalo lahat to sir.. galing mo sa mental ray^^ sana kasing galing mo rin ako... post more sir!

hehe salamat bro... kaya mo din yan. more to come, keep visiting this thread.. inspired tayo sa mga masters natin e!!! try mo na din start mental ray, check out our MR tutotrial section here, The Best!!!

wow galing gusto ko to.....

way back last 2007 i was a MR renderer. kaya lang nag fucos ako sa vray, kasi maraming wla sa mental ray na nasa sa vray. pero ngayon parang babalik ata ako. galing nito sir...... anong gamit mong mental ray sir? stand alone or yong package talaga ng 3dmax?

dhandora wrote:wow galing gusto ko to.....

way back last 2007 i was a MR renderer. kaya lang nag fucos ako sa vray, kasi maraming wla sa mental ray na nasa sa vray. pero ngayon parang babalik ata ako. galing nito sir...... anong gamit mong mental ray sir? stand alone or yong package talaga ng 3dmax?

hi sir... I'm glad naappreciate niyo ulit ang MR of today... maganda na ang mga features nya sir lalo sa Max2010, eto ang gamit ko MR. umpisahan niyo lang sa tutorial section natin ng MR dito sa CGP, mamamangha ulit kayo sa MR!

More power sir!

salamat sir dhandora!

BOKEF DOF
Finally, my first Bokeh Effect DOF! After so many attemps. hehe I should be getting the hang of it by now, I'll be doing one more! anyway, the rendering time isn't good, took me the whole night to finish the render. The next one should be faster, I'll take the masters' advice, I'll lower down the sampling and sudivisions of some materials and we'll see how it goes. Sensyahan niyo na po ang mga flaws, sana makagamit na din ako ng magandang carpet later on, probably hair and fur... sana!


and here's the bokeh set btw, notice i have the focus plane at value 5000mm, which means, I focused far to the dining area to get the effect. Didn't really knew before how the focus plane works. The value you set is meant for the distance of the Focus Plane from the camera. Hope that helps you guys. Thanks to our Sir Logikpixel.

ayos pre...ang linis tlga ng mental ray!!!keep on inspiring us dude!!!

f-fortyone wrote:ayos pre...ang linis tlga ng mental ray!!!keep on inspiring us dude!!!

thanks for standing by bro... hehe ok na nga ang quality natin, but now I am figuring out how to balance quality and shorter render time... I'll be posting solution soon. Pero alam ko na ata bakit sobra bagal, sabi nga ng masters, wag masyado mataas yun subv or sampling ng materials kung di naman kailangan... so from 32 & 20 I'll try 16 & 8 for reflection and refraction samples respectively... hintay mo hehe

these are awesome renders!

nitpick lang, IMO those picture frames on the wall (i know those are your personal stuff and they are endearing to you) would be better to be edited (perhaps change everything to black and white) so that they blend well to the scene. I think the color versions are out of place in your stunning images.

celes wrote:these are awesome renders!

nitpick lang, IMO those picture frames on the wall (i know those are your personal stuff and they are endearing to you) would be better to be edited (perhaps change everything to black and white) so that they blend well to the scene. I think the color versions are out of place in your stunning images.

Sir celes, maraming salamat po sa pagdaan. An honor for me to be having you here. Thanks for the comment sir, hehe tama po kayo, I'll be keeping that in mind, I'll be more creative next time and work more seriously with the details... love your qoute there btw, God is in the Details... I'll keep this in mind whenever I work from now on

meron pa po ba kayo tips with MR sir, I know meron din kayo experties dito

sir marce... nice images sir.. lalo na kasi gusto ko yung Mental ray.. here is my tip.. actually even in vray or mental ray.. the rendering time are more longer if you make your setting higher.. i mean as long is your setting is getting high/jack up this mean including yung subivision and kahit anung kaeklatan... the rendering time is affected.. no other solution po to lessen your render time.. unless ok na sayo yung medyo grainy na image and make all default setting as much as possible.... but sometimes ok na din ang grainy mahalaga walang noise at splotches at madaling matapos ang rendering.... that's the thing..,, dami mong reference.. nabasa mo ba lahat yan? cool...

natski08 wrote:sir marce... nice images sir.. lalo na kasi gusto ko yung Mental ray.. here is my tip.. actually even in vray or mental ray.. the rendering time are more longer if you make your setting higher.. i mean as long is your setting is getting high/jack up this mean including yung subivision and kahit anung kaeklatan... the rendering time is affected.. no other solution po to lessen your render time.. unless ok na sayo yung medyo grainy na image and make all default setting as much as possible.... but sometimes ok na din ang grainy mahalaga walang noise at splotches at madaling matapos ang rendering.... that's the thing..,, dami mong reference.. nabasa mo ba lahat yan? cool...

haha sir natski, ikaw nga pala yun isa pang master ng mR dito sa singapore na naispired ako, nabanggit ko kasi kay f41 hehe. tama kayo sir about the render time, kaya nga ngayon, i'm trying out to lower the samples/subdivisions down, and I can see that it can still work but with more effective/faster render time.

yun references and resources sir, di ko naman nabasa lahat, but most of them oo, hehe yun mga important features ng mR of course. sana nga makatulong sa iba. Malaki rin kasi naitulong sa atin ng mga ganyang references, lalo na yun galing sa mga masters natin dito sa cgp.

to add up sir natski, hehe I started out learning MR since last year September 2009, so til now, that's all the resources I came acrossed with, and up to now, I still visit most of them, no.1 ang cgp of course!!!

wooow astig na astig banats mo sa mental ray sir!!!! the images look realistic na!!!! ganda master!!!!

rccboinks wrote:wooow astig na astig banats mo sa mental ray sir!!!! the images look realistic na!!!! ganda master!!!!

salamat sir boinks, thanks for the appreciation

lupit nito...sana ganito ang engine ng revit mentalray...galing mo master...

markitekdesign wrote:lupit nito...sana ganito ang engine ng revit mentalray...galing mo master...

Master Mark, salamat po sa pagdaan. glad you liked my renders sir... lupit din ng revit works niyo