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

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

grabe galing niyo sir,superb images!!

salamat bro, pare koy, hehe I'm glad napadaan ka din dito! salamat...

same materials settings, both 16 & 8 sampling for reflect and refract... notice floor wood finish at 32 reflect & 8 refract (less grain)

2nd Bokeh DOF with PS kalandian effects

Same view without DOF and a bit PS

haha napa-"kalandian" effect ka na rin sa PS a.....hehe...

f-fortyone wrote:haha napa-"kalandian" effect ka na rin sa PS a.....hehe...

hahaha di pa ganun kalandi pre e, konti pa hehe

bihasa ka na sa MR brow! luffet

@ wrote:bihasa ka na sa MR brow! luffet

uy alec! hehe salamat pre... kaw na susunod nyan

bro. mentalvray yan . ganda ng concept mo

jakeark wrote:bro. mentalvray yan . ganda ng concept mo

hehe di naman bro, solid MR talaga yan... kaya mo din yan

More Test Renders:

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



with bits of PS (adjusted brightness & color)

superb lighting bro... love it... parang gusto ko din try mental ray... ganda ng lighting... keep rockin bro... 5star for me...

cgil wrote:superb lighting bro... love it... parang gusto ko din try mental ray... ganda ng lighting... keep rockin bro... 5star for me...

salamat ng marami sir cgil... appreciate the stars hehe.. inspired lang po ako sa masterpieces niyo!!! try niyo na mental ray sir, madali lang din

marcelinoiii wrote:

cgil wrote:superb lighting bro... love it... parang gusto ko din try mental ray... ganda ng lighting... keep rockin bro... 5star for me...

salamat ng marami sir cgil... appreciate the stars hehe.. inspired lang po ako sa masterpieces niyo!!! try niyo na mental ray sir, madali lang din

try ko yan... madami na din ako nadownload na tutorial... storbihin kita pag mag katanungan... he he he... vray or metal ray? hmmmmmm..

cgil wrote:

marcelinoiii wrote:

cgil wrote:superb lighting bro... love it... parang gusto ko din try mental ray... ganda ng lighting... keep rockin bro... 5star for me...

salamat ng marami sir cgil... appreciate the stars hehe.. inspired lang po ako sa masterpieces niyo!!! try niyo na mental ray sir, madali lang din

try ko yan... madami na din ako nadownload na tutorial... storbihin kita pag mag katanungan... he he he... vray or metal ray? hmmmmmm..

oo ba sir, hehe mental users would be happy to have you sir... I'm sure marami ka maitutulong pa sa kaalaman natin punta ka sa tutorial section natin dito ng MR sir. dito din ako nagstart

galing nito master marcelinoi,nagtetest render din ako sa mental ray,parang sa cad 09 lang din,galing,,malinis at realistic,.kaso kapa kapa pa lang ako,he2,ganito pala mga output sa mental ray:-?hmmmmm,salamat sir nagkaroon ako ng idea,,

one9dew wrote:galing nito master marcelinoi,nagtetest render din ako sa mental ray,parang sa cad 09 lang din,galing,,malinis at realistic,.kaso kapa kapa pa lang ako,he2,ganito pala mga output sa mental ray:-?hmmmmm,salamat sir nagkaroon ako ng idea,,

one9dew pre, glad you liked MR output. And I'm glad you started with mental ray already. hintayin ko shares mo ha? Visit mo lang tutorial section natin, sapat sa yun para sa kaalaman natin having our teacher and masters around...

sir gano katagal to?galeng

looking nice...ituloy mo lang ito sir ha...i'd like to do another mental ray scene very soon....

galing mo talaga pre!!!post mo naman wires mo nang makilatis...hehe...galing galing...

Superb yung lighting ng mga MR renders ninyo Sir!

akoy wrote:sir gano katagal to?galeng

Bro, salamat ulit sa pagdaan.. yun max setting na 4FG points and 500 rays of Final Gather nasa 5 hours.

arkiedmund wrote:looking nice...ituloy mo lang ito sir ha...i'd like to do another mental ray scene very soon....

oo sir, hintayin ko din ang MR scene niyo, nakakaexcite eto having to expect it from you

f-fortyone wrote:galing mo talaga pre!!!post mo naman wires mo nang makilatis...hehe...galing galing...

oo pre, sige post ako ng settings and wires...

Canadium wrote:Superb yung lighting ng mga MR renders ninyo Sir!

salamat sir Canadium sa pagbalik, glad you liked the MR lighting

Nice. I like the lighting.Nagmental ray din ako dati pero nahirapan ako. Keep it up

yaug_03 wrote:Nice. I like the lighting.Nagmental ray din ako dati pero nahirapan ako. Keep it up

Hi Sir yaug, thanks sa pagdaan. I appreciate your comment po, it means a lot coming from a master like you

another view of the office mga sirs...

Office Scene 02



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

nice one bro mental ray galing