miercuri, 16 ianuarie 2013

3ds Max Shortcut Keys Summary

Hey Guys, today I’m going to tell you about some important shortcut keys in Autodesk 3ds Max. When using 3D Studio Max, its always important to become more efficient the more you progress. A keyfactor in that is learning hotkeysThere are many shortcut keys available in Max, some are common and very useful to everyone. When we do 3d modeling, lighting, animation or anything else, we should use shortcut keys because it not only saves time, but also gives our working speed. So let’s see some very useful shortcut keys in 3ds Max.



duminică, 13 ianuarie 2013

Mental Ray Interior Lighting Setting Tutorial

Hello! Today let's talk about Mental Ray. What is mental ray? Mental Ray is a production-quality rendering application. Just like Vray but, in my opinion, rendering time is much smaller. So if your computer resources not helps you too much , my advice is to learn both rendering engines and use the one that suits you best.

This is a simple tutorial. I made a small room, with a few object, I already choose materials, mental ray materials and Arhitecture materials(you can do this after you set the mental ray parameters or from beginin) and i will show you the Mental Ray settings. We will using "natural" light casting through a single window.
If you ever hope to achive good-looking 3D scenes you need to know a couple of things about lighting in general. 

This is my initial scene. From here will begin with our light and settings.
In this tutorial , we going to use dow lights, since we'll be using Mental Ray's Global Illumination algorithm. Go to 3DS Max's Systems tab ans place in your scene a Daylight system. Set the time about to 9 AM. When you select Daylight you will recive a message. Ignore and click OK.
Go to 3DS Max's Render Setup(F10 on your keyboard), click the Common tab, scroll down and roll-out the Assign Renderer panel. Assign the mental ray renderer as the default production one. You can render to see the result(press F9). Not that impressiv.. but don't worry will fix it.

Click the Daylight System and set the Sunlight to mr Sun and the Skylight to mr Sky. Click OK on whatever pops up.
Switch to Perspective view and render again. 
A little bit better already. To get the light photons to bounce, open 3DS Max's Render Setup window (F10), go to Indirect Illumination tab, scroll down and enable the Global Illumination. Also set the Average GI Photons to 50 000.
Switch to Perspective view and render again. 
Almost there. Riht now the scene is a bit dark. To fix this, click the Daylight system, and set the Multiplier to 3.2 .
Now to emphasis the area that the light hits we are going to create a pseudo fill light. Place a mr Area Omni in the center of the room and:
- un-check the Shadow box
- set the Multiplier to 6
- the Decay to Inverse Square
- the Start of Decay to 1500
Render again.
Looks good, but we've lost the reddish tint that we were trying to get. To fix this, click the Daylight System, the Modify tab, scroll down to the mr Sky Advanced Parameters and set: 
- the Red/blue tint to 0.7
- the Horizon height to -1 to make sure it converse the entire scene
- the Saturation to 1
Render again
Finally, to prepare for the final rendering, open up 3DS Max's Render Setup, Indirect Illumination tab, and set the Gather Precision to low or medium. 
Switch to Perspective view and render again.
Hope this will be helpful to you. Don't hesitate to play with settings and to practice for better or different results. Bye!






marți, 8 ianuarie 2013

Apple iPad 3ds Max 2010 tutorial

Hello again! This time you will learn to create a Apple iPad using 3ds Max 2010. You will first begin with modeling the Apple iPad using simple object: Chamfer Box, then texturing the tablet. I hope this will be very useful for beginners. Enjoy it!
Step 1: In Front viewport, create a Chamfer Box, with the very same dimension like in image below.
Step 2: Select object, right click and convert into Editable Poly, go to Modify tab, activate Polygon selection, in Left viewport select almost half of object (as in the image below), then press Del to remove these polygons. 
Step 3: Change to vertex selection mode. In Left viewport, select all vertices at the mostleft. Activate Soft Selection. Set Falloff to 32. Use the Select And Uniform Scale tool and minimize selected vertices like right image below. When finished, turn off Soft selection.
Step 4: Change selection to Border.
- select Border (don't worry, you wont be mistaken, this object has only one border). Activate Select and Uniform Scale tool.
- hold Shift and drag selected border in Front viewport to create new polygons inside.
- hold Shift and in Left viewport move selected border a little bit to the left.
- In Edit Borders rollout, press Cap button o fill the hole.
Step 5: Now, creating buttons. In Left viewport, create one Chamfer Box. Using parameter below you will create longer button. Select Chamfer Box, hold shift and move Chamfer Box up to create one clone. In Modify tab, reduce its sements and lenght values to create smaller Chamfer Box. Select longer Chamfer Box, right click, and convert into Editable Poly. Go to vertex mode, in front viewport, select vertices iin the middle and using Select and Uniform Scale tool in horizontal axis narrow vertices distance. In Front viewport, clone samll Chamfer Box to make top button. Arange all button to their position.

Step 6: Select Apple iPad Object (the biggest Box), activate Polygon selection, select the polygon that will be the screen. In Edit Geometry rollout, click Detach button and separate as a new boject. Name it "screen". This procedure will help us to texture the object and helps us to work "clean".
Step 7: Now is time for materials. Open Material Editor (press M on your keyboard). Select one unused slot. Name this material "screen". Click small button next to Diffuse. In opened window choose bitmap and choose the screen texture(you can find a lot on the internet). Apply this material to "screen" object. Repeat the same process to create the "back" material. For the three buttons create a simple black material by changing Diffuse color to black.
Step 8: When you render the scene,  you may find the material is not visible in the scene. To fix this, select Screen object, go to Modify tab, and apply from the list UVW Mapping modifier. Repeat the same process with "back" object.
That it is! Congratulation! Use the setting that I teached you to render the object. Here is my result:


luni, 7 ianuarie 2013

3ds max FAQ(frequently asked questions) and tips

Hi, I wrote this with the hope it might be helpful, and save people posting and answering. Hope to be useful for you, and if you have another question don't hesitate to ask, or if you have answers don't esitate to comment.

Modelling

What is considered "low poly"? How can I find out how many polygons are in my scene or in a object?

Low poly models have less than 5000 polygons. Low polygon models are mainly used in games and anywhere real-time rendering is required. The maximum suggested amount of polygons on the screen is 3000, so a model could be up to 1000 polygons if no more than 3 of the models are on the screen simultaneously.
To find out how many polygons are in your scene, click the utilities tab (a small hammer at the top of the command panel) and click more... -> polygon counter. Done!

What is the difference between an editable poly and an editable mesh?


The main difference between editable meshes and editable poly’s is that the editable mesh splits polygons into triangular faces and the editable poly maintains four sided faces. Also editable poly's can do more - for example, the can be subdivided without having to add the meshsmooth modifier. This is because editable polys are a more recent addition to max than editable meshes.
Editable mesh's offer 5 Types of sub-object selection - Vertex, Edge, Face, Polygon and Element. Editable poly's also offer 5, but have Border (useful for selecting holes) instead of Face.
If you’re new to max, I suggest using the editable poly when you learn.

I'm having trouble welding... when I use the weld button nothing happens, why?

First check you have the threshold setting high enough, put it really high a see if anything happens (note that if it does, it may not be the outcome you wanted if you had more than 2 vertices selected). The threshold setting can be changed in the unlabeled box next to the “selected” button.
You won't be able to weld an editable poly's vertices if there are two faces that will be stuck facing each other after the weld.

Does it matter what size an object is in my scene?

Yes and no. Size is relative - it only matters compared objects of different sizes. For example, if you're modelling a football, nothing else, it doesn't matter if it has a diameter of 1000 max units or 1 max unit. It will still look the same. However if there is a football player in the scene, the size of the ball compared to the player does matter - which should be pretty obvious!
When working in max, unless modelling accuratly, don't worry about how many units big and object/scene is. It won't affect the file size or have any bearing during texturing. 

Where is character Studio?
Character Studio provides 3 plugins for max; Biped, Physique, and Crowd. These can be found within max, not in a separate application. For example, to create a biped, select systems on the create toolbar and click Biped.
For more information on Character Studio, click help -> Additional Help -> Character Studio Reference.

How come when I scale an object or shape the parameters (length, width, radius etc) don’t reflect this change?


You are performing a transform in World Space. Transforms (move, rotate, and scale) can be preformed in either Object Space or World Space. When working in World Space you are relating to the entire workspace. This means when you move an object you are placing it in a specific place in XYZ World Space. On the other hand, if you were to move a portion of the same object (eg. polys, vertices etc) you would be doing so in relation to the rest of the object, or in Object Space. The main difference where scaling is concerned is how the object’s construction history is affected. Scaling in Object Space updates the object’s construction history. Scaling in World Space does not. Since the construction history is not updated, odd results can occur when using these objects. For example, a small shape imported from Illustrator and scaled in World Space will act as though it’s size has not been adjusted, when an extrude modifier is applied. A child of a parent that has been scaled in World Space will skew when rotated. As a general rule it is advised NEVER to scale in World Space. Not only does scaling in World Space make construction unpredictable and inaccurate, those transforms are passed from parent to child causing more problems. 

Alternatives to World Space scaling include:
-various modifiers ( Xform, FFDs, Stretch, Push, Edit Spline, and Edit Mesh)
-selecting on the sub/object level before scaling (in the case of an editable spline or poly

How do I import my poser model into 3dsmax?

First export the model from Poser into a format compatible with Max, for example .3ds. The click file -> import in Max, make sure file type is set to 3D Studio Mesh (*.3DS,*.PRJ), find the exported file and click import. Select Merge objects with current scene and click OK.

How do I change the pivot point of an object?


Select the object and click the hierarchy (next to modify) then “affect pivot only”. Whilst affect pivot only is on, the rotate and move tools can be used to alter the position of the objects pivot without moving the object.

Display

My Gizmo has disappeared, how do I get it back?

First make sure you have the move tool selected and not just the select tool. If this doesn’t help, there are two settings to check; press x - this is a hot key to show and hide the gizmo and Views -> Show Transform Gizmo should be checked. 

How do I remove the lines that go diagonally across the polygons?


There are several solutions to this "problem".

1. As this only affects Direct3D, you can switch to either OpenGL or Software for your 3D driver inside 3ds Max.
2. If you want to continue to use Direct3D, go to your driver preferences and turn off "Display all triangle edges".
3. Lastly, converting a primitive object into an editable polygon will automatically remove those hidden edges.


When I pan or rotate my viewports, the objects turn into cubes, why?


Max has a feature called adaptive degradation. It reduces lag when navigating viewports by displaying objects as boxes. To override adaptive degradation press "O", to change the adaptive degradation settings click the Customize menu -> Viewport Configuration -> Viewport Configuration dialog -> Adaptive Degradation tab.


Which is the best driver to use in max?

The drivers available depend on the version of 3D Studio Max. The 3 main ones are:

HEIDI - Software Z Buffer or custom. HEIDI is the most reliable driver but is also the slowest as it does not use any graphics hardware in the machine, all the "thinking" is done by the processor. When you first use max it is a good idea to use HEIDI, then switch to a faster driver when you’re sure everything is working properly.

OpenGL - Generally the fastest driver and very stable. OpenGL utilizes your graphics card, accelerating graphical operations. Most 3D cards support OpenGL; all modern cards do for sure. OpenGL should be your first choice of driver as, for most max users, is by far faster than Direct3D or HEIDI. I've used OpenGL with 4 different graphics cards (Geforce 3, Geforce 4MX 440, Geforce 2MX and an ATI Radeon 9000) the only one I’ve had trouble with has been the Radeon.

Direct3D - Direct3D uses DirectX, made by Microsoft and currently in version 9. This driver can do some very cool stuff, but as some huge drawbacks when used in Max. Most, if not all 3D cards support DirectX but if they are slow or don't, Direct3D can be slower than HEIDI. It is also the most unreliable driver, it can be the cause of most of Max's crashes, and, generally is much slower than OpenGL - all the graphics cards I’ve used in max have had problems with DirectX.

To change the driver used in max click customize -> preferences... -> viewports -> choose driver.

What is Maxetreme?
The Maxextreme display driver are for Nvidia Quadro graphics cards and can give a large performance increase in Max.
See: http://www.nvidia.com/object/maxtreme_6.html

I can’t make my materials 2 sided! Why?

This is generally DirectX’s fault, try switching to HEIDI or OpenGL, see “Which is the best driver to use in max?”

How can I change the way my view rotates?


In the bottom right of the default Max UI is the viewport navigation controls panel. On the bottom row, second from the left is the rotation type, click and hold on this and you are presented with 3 options; 
Arc Rotate – The grey icon, with this activated the view rotates around the centre point of the viewport. When you pan around this point moves.
Arc Rotate Selected – The white icon, the view will rotate around the object that is selected.
Arc Rotate Sub-Object – The yellow icon, if you are in, for example vertex sub-object mode, Max will find the centre of all the selected vertices and rotate around that.
Note that the easiest way to use these functions is with alt + the middle mouse button; which ever is selected will be used. 
To undo a viewport operation, press shift + z.
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