18 replies to this topic

[HouHou]

Hi guys,

Right ive just got Vray 1.46.15 and ive installed it fine, everything works fine. But, when i switched to it to render something. I had a skylight in my scene to get the shadows as usual... But when i render the scene it seems to not recognise the skylight and there are no shadows..? It renders blisteringly quick which is good, but i think thats got something to do with no shadows yes? When i swtich back to Default Scanline its fine, but oh so slow!!

Any ideas on the settings for this?

[funkysoul]

Vray uses special lights and materials for the renderer.
As far as I know you cannot render a scene without those things!

You will have to redo the materials and change some settings on the render console of vray.

anyway Vray rocks!!

[HouHou]

Yeh Vray is good as ive seen what it can do, but im not really sure how i use it. Which Special Materials do i have to use?

[funkysoul]

when you open the material editor you need to change the material from standard to vray_xxxx (don't remember the name)

http://www.aversis.b...settings_01.htm

[HouHou]

Brilliant!, its worked out ok, its much better than scanline!

Thanks.

[Stu]

vray supports standard materials and lights, but i think there is just one light that doesnt work and its probably the skylight your using.

[funkysoul]

ooops.. sorry.. my mistake then...
Thanks stu!

[HouHou]

Yes i think it is just the skylight as Vray overides Max's skylight with its own (Much better one)

And that site that you posted the link for funkysoul was great, told me what i needed to know exactly. Are there any others like that?

[Stu]

have a look on the official vray site in the forums, you will be amazed at what the guys in there can teach you.

also have a look at sites like http://www.vray.info (links and articles on vray) and http://www.evermotion.org (40+ FREE video tutorial on vray renedering)

[HouHou]

Thats great guys, the evermotion tutorials are wonderful!

But i have one more question.. I have a WIP model which ive posted a screenie up before, and the top part to the model is meant to be Plexiglass with a Black film or covering on the other side. No matter how hard i try, i really can't quite get this looking any good, or close to what i had i mind. Im using Vray for it so its easier to get the effect, ive seen glass and metal, but how would i go about creating shiny plastic?

Edited by HouHou, 08 November 2005 - 04:44 AM.

[Stu]

is the plastic completely transparent?

actually could you do two things for us:

1) post the wip in here.
2) post a real life picture off google or something with the effect your trying to achieve

then im sure it will be easier to help you

[HouHou]

Yeh that sounds good to me. The plastic is clear all the way through yes, But on the underside its got a black covering stuck to it to blacken out part of the plastic to create a window.

I don't have any refrence images as this product isn't even made yet but i have some images that ive found of what i actually want to achieve.

http://www.compleet-..... 50203-5b.jpg

The case on the right hand side of the image has a plexiglass front on a black coloured surface, its not exactly shiny but the highlights are there.. This is what i want to get the effect of

Ill render all my stuff at its current stages for a WIP... Its very boring!

Do you want me to post the WIP in another thread or carry it on in this one?

[Stu]

just keep it all together in this thread

well firstly ive never done anything like this before and im not 100% sure what you mean but ill give it a shot anyways.

i would model the case and black part as two seperate pieces, which is already what youve most likely done.

then just create a vray material with the diffuse set to black, refraction set to white and the reflection set to a dark grey... that will give you transparent plastic. just like glass i suppose.

then for the bit at the back why not just use a very dark grey material and increase the reflection to a dark grey once again, leave the refraction... and change the glossiness to .8 or .9

id also recommend some hdri if you want to get the best effect.

[HouHou]

OK, foget that previous problem its been solved..

The WIP has slightly changed aswell lol, now im stuck with splines

Well there is one minor niggle that at the moment is really pissing me off.

In this screen shot ive detatched part of an existing spline and created some more lines to get the shape which i want and its fine, but:

http://img17.imagesh...creenie16wi.jpg

A) I want to scale this little shape down by about 2 pixels and im not sure how to do it as when i select all the splines, and click scale it sorta scales each one and not the whole lot?? Im sure there is a way of joining the splines together yes?

After ive scaled it down, i want to the extrude it to a length which doesn't matter, its just the way of extruding it so that its a solid object with caps on the end!

hehe, then i have another question. But i can't ask that untill i have this one sorted.

Thanks guys

[Stu]

you can attach the splines by simply selecting the line and going to 'attach' then click the lines you want to attach. if you want to offset part of the spline then i think you wcan just seelct segment on the modifier panel and the go to outline and outline it to what you want.

the add the 'edit mesh' modeifier and select the face and extrude. that should be it anyways, if not its just a pointer in the right direction.

sorry i couldnt be more useful. im more of a hands on type person

[HouHou]

Wow thanks stu, you are always more than useful! Ive sorted that problem now ill be posting a small WIP of what ive got at the moment so you can see what it is we are actually talking about

Edited by HouHou, 09 November 2005 - 05:33 PM.

[BeaverElfeater]

is v ray better than mental ray???? V raY does some cool lighting but which has more potential

[HouHou]

I would say V-ray is better than mentalray yes. Im not sure about Brazil r/s ive never tried it?

[High Definition™]

From what I know of the 3 rendering engines your talking about, I think vray over all is the best rendering engine and you will get the most photorealistic renders with it but it does take a long time render a scene with vray, if you look on www.3dkingdom.org literally every 3d image that is posted there is rendered in vray and they normally tell you how long it takes to render aswell, another down side is that its meant to be really complex to learn, this might be from my own experiences with trying to learn it and getting know where :oP. This does not mean that mentalray isnt good at all, Ive found you can get a lot of good shadow effects using mental ray and it renders metals and glass well, it also renders a lot quicker than vray and as an added plus its prebuilt into max already so it saves you getting plugins etc etc. With Brazil ray i dont that much on it but I have heard you can get the same reults as vray but the rendering time is a lot smaller.


Hope this info helps you with choosing the rendering engine of your choice.

If anything I have said is incorrect feel free to correct me )



High Definition™