THE ARTIST BETWEEN THE RAYS: Joep van der Steen

THE ARTIST BETWEEN THE RAYS: Joep van der steen

MYMR: Hi Joep we've really looked forward to the opportunity to interview you.

Joep: Likewise

MYMR: To get started, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about yourself.

Joep: I'm 47 years old, born in Amsterdam, education civil engineer as with most people of my age I found myself rolling into the computer industry, starting with color printers, then moving on to moving images (video, frame by frame recording) and then finally towards the service in the animation field which was the first introduction to 3 ds Max (believe version 2.5 or something like that). At present I'm working at a Autodesk reseller taking care of all the media and entertainment products both in sales support etc. Etc.

As for private, not married (been there, done that) and at present I have a girlfriend, no kids, just a dog and a cat.

Hobbies, still like our environment a lot and I own an old Harley Davidson, which takes up lots of spare time, making sure it keeps running.

MYMR: Joep , please give us a little history about how you got involved with Mental Ray and how you came to write this book?

Joep: I got involved with Mental Ray since our customers started to ask questions, so I started to train myself, by trying to read the manuals and searching the web. Then it started out with writing training material, which in the end looked like kind of a book. This was for version Mr 3.2., 3.3 and 3.4, this training book found its way through Autodesk to the people who actually published it, focal press.

MYMR: Where can people get the book?

Joep: Focal press is doing worldwide distribution, so people can buy it in good bookshops, through the Internet and lately even a Japanese translation has been published.

MYMR: How long did it take you to write Mastering Mental Ray and what were some of the hurdles you faced while putting it together?

Joep: I started in June/July last year and it was finished by mid October. Hurdles have been numerous ones, like trying to invent the tutorial files, testing them, going back to nothing when it didn't work, inventing new ones etc. This is why a lot of the tutorials are based on my everyday life, so lots of stuff inside from my home, garden and things related to this. Also lots of help from some of our customers, who gave me demo files to work with. The final problem was creating all the images at print resolution.

MYMR: How do you find Mental Ray stacks up against Vray ?

Joep: In the beginning Vray was much more user friendly, you had to be some kind of scientist to make Mental Ray work for you. At present they are more or less equal and Mental Ray has a lot more coming in the near future.

MYMR: Vray has seemed to be the renderer of choice in the 3d Studio Max world. Do you find that 3d Max users are becoming more interested in Mental Ray?

Joep: Definitely, but this is all to the hard work of people like Zap Andersson put into it. They have made Mental Ray much more accessible for normal users.

MYMR: What are some new features/ shaders in Mental Ray for 3d Max that people should know about?

Joep: The biggest thing in 3.6 (Max 2008) is the sky portal, which makes life really easy. Also search for the hidden shaders , they are something else!

MYMR: Any quick tips or tricks you found particularly interesting while doing research for your book?

Joep: When rendering images for the print I found that using blend materials is a disaster, so try to avoid them.

Click on image to learn more about the book

MYMR: Tell us a little bit about what your book focuses on and why you chose these topics?

Joep: The book focuses on using Mental Ray, in the same way I thought it myself. It starts with just turning it on and then introducing specific Mental Ray features and moving on to getting Mr light, materials and shaders in.

I wrote it in a very unofficial language, just because I like to keep things simple. I still believe a lot of users are users like me and they have no specific, specialized understanding of what computer graphics is all about.

I'm still really impressed by guys like Zap Andersson and Jeff Patton who seem to know in details how bits and pieces are working. I sometimes see discussions with these people which totally pass me. I like to understand things but as i said I'm not trained in cg, so I tried to make the book understandable in normal language.

Click on image to see Joeps custom tutorials

MYMR: Do you cover any custom mental ray shaders in your book?

Joep: No, just the standard stuff.

MYMR: Do you have plans to write another book?

Joep: Yes there are plans, but only in my head.

MYMR: Joep thank you for your time. Where can people go to find out more about you and your work?

Joep: As i said I'm a supplier of the software and we don't produce visualizations, since it would compete with our customers. My work is to train people, solve problems and offer users support so they can do their magic. For this I started a Dutch support website www.3dstudio.nl which has been up and running for 7 years now!

http://masteringmentalray.com/