Can MatteShadow Mat receive sadows from skylight?

[ausn]

Hello guys.

I haven't a problem using Skylight&FG.

I used MatteShadow mat on a plane receiving shadows and Skylight&FG casting shadows.But the plane used MatteShadow mat could not receive any shadows casting from the Skylight&FG.

Can anybody tell me why this happened?

Thank you very much!

[nisus]

hi,

The matte/shadow won't work with MR. Best way is to setup a blend material that blends between full transparent and your shadow using a falloff map light/shadow as a mix-map.

rgds,

nisus

[Brian Bradley]

hi,

The matte/shadow won't work with MR.

Not strictly true.;) Most of it functions quite well
but it will NOT pick up shadows from the indirect
lighting systems.

Regards
Bri

[nisus]

Not strictly true

Gonna check it again than ,-) Tnx

nisus

[MasterZap]

The best option today is probably to use the trick of an "AO light" and max matte/shadow, i.e.
- create an omni in top viewport (important!)
- move light to 0,0,0 (important!)
- check it's "ambient only"
- apply "ambient occlusion" shader in it's projection map
- include only the matte/shadow object in it's "Include" list

/Z

[ausn]

Thank you thank you!

I have never heard this method! It's really a great method!
I'll try it !

Only the Lead Artists use this method?

And today you tell it to us ,and we all can use this great way!

Thank you very much!Thank you very much!Thank you very much!

:D :D :D :D

[Brian Bradley]

I'm thinking he's happy!!;)

Regards
Bri

[MasterZap]

Happiness is good!

/Z

[Brian Bradley]

I highly recomend it to all my friends. :D

Regards
Bri

[nisus]

Sure! Happiness for all ,-)

nisus

[moid]

Thanks Zap, I didn't know that one either, so now I'm happy:D

Mental Ray: It's a happy sort of thing:)

[Brian Bradley]

Mental Ray: It's a happy sort of thing:)

Now that is a COOL catch phrase. :cool:

Regards
Bri

[MasterZap]

I'm hoping y'all be even happier post siggraph... ;)

/Z

[Brian Bradley]

I'm hoping y'all be even happier post siggraph... ;)

/Z

:eek: Now, I know I'm being suckered into
asking this but, how could MR users get
even happier than they are now????

Regards
Bri

[Shimrod]

I'm just crossing HappyLand to thank you Zap, for this useful tip ! (in fact, thank you all ! ) :D ;)

[MasterZap]

:eek: Now, I know I'm being suckered into
asking this but, how could MR users get
even happier than they are now????


I dunno, nude girls shipping with the product? I have no idea what your particular fancy is.

Wait, isn't that Elvis over there? Look!

/Z

[hot chip]

Hi

i have a other way for simulate FG on the Matte/Shadow Material with using AO.

german gmrf thread: http://forum.german-mentalray-wiki.info/viewtopic.php?p=116#116

Worklfow:

a) take a mentalray material

b) Color Mix (Base) Shader :
-> Number of Colors = 1
-> Mode 0 = 2
-> Weight 0 = z.B. -0,39 ( Intensity for faking FG / Range 0 to -1 )
-> Color 0 = Ambient Occlusion Shader
-> Base Color = 3DSMax Matte/Shadow Material ( default values )

c) adjust Ambient Occlusions Shader
-> Bright = Black
-> Dark = Falloff-Map (Shadow/Light)
-> Spread = z.B. 0,3 smooth the edge from the AO.
-> Max distance = distance from objects to Matte/Shadow Objekt
-> reflective = off / bei "on" make a reflection in the AO-shadow
-> all other are default

d) for finaly, we adjust the Falloff-Map, thus we can control, how dark is the AO-Shadows from the other direkt lights in the szene, because with is more realistc.
-> Falltype = Shadow/Light
-> first color = Weight
-> second color = Black
-> Mix Curve = adjust the the Bezier-Corner and take the handles and make a braked curve from begin tom the end.


http://forum.german-mentalray-wiki.info/userpix/5_fgmatte_shadow_1.jpg

http://forum.german-mentalray-wiki.info/userpix/5_fgmatte_shadow_tegel_1.jpg



mfg
hot chip

[Spacelord]

I'm hoping y'all be even happier post siggraph... ;)

/Z

I hoping for a complete render pass system, something similar to XSI's but more user friendly. Using Mental rays render buffers ! Rendering to a single exr or single frame for each pass but rendered once. Something thats easy to setup.

Some Unbiased rendering added to Mental Ray, It seems there was some work with the path tracer.

The ability to Render super large images.
Final gather that doesn't sample a particular crop, somehow
sends out a pattern and samples the whole image.
So no need to pre calculate FG maps for a whole frame.
So I can render off crop regions to backburner.




Better handling of memory for displacements, fields of grass for example

Correct gamma colour swatches and automatic gamma correcting textures.

Zap I've seen the work you have done with the Arch&Design shader , I'm sure you can knock this out !

Fingers crossed for siggraph !!

[Brian Bradley]

Rendering to a single exr or single frame for each pass but rendered once. Something thats easy to setup. !!

I love to bear Good News!!!
Not sure when this little beauty got added, Buuutt, here goes,

Add your render elements, select EXR as your file type, select
your output path, hit render, when its done ALL the elements
are spit out after one render. Plus you can save the finished
VFB render if you want. VERY NICE.

go and enjoy it.
Regards
Bri.

PS Get combustion and watch ALL your elements set up in
a ready made comustion comp, fantastic time saver.

[Spacelord]

I don't have combustion, but I'll give a whirl.

I haven't delve into render elements much.
Can you render a specific shadow on a specific object ?
Say if the tree that was cast shadows on the ground and a house, can you just render the shadow thats on the ground and not the house ?

cheers

[nisus]

PS Get combustion and watch ALL your elements set up in
a ready made comustion comp, fantastic time saver.


Hi Brian,

Any chance you might do some tuts on implementing combustion in the workflow?

rgds,

nisus

[Brian Bradley]

Hi Brian,

Any chance you might do some tuts on implementing combustion in the workflow?

rgds,

nisus

Consider it added to the official 'T Do' list. :D

Regards
Bri

[moid]

I love to bear Good News!!!
Not sure when this little beauty got added, Buuutt, here goes,

Add your render elements, select EXR as your file type, select
your output path, hit render, when its done ALL the elements
are spit out after one render. Plus you can save the finished
VFB render if you want. VERY NICE.

go and enjoy it.
Regards
Bri.

PS Get combustion and watch ALL your elements set up in
a ready made comustion comp, fantastic time saver.

Hi Brian

I've just tried this and I'm happy to admit to being somewhat sleep deprived, but I can't get it to work, or at least work in the way I would like it to (I may have misunderstood what you wrote) I'm using Max 9 by the way.

I set my output to EXR, I tried saving each element as the same named EXR and I tried saving them as individually named EXRs - in both situations the render spits each pass out as a separate EXR (I don't mind that) but it calculates each one in turn (renders diffuse, then renders shadows, then renders specular etc) taking lots longer to render than I had hoped. I was hoping it would behave like passes in scanline where you set the renderer up and it renders all the passes in the same time it takes to render the scene once and saves them all to individual files. That's the thing I miss most about scanline, if you can make MR do that (and please explain in slightly clearer terms) I will indeed be very happy!

Thanks for any help you can give:D

[Spacelord]

Hi Moid,
I believe this is the way Render elements works, its has to render each layer separately unlike ctrl_buffers where it renders the scene once then separates each pass.

cheers

[Brian Bradley]

its has to render each layer separately unlike ctrl_buffers where it renders the scene once then separates each pass.

Not anymore! Literally one render and out come the
passes. Just to make sure we are on the same
playing field, I am using Max 9 with Ext 1 rev 3
installed!!

Regards
Bri

[nisus]

Sounds marvellous and exactly what we all need. Gonna check into that. Can you write a small workflow description for the members aboard Brian? Tnx a lot

rgds,

nisus

[Brian Bradley]

Hey Nisus,

Post 19 in this thread pretty much IS
the basic workflow for getting multiple
elements from 1 MR render!

Regards
Bri

[nisus]

Add your render elements, select EXR as your file type, select
your output path, hit render, when its done ALL the elements
are spit out after one render. Plus you can save the finished
VFB render if you want. VERY NICE.

ok. Tnx.

nisus

[Brian Bradley]

No Problems:)

Should just add that I only tested with.exr,
not suggesting this is THE file type to use
as I would imagine this works happily with
all file formats.

Regards
Bri

[moid]

Ah, damn I think I know why i can't get it to work Brian - I only have 3dsmax9SP2, not the extension version. I guess I will have to wait until Max10 for this:(

[Brian Bradley]

Ahhh! That would explain it then!

Regards
Bri

[Spacelord]

Brian just tried this using the production booster and it works !
Render one time only and spat out my elements/passes.

Now if could render the shadow from a specified object, that would rock. Like the matte/shadow shader.

[Brian Bradley]

Brian just tried this using the production booster and it works !
Render one time only and spat out my elements/passes.

Now if could render the shadow from a specified object, that would rock. Like the matte/shadow shader.


It is very cool! Autodesk M&E don't do themselves any
favours by not giving users clear instructions on what they
have updated.

Regards
Bri

[ausn]

Can you give us a picture? I can't understand!


Thank you!

[nisus]

Autodesk M&E don't do themselves any
favours by not giving users clear instructions on what they
have updated.


IDD! I think this is awful. We don't even receive an email whenever there IS an update, let alone a list with features... Or a workflow discription...

The best thing would be some description of the production... "We changed THIS so you can now do THIS..." "To achieve THIS, you don't need any workarounds anymore, here is how you can do it..." +an additional why and how of course ,-)


rgds,

nisus

[ausn]

Hello ,guys!
I can't find the Color Mix (Base) Shader

Does anyone so kindly tell me the answer?

263

[ausn]

Can you give us some pictures step by step?

Thank you very much!

[Spacelord]

I think it might be the mix not colour mix.
Try it anyway.

cheers

[ausn]

I still think the Matte Mat can't receive any shadow from the Skylight using FG. No matter you put the MatteShadow Mat to any map channel. It won't work.
Maybe the next 3ds Max 10 and Mentalray3.6 will not have this problem.

[hot chip]

look here:

for english: http://forum.german-mentalray-wiki.info/viewtopic.php?t=750

for german: http://forum.german-mentalray-wiki.info/viewtopic.php?t=750

[ausn]

Thank you!
But there is not have the alpha chanel,only the shadows .

The shadows has no alpha chanel!

And why Autodesk hide so many shaders?