Week 6, Self Directed Study - Render Prep In 3D's Max

Learning 3DS Max

Week 6           -  Render Prep

            The  6^th week of myself directed study I watched the 6^th video of the of the “Let Learn 3ds max” videos on BrandonJLa. This week video focused on getting ready to render your different pass’s in 3Ds max. It is a very important thing to understand your different renders and to create different renders. Having different passes on your video will create a realistic effect with proper shadows and light information. It will also allow you to adjust things easier and save time rendering if changes are needed. Normally you have 2 or 3 passes depending on the scene. First pass is for the objects and the second pass would be for your shadows. 

              This week was pretty easy compared to other weeks because have most of my scene settings done and i just getting ready to render. We used V-Ray material Wrapper for a composite and this allowed use to change the light and get values of the light. After playing with a few setting it allowed you to select you object and add V-ray to them. This will cause you to create an alpha mast on the object so you can adjust them easier as seen in this photo below.

       Rendering just the objects   first then he makes another pass for the shadows is the best thing to do. Now it is not required to do this , but its is a good to know how to separate the shadows from the objects. Now a little trick when rendering it out,  the color's will be off. So you have to click SRGB to get the correct color values so the colors will match you scene. This now will great your "beauty" pass. We render out the shadows but as an PNG so it would be a smaller file size and because PNG supports alpha channel and JPEG does not. This is one bug reason why people will render out the shadows on a different pass then the original objects.  

Render of the ball's in my scene
(Gray ball and 100% reflective ball) 

My Render pass of the shadow's

His Shadow's looking in 3ds max
(not rendered at PNG)

Week 5, Self Directed Study - Spherical Environments In 3D's Max

Learning 3DS Max

Week 5        - Spherical Environments 

        The fifth week of my self-directed study focused on Spherical Environments video, what I learned after watching and doing the tutorial this week was Spherical environments can cause you alot of problems. So far over the course of my project this has been the the longest I spent trying to figure out problems. He doesn't go step by step in his videos so the parts he didn't cover you had to use what you know to complete it. 

          Issues's I had in the video was knowing if my Vray Material Mesh was being applied to my objects. It took me forever to find out if was being applied or not.  After I figured out how to know if it was applied, it then became a problem when rendering. It wouldn't be there and nothing would change. After reaching for hours and re trying a bunch,  I then found some setting within 3Ds Max itself that had to change before it was to become visible on the camera's render.  

          There was 3 buttons I learned to know after this video and they were 8 , M and F10. These button's open up my Environment and effects ,  Material Editor and Rendering options. You use these buttons more then ever in 3Ds max. It makes things fast to access. 

             Everything is dark after adding your spherical photo because there were no information on the lighting. We worked on changing the environment map and the exposure and are camera temperature. I also work on bounce lighting where objects colors will effect the lighting on the objects.  Your exposure control is important in this video and same thing with your offset and tilt for adjusting your image in the scene. Next week's video i will be rendering out the different passes of my image. 

Week 4, Self Directed Study - Camera Mapping In 3D's Max

Learning 3DS Max

Week 4           - Camera mapping

        The forth week of my self-directed study focused on getting a proper camera mapping done in 3D's max. It is a fundamental thing but is very important. Reflections and shadows make object's and break them too. Without good reflections your video or picture will seem fuzzy or too sharp. This i found would cause a unwanted and unrealistic effect on the video.

         Good reflections will blend it in to the original one smother and more accurate with the curvature better with real projections then just with a simple spherical environment. This will allow you to change your camera angle and the the curves will automatically, Without editing you spherical enviroment. Using a texture overlay such as V-ray with 3d's max helps allot to adjust your image of your environment. In this weeks video he talked about the tools and settings he uses to set up a proper camera using V-ray.

        It wasn't to hard to get the camera in the sky and set the shadows but when he got to changing set setting and understanding what everything did , this took a bit. But is very useful , I now can apply this my own footage.  When it come the the reflections , it was  told to think of them like projectors and where every it says camera it really means projector. This was helpful to kind of wrap your head around the idea of how  the  effect actually are being used. So in the end i learned that it does come down to the right direction of you shadows, and it is important . Also the fact of changing your photo to a more spherical will sell the effect allot more then not having it. 

Week 3 Learning 3DS Max Camera Alignment

Learning 3DS Max

Week 3

        The  third week of my self-directed study went  a lot smother then my second week. In this week.  I learned how to set up a camera properly in 3DS Max. I knew the basics on how to set up a camera, but nothing accurate to align and match the position of the original shot . Here they showed me to set up an environment that will match your scene. The showed me lots of helpful hints on how to get it looking right.

         The first trick they showed me was getting to take a shot of the person shooting the shot. This is a good thing to know because you will know the height of your objects in the film by knowing how high it was filmed. Simple little trick to find out how far away you were from recording it. This will also help a lot later on when placing the camera in 3DS Max to the right height. From here they move on creating wall planes and ground planes to scale and getting your horizon line accurate to your scene. Nothing was complicated in the tutorial video and there were no complications with it .

             But it was a good refresher on the stuff I knew already tofind out where things are  and get use to the tools that move a bit differently . When you completed that I then had to set up my camera properly. After setting my camera this will now allow you to start getting ready and adding your V-ray materials later on.  This is very simple thing. But i liked that there was it's own video for it and was smart thing to do . Taking the time to understand the basic first,  will prepare you for when things are getting added and harder. 

Next weeks Blog is about Camera Mapping .

Week 2, Self Directed Study, Scene Set Up & Location

Learning 3DS Max

Week 2         -Location and Photo Taking 

This weeks Blog is about choosing a location,

           Locations you chose can make or break your scene. I wanted to create a closed in area with 2 long buildings on the side, looking down a one-way street, the sky high in the air. I was going for good reflection and easy lighting. I know doing would be hard on a one-way street and not getting the cars to be on the road. On the other hand the shot seemed like it would end up looking good if I was able to capture it. So I chose the street shot rather then doing the field one scene where the reflections would be really hard to tell. The only problem i was really worried was trying to get the sun at noon. The street had alot of people on it was the problem.

Photo Taken From Iphone Spherical Environment App

           We got there when the sun was at noon and got a couple of shots. The problem was at noon there where cars and there was no time to get a HDR photo of the spherical enviroment. Without the environment being the same I couldn't do it. This would cause problems because the car's would be there in one reflection but not the scene itself or the other way around. I couldn't use these shot's but since the sun was now setting, I took the risk of trying a scene of harder lighting with the sun setting  and take the risk of the reflection might not being as well if i couldn't get it right.

          Since it was later in the day we shot it became easier. There wasn't as many cars in the way , but we did have to reset a few times. Taking the 360 spherical enviroment photo was hard to capture because it does take a bit to take and car's would move and ruin the photo. I ended getting decent photo with only a few mistakes here and there. I knew then I wouldn't get any better or the picture would be too dark to take.



Here are the photo's that I was able to capture. During this week of my self directed study.