New to Rendering

[Death Dream]

Hi all,
I'm wanting to get into the rendering sence a bit more.

I have a small sence that I want to have a nice white shinny floor so my objects reflect onto the floor. So do you guys know where I could find a tutorial on how to do this effect?

~Death Dream~

[brandeil]

their are a few to choose from :)
http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/home.php?cat=41

[Death Dream]

Guess I should of said: That are free. I'm in college and about 5k in debt so I can't afford something like that unless theres a student discount of some sort.

~Death Dream~

[danlefeb]

There are student discounts. Check out:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/pages.php?pageid=17

[DjVoyager]

Free Mental Ray tutorials:
http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/video_category.php?vcat=mren&pp=20&page=2

[laxman]

ITs unlikely you will find a video tutorial which shows you exactly how to do a specific effect. The DT kits are designed to show you the tools so that you will be able to figure out how to do what you want. For specific tutorials, I would suggest you try a google search to look for a written one. The problem is that in most, the writers don't explain why they are doing something, so you won't learn very much, but you may learn how to do what you wanted.

As for making the reflective floor, I would suggest you look at the free final gather vids here, then just make the a ground plane with a blinn shader, set it to almost completly white and put the reflectivity to the max and change the reflected colour to an almost middle grey (slider half way).

[Death Dream]

Ok laxman that sounds easy enough I will try that.

Also DjVoyager I looked at a couple of those metal ray videos and I got to say there pretty damn good but there not what I'm looking for at the moment. Learned more then I needed to when I don't even know the starting steps if you know what I mean.

~Death Dream~

-Edit-
Sweet that did the trick for the main portion I wanted to do. Now I want to make the floor have a more title effect. How could I go about doing that?

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/8250/ddfirstrender9ct.jpg

Thanks so far :D

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

You want to turn the floor into a title? is that what you mean? If so, then I would suggest using "TEXT", and applying the same material you have on this plane.
If you want to have the plane to stay there and still have a title then you might want to either apply an image sequence to the floor's color
OR
better yet, do it in a video compositing software, where you would just have to mask the floor area and apply the title on that. It gives much more freedom for putting effects/animation on the title itself.

[Death Dream]

Crap ment to type tile effect. Don't know how that other T go in there. I want to apply a tile texture But I still want to keep the reflection.

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

LOL, well that's totally different.
Ok, so you can apply a checkered texture (Maya's own material) on the color of the plane. You will need to tweak the checkered material in order to make it how you want it. When you're happy with how it looks, open up the hypershade and just plug the same material on the bump of the shader. You might have to tweak the bump too, otherwise the tiles will look too protruded.
For more information on the hypershade and pluging materials, check out this tutorial.
http://www.digitaltutors.com/chit_chat/showthread.php?t=7&highlight=hypershade
Hope that helps!

[Death Dream]

This is what I mean by tiles on my floor. ;)

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

Yup, that's what you will get by following the above technique...except use a grid instead of a checkered material.
Like so... ;)

[Death Dream]

K great. I will try that then and get back to you.

Thanks so far again :D

~Death Dream~

[Death Dream]

Eeeh Sorry for the double post and for this dumb question.

How do I resize the texture to make it smaller on a plane my tiles are a bit on the big side. This has slipped my mind. I'm use to UV mapping and then texting it in GIMP so I don't have to change the size of the texture at all.

~Death Dream~

[Death Dream]

Ok got the tiles to reflect, I love those layer mats.

~Death Dream~

[laxman]

to the the UV placement node, if you go to the attribute editor or the hypershade you should see it as a tab or an icon attached to the taxture node. The just increase the repeat. Usually it repeats 4 times in each direction, just increase the number.

[Death Dream]

Sorry but I don't see any of those options :(

~Death Dream~

=Edit=
Nevermind I figured out what I wanted. I wanted to use the planermapping tool.

~Death Dream~

[Death Dream]

Heres update #3. I think I got the floor how I want. Any suggestions?

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

Yeah, lower the edges of the tiles in through the bump2d attribute. They look protruded.

[Death Dream]

I don't see where that option is sorry lol
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/6899/edges9fc.jpg

Also is there an easy way to apply a wood texture that will wrap around him the way it should or are I screwed into UV mapping him and texting him in GIMP?

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

Bump depth. Man, you got it way too low. Make it about 0.400 to 1. See how much difference does that make. Do a search on UV mapping under tutorials, or just mapping. Once you understand how mapping works it'll be very easy to map him in any style you want.

[Death Dream]

Ya I know how to UV map, I use to make guns for UT04 and a couple other games so I had to know how to UV map. I just want to break away from just making stuff with games and make sences and short animated movies :D

Heres my out come with 1 dept.
http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/6537/renderfour4jo.jpg

Is there a way to keep the render from getting so blurry as it goes back?

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

It looks better now.
You'd have to tweak the global settings for a better render. What're your settings now?

[Death Dream]

http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/3214/generalsettings8jc.jpg

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

Yup, you really need to look at the rendering tutorials on this site (http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/video_category.php?vcat=mren) to get a better understanding of which kind of settings work for your scene. At the moment they are at default so obviously they will give you a low quality render.
Good luck!

[Death Dream]

Theres so many! I've watch a couple so far.

~Death Dream~

[Death Dream]

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/26/sdagdfgdf0ca.jpg

Here he is all textured.

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

Hey, looks good :). Now did you take a look at the HDRI tutorial? It's gonna give it close to realistic render...with shadows and great light.

[Death Dream]

Not yet but I will. I've been busy with a couple of maps for a couple games I got to get out. So I've been bouncing back and forth :D.

~Death Dream~

[laxman]

but the anti-alising setting higher up. That will get rid if the 'jhitters' you see along the tile lines. (Change the preset from draft to something like intermediate or production).

[Death Dream]

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8195/ohsnap5og.jpg

Wow that really made that looks hawt.

~Death Dream~

[Death Dream]

http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/7558/ddkarender9jf.jpg

Heres another update. :D

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

Very good :). Now that you have gotten the basic concept of how HDRI works try using something that will go with the scene nicely, something that not outdoors (unless you want it). You can also check out the Final Gather tutorials to see how to work without an image lighting. Just put final gather in the search box for tutorials :).

[Death Dream]

Well to tell you the truth the iamge isn't lighting the sence. It wouldn't let me do it with out a light on. So theres a light in the sence as well.

Also ya I was going to change the HDRI to a indoor sence but this took a while to render and I didn't feel like waiting again lol.

~Death Dream~

[Death Dream]

Is there a place that has more Probes to choose from? The site listing in the VTM doesn't have what I'm looking for.

Also how could I go about making blood, would that have to do anything with the paint tool thing?

~Death Dream~

[DjVoyager]

You can google HDRI images, and you can also go to the website Papa suggests http://www.debevec.org/.

Blood?!! What are you up to with that? lol. Yeah, you can use Paint FX, but Fluids or Particles will be a much better option, depend on what you're doing.

[Death Dream]

Ya I went to debevec, then I googled the word probes, bad idea.

Basicly I would want a blood puddle.

~Death Dream~

[laxman]

I've seen many people make very good water puddels. Everytime I get to see a wire, I usually see a surface that has been textured. I would recommend taking a nurbs plane with a lot of spans, then take the inside points, move them up and scale them out so the the edge of the selected points are almost on top of the unselected border point. That should create a nice rounded edge. Make sure the plane for the blood goes through the ground plane. If ou can get it to look realistic as a model (try doing a 'clay' render and post it here) then texturing should be real easy with a good HDRI image.

I don't know what you googled, but I got space probes as well as http://www.debevec.org/. Just google 'HDRI probes' I found this:


http://www.hdri.wz.cz/

http://www.unparent.com/ in menu: photgraphy->hdri probes

http://www.debevec.org/Probes

http://hdri.3dweave.com/library/

http://www.clarac.net/nataz/hdr.html

[Shogunato]

http://www.evermotion.org/index.php?unfold_exclusive=84&unfold=exclusive

http://www.benjamin-erb.de/hdri_maps.php

http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/cwis/research/graphics/PICS/envmaps/

http://www.guillaume3d.com/html/ressources.php?page=lienc

;)

[Death Dream]

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet. Thanks that will help a lot!

Also btw this is very newbish question, but whats the easy way to put like some of the polygon options like merge verts and duplicate faces on the custom shelf? I remember learning this but never thought twice of it.

~Death Dream~

[sunder]

You should be able to press Ctrl+Shift when running the option from the main menu and it'll place a button for it in the current shelf. Have fun :D

[Death Dream]

Sweet, thanks sudner.

Heres another update of the angle I think I will take and the final product. All I think left to do is to up the res and wait 30mins for the rendering to end lol.

http://img336.imageshack.us/img336/3778/ddblah0bx.jpg

~Death Dream~

[Death Dream]

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/35595887/

I think I did everything I wanted to do. Thanks guys.

~Death Dream~