Since there's always a tonne of questions about how to render and the tutorial is a bit vague in places, I decided to make a video tutorial.

It pretty much follows the existing written tutorial but I've used materials which I think are better, and included some extra details which should help fill in any missing gaps. If you use both the wirtten tutorial and watch the video you really shouldn't have any trouble at all getting your first render done and all in under 30 minutes.

Video - 33mb, 13minutes, xvid codec, 1280x976

LFS wiki 3d tutorial

Feedback appreciated and if it's good enough for sticky then please do.

Excellent tutorial! Learned few new things too.

I definetely think that it's good enough for sticky .

IMO the tuturial sucks. Im pretty fluent in computers and i got lost ALOT while following this tut.

Alot of it is confusing, including this:
" 3ds max and Brazil r/s must be properly installed" It doesnt say how to install and where to put the plugins. I think if yo want to render, you should either take some classes [my school is offering computer animation classes using 3ds Max 5] or choose a different program.

The rest of the tut is pretty vague and it presents alot of things to do with no idea how to do them.

I think it's a pretty clear tut. Thanks to Davo to put time into making this A bit fast-paced maybe, but what most people don't understand or want to accept is you can't learn to render in 30 minutes.

@Velocity, you keep saying how you are fluent in computers, yet you say you get lost using the written tutorial and this video tutorial. You just keep saying the tutorial sucks when you get lost.
The tutorial is about rendering not about how to install 3DS and Brazil (Installing some software really shouldn't pose any challenge if you're fluent with computers).
I really don't mean the above in a rude or condescending way, but it just takes time to learn. A tutorial like this should give you a basic idea on rendering. A LOT of it takes experimentation, patience and study.
I started rendering the day the CMX of the BF1 came out, just before last april's big patch. I had done some quick renders using premade scenes, but obviously there wasn't one of the BF1. I used that written tutorial I posted earlier in that other thread. And at the end of an afternoon with 3DS I made my first render from scratch. If I see it now, I think it sucks big time. Since then I have been trying to improve my renders bit by bit, learning and experimenting how to make better materials and lighting and I'm still not pleased with them. You just can't explain EVERYTHING step by step.

By no means is this supposed to be a tutorial to teach you about installing the cmx plugin or brazil, just like it doesn't teach you to install max either, that is expected already. Also it doesn't tell you anything about what each setting does, it's just a quick way to get someone interested in rendering up and running as quick as possible and without really knowing much about max or materials to get their very first render done. The experimenting and learning should come later and in your own time by yourself and also doing other tutorials.

[Veleocity] maybe instead of being such a cnut and saying it sucks you could tell me how to improve it. Saying it presents things with no idea how to do them I just don't get. While instructions are typed and you get the occasional screenshot in the wiki, the video goes through everything step by step to get the final render. You won't pick everything up by watching it once, rewind it and play it back a few times, pause it and do what you've just seen and then come back to it and maybe you'll get different results.

I just wanted to give something back since I've learned so much from this community and if it helps a couple of people to render I'll be extremely happy. If it's no good then atleast I've learnt something about making a tutorial and I might make another one with a different car and more detail if it would help.

Great Tutorial !!!

Thank You Very Much, Let's Work With Him !!!!!!

Quote from Davo :

By no means is this supposed to be a tutorial to teach you about installing the cmx plugin or brazil, just like it doesn't teach you to install max either, that is expected already. Also it doesn't tell you anything about what each setting does, it's just a quick way to get someone interested in rendering up and running as quick as possible and without really knowing much about max or materials to get their very first render done. The experimenting and learning should come later and in your own time by yourself and also doing other tutorials.

[Veleocity] maybe instead of being such a cnut and saying it sucks you could tell me how to improve it. Saying it presents things with no idea how to do them I just don't get. While instructions are typed and you get the occasional screenshot in the wiki, the video goes through everything step by step to get the final render. You won't pick everything up by watching it once, rewind it and play it back a few times, pause it and do what you've just seen and then come back to it and maybe you'll get different results.

I just wanted to give something back since I've learned so much from this community and if it helps a couple of people to render I'll be extremely happy. If it's no good then atleast I've learnt something about making a tutorial and I might make another one with a different car and more detail if it would help.

Sure, whatever.

Anyway. I never said i didnt know how to install it. Im talking about how it could pose a problem to the newer renderers.

And are you sure you made this? It seems wierd that your posting it now even though the tuts been around for a while.

I didnt mean to cause problems, but most tutorials dont offer enough detail, its just the way ive seen it.

Can a Mod stick this?

wow great great fiuuu fiiiuuuuu

Davo.. don't know if it's because you've pretty much mirrored Grudd's tute to make it easier for new comers to follow, but if you're thinking of it as a "standalone tute".. I'd remove some steps.. such as enabling backfacing poly selection when selecting the wheels to save some clicks and the 'show material in viewport' only needs to be selected for the root material, not each stage.

Other than that, especially if people are using it with Grudd's tute, I think it does a good job



Regards,

Ian

Yeah Ian, I've followed Grudd's tute so that it compliments it so that it's easier to follow, it could be standalone but I wouldn't recommend it as there's some things you need to know by reading or hearing about them. If I were to do a standalone tute I'd add a voiceover walk-through.

I've always turned off backfacing because otherwise it'd select too many polys, don't know of any other way to do that step, and I've learnt something new about the materials in viewport as well Thanks for taking a look at it, I'm still much the 3d novice.

Quote from Davo :

Yeah Ian, I've followed Grudd's tute so that it compliments it so that it's easier to follow, it could be standalone but I wouldn't recommend it as there's some things you need to know by reading or hearing about them. If I were to do a standalone tute I'd add a voiceover walk-through.

No probs.. it works just fine with that and people really should have no excuse now not to be able to follow it (Grudd's tute alone does have some "missing info" IIRC from when I sorted my scenes out.. not a great deal but for people not to keen on thinking / learning for themselves.......). I think a great contribution and definitely worth either being a sticky thread here and / or being added tom the LFS wiki alongside the existing tute

Quote :

I've always turned off backfacing because otherwise it'd select too many polys, don't know of any other way to do that step, and I've learnt something new about the materials in viewport as well Thanks for taking a look at it, I'm still much the 3d novice.

That would be a bonus in this instance. In agree that selecting "too many polys" can be a real PITA sometimes even with backfacing polys disabled if at slightly the wrong angle in the viewport but if you enabled then when selecting the wheel to sort out the material, you'd only have to select the left / right viewport, and with the circle "marquee" tool, be able to select both front and rear polys in a single shot rather than having to rotate the view each time. After spending to many hours making wheels for cars, any "shortcut" I could find was more than welcomed

I used to do the same with the 'show material in viewport' but then realised I didn't need to (only time IMO it's useful to select it like you have is if you're using multiple mapping channels which 99.9% of people won't be for LFS cars) and again, if I can save myself a click or 2..............



Regards,

Ian

great

Very big thanks for a great video tutorial!!! Now I allmost can do it and I'm so HAPPY! But I have one problem / guestion. How I can render bigger size than 512x??? It's too small!

You'll need to get BigRender, never used it sorry, or the full version of Brazil.

Very nice tutorial

Somebody must make rendering video tutorial for vray also !!
Davo , Xnuse ?

A lot of what you see in this tutorial applies to rendering with vRay also. The main difference between working with Brazil or vRay lies in the materials. And if you've got a basic understanding of materials in Brazil it shouldn't be that hard to recreate the materials in vRay.

im going so far so good with this. but one thing keeps bugging me (my max experiance is quite minimal), you keep saying "Drop into material 15" etc, where do i drag and drop it to? how do i assign that meterial to a certain number? lets say 15? its confusing me

Not sure what you mean by drop into material. What section of the turorial is this at and what are you trying to accomplish?

well, basically, i follow all the online instructions, then it says "Drop this material into material 18...." Thats the bit i get stuck at, where/ how do i drop it into material 18?

OK so you're upto the glass step? In the video tutorial I just go ahead and modify ID 18 directly instead of making a new material and then dropping it onto material ID 18.

If you made a new material then you drag the little ball onto the material slot for ID number 18 in the main multi/sub object. If you don't know how to do this then just modify material ID 18 directly, it's much simpler that way.

What i have done now, is make one of those balls the default materials (with them all in the list thing), then i copyied the other balls (Drag/drop) onto the relevant materials in the defaults.

the only problem i have now is the Cromo and tire materials, they just wont copy, and, they dont appear as "balls", more of the texture the size of the box...duno what i have done there, but so far, its coming along good, just got to try and find AA in the render options..

Looks like you got it. The balls are materials btw.

Look for the "P1 P2 P3 Reset" buttons under render options. Hit P3 for some nice AA

I found it a great tutorial, mainly because its for Max 8, and the tutorial in the Wiki is for a previous version (6 I think) meaning certain things are slightly different.