CMX Importer plugin (put it in your plugins folder).

Quote from tristancliffe :

Progress of sorts!

nice Tristan, but, maybe there's too much Gamma don't you think ?

thanks so far tristan, but if that plug is meant to be putten into any 3ds folder it's no use to me since i'm unwilling to use that programm since it's expensive and quite unhandy, compared to cinema 4d, but that's compareable like what os to use, or what religion to believe in.

so if it's not illegal to recieve any pre-converted cmxes can you put them on the line please? thx

Try this

thx a whole lot, so christmas was a "GooD" this year to...

Quote from tristancliffe :

...Cos the reflections always looks clean and nice, where as mine (googled and Devianced) are quite bitty and fussy...

Maybee it's because others use "hard" shadows.
in cinema 4d for example you can choose between 3 diff sorts of shadows for lightsources. (see attach.)

none
hard
soft
area

theres got to be sth. like that in 3ds max too...

in 3dsmax you have several choices, and more depending on what type of render plugin your using;
choices are (by default):
area shadows
ray traced shadows
advanced ray traced shadows
shadow map

here, check this out tristan, this will surely help you:
http://www.informit.com/articl ... 599&seqNum=3&rl=1

I recently aquired Brazil and vRay rendering plugins, and thought I'd have a bash at them. My natural reaction was to have a look at Ian.H's scenes, which are very nice, but just clicking render doesn't hold that much appeal.

So I've gone the vRay route to see what I can acheive. This isn't actually LFS, but is a low poly model of the rFactor F3 car I've been skinning for my teammate (who loves rFactor). So forgive me the first sin.

This 'scene' is lit with a single Omni (multiplyer 1.0), has an HDR environment map, a reflective floor (which I'm quite pleased with). Render time was LONG!

But it looks horrid. Not washed out as such, but something clearly isn't right. Is it the lights? Have I missed something in the vRay settings, or am I just an idiot (don't answer that last one please).

it looks just overlighted to me, but quite good.

anyone have tips for skinning in cinema 4d?

besides i liked your first avatar the most

how long did it take..?
i bet your setings are up really high and stuff like that; but also, your omni shouldnt be so high, it should be about .5 or so, unless you lower the GI settings

look here for a simple render setup and .. a tutorial basically of what vray can do
http://www.aversis.be/extra_tu ... basic_render_settings.htm

also.. how did you do the HDRI, through 3dsmaxs default, or through Vray? and just for a little tip, vray doesnt seem to like HDRI maps, they usually take a ton longer than it would with a scene

oh and one last thing that would have a huge effect.. change your shadow type on the omni to vray, anything else will take MUCH longer because 3dsmax has to calculate it, and not vray

Ahok, thanks guys. I'll give those tips a whirl and look at that URL.

As for how long it took, we're talking 90 minutes, maybe a bit more. Been using vrays HRDI stuff, so maybe I'll try Max's own system.

And tough about the avatar - I liked it too, but people kept informing me it was politely dated... You'll get used to it

Thanks guys again, and thanks to Ian.H who PM'd me at dSRC. What a lovely bunch of people you all are!

Anyway, from those turorials I found that my 'messing' with Vray was a bit wrong. Did the tutorials a bit, and applied what I learnt to the same rF3 model. Just a shame that no one (that I know of) has got a decent V2.0 rF3 car model with bits (like wheels and suspension etc), but hey ho, it'll do for now.

Still lots to learn, and I plan on adding proper lighting at some point, but probably to LFS models as I'm stick of the dodgy mapping and general naffness of this rFactor model.

And a 2m33s render time isn't at all bad if you ask me.

i hope your using vray materials now...

Yes. Can you apply bump mapping with vray mats? Cos I'm redoing one of my LFS scenes with vray, but a lot of interior and the tyres are bump mapped with max standard materials, and I don't know (yet) if I can replicate that all with vray mats. If so I have about 100 materials to edit individually (5 or 6 cars, and a helmet).

yes you can use bump; you also can use displacement map (heavy bump maps that when used right .. act like polys).. but its alot harder to use than a simple bump map

also.. as for some other things, depending on what vray your using, you can use standard materials, but with the older version (not 1.46) you can apply the vray wrapper and just use a normal material and it will look.. more right than it normall would with vray

Found the maps (wasn't hard :doh. Edit: Just answered my own question.

Still lots to learn. But I'm gonna get there (eventally). Still crap at making 3D stuff from stratch though.

Who likes this?

me, but if i tell you all the eye-catchers u'd get mad... *G*

Try me!

wat did you try to explain? fantastic image or som realistic image?

ok, low polygons for the rims (my problem too...), white reflecting underground...(?) never seen that in real.
The helmet....LOL use a Hypernurbs too make it softer.
Golden "polished" rims? make them matte, looks more real.
the headlights are too dark, if you'd drive at nights, you loose too much light to the dark glas.


*overall skinning easiness due to 3ds*

joke, sorry, i guess thats it for the moment...

Personal opinion...the rubber tyre texture looks a slightly "odd" I can't quite decide why, but it doesn't say "tyre" to me.

There's a little too much reflectiveness about the whole scene for my taste, and the depth of field appears to be ever so slightly blurred.

However i do like the skins

Quote from micha1980de :

wat did you try to explain? fantastic image or som realistic image?

ok, low polygons for the rims (my problem too...), white reflecting underground...(?) never seen that in real.
The helmet....LOL use a Hypernurbs too make it softer.
Golden "polished" rims? make them matte, looks more real.
the headlights are too dark, if you'd drive at nights, you loose too much light to the dark glas.


*overall skinning easiness due to 3ds*

joke, sorry, i guess thats it for the moment...

Low poly WHEELS (the rims are just a part of the wheel) - just the CMX import.
Car is on a special showroom floor
Helmet - just an import of the helmet CMX. Tried nurbing it once, but results were poor.
Golden wheels - I can have them polished if I want
Headlights - yes they are too dark, but as my car has HID lights the tint is barely noticable with the lights on

Cheers Smax. I like having them reflective, cos real cars are very reflective when polished, although I guess it's just personal taste. And if ANYONE can tell me how to make a nice looking tyre (using either standard or vray materials) then I'd kiss them (on the cheek).

you "tried me" thats what you get.
besides how much sense would a polished rim make in real race conditions?
you change the whole wheel @ pitstops, and what happens to these rims?
Do they get new rubber or get dumped?
i don't know, thats why i ask... SO FLAME ME IF YOU WANT (not you in special)
some time-eating job is to nurb the helmet in a boolean op, while under Boolean-nurb edit the mesh, open and manually close polygons again.
or give it to me, cause i don't have the helmet.
and the body of the driver too please.

lots of race cars have polished wheels....?

tristan is talking about the materials micha.. not the models themselves, tristan doesnt do much modeling right now (none that i know of atleast)

but for my 2 cents i have to say get rid of that HDRI.. or something, because it looks really messed up with a shiny floor and then an HDRI.. its like taking a big sheet of mirror glass and putting it outside and putting a car ontop and taking pictures.. lol who does that?

i suggest you put together a studio (not like a garage or anything.. but a car picture studio) ei:http://www.silcom.com/~alamokfj/images/car.jpg

obviously you dont have to model anything, just build a room for the car and start messign with lights

I just see a bunch of sterling silver model cars... just reflective way too much... almost to a point that the reflection lines look like part of the cars bodywork or skin design.

I wouldn't know how-to fix it, but like XC says, try some better lighting and see what you get. (My guess is that the cars material reflection amount could be turned down?)