Shaders | MrBluesummers.com

The 3d Displacement Shader

Written July 3rd, 2010
Categories: Articles, Effects, Textures / Materials
11 comments

As I’m working on the new Sub-Surface Scattering tutorial I thought I would break off a small piece and make it an independent post. Below I’ll provide a visual guide to the parameters in the 3d Displacement Shader in 3d Studio Max mental ray. It’s pretty straightforward but there are some interesting things you might not have known you can do with it!

The 3d Displacement Shader Controls

Object Independent

When this is turned on the displacement effect is independent of the size of the object’s bounding box. When it’s off the displacement effect is scaled according to the size of the object. Scaling the displacement based on object size is the standard behavior for regular 3ds Max displacement mapping so if you leave this checkbox checked then the displacement length will behave like a normal material would.

Left has Object Independent enabled. Right does not.

Displacement Length

This is the length of displacement when Object Independent is checked, the extrusion map is at 100 percent (white), and the Extrusion Strength equals 1.0. Lower gray levels in the extrusion map, or other values of Extrusion Strength, scale the amount of displacement. Think of this as a way to alter the displacement map’s contrast.

0.083 (default), .25, and .35 displacement lengths

Extrusion Strength

Controls the height of the displacement. This value is a multiplier: at the default value of 1.0, the map’s effect is unchanged. Greater values will make the displacement more severe while lower values will make it more subtle.

1, .5, and 1.5 extrusion strengths

Extrusion Map

Click to display the Material/Map Browser and choose a map to use for the displacement. Displacement maps apply the gray scale of the map to generate the displacement. Lighter colors in the 2D image push outward more strongly than darker colors, resulting in a 3D displacement of the geometry.

Checker map, dent map, marble map

Direction Strength

Controls the strength of the direction shader. Adding a direction shader has no real effect unless you have the Direction Strength set above zero.

0, 1, and 2 direction strength values

Direction Map

The direction map is a lot like a normal map. The direction of the displacement is changed according to the RGB values of the map you use here. Red values offset in the U axis, Green values offset in V, and Blue values offset in W (using the object-local UVW coordinates).

Checker patterns, Red/Green, Red/Blue, Green/Blue

Parti Volume Shader

Written March 25th, 2010
Categories: Materials / Shaders, Rendering / Compositing, Videos
3 comments

I bet you wern’t expecting this on a Thursday. This Monday Movie fills in the gap that came up when I was really sick that one weekend and couldn’t make a Monday Movie. In this video, we’ll look at how you can use the Parti Volume shader in mental ray to quickly create mist or volumetric lighting effects. It’s surprisingly easy to use once you know what spinners to mess with- but be careful! It can cause high render times!

Submerge (lume) Shader

Written January 5th, 2010
Categories: Effects, Materials / Shaders, Videos
4 comments

Hey everyone,

This week I’ll be showing you how to use the submerge (lume) shader in 3dsMax and mental ray. It’s an easy way to make your scenes look like their underwater while harnessing the power of caustics and global illumination. Try these techniques in conjunction with the waterbox we made last week for a really great one-two punch!

Also, you may have noticed that I included a transcript of last week’s video. I’m going to try adding that in to the mix for the next few weeks to see if people find that useful. Remember that you can always pass this page through Google Translate to get the transcription in your desired language!

Sub-Surface Scattering Physical Material

Written July 5th, 2009
Categories: Effects, Materials / Shaders, Videos
11 comments

Hey everyone!

This week, we’re going to be looking at how what we learned last week applies to the Sub-Surface Scattering (SSS) Physical Material in 3dsMax and mental ray. They’re very similar, but the physical material gives you a little more control over the final outcome. Since this is both a shader and a material type, what you learn here is applicable across many applications!

Sub-Surface Scattering Setup

Written July 1st, 2009
Categories: Effects, Materials / Shaders, Videos
8 comments

Hey everyone!

This week I’m doing a redux of my original Sub-Surface Scattering Monday Movie. The footage is clearer, and we’re taking a deep dive into how you can get started using the fast skin materials in 3dsMax and mental ray. Next week, we’ll be taking a look at the Sub-Surface Scattering Physical Material!

Enjoy!

Glare Effects

Written February 23rd, 2009
Categories: Effects, Lighting, Rendering / Compositing, Videos
6 comments

This week’s Monday Movie is about how you can create a light glare effect in your renders both in Photoshop and using mental ray’s “Glare” shader. I wasn’t sure I’d have this tutorial out in time, but it actually came together pretty well!

The glare effect in 3dsMax is basically the process of looking for super-bright pixels in the rendering and blurring them on their own layer. You can do this in Photoshop after the render, but it doesn’t take into account the brightness of the pixels (i.e. white and ‘light-emitting are identical). Thus, by generating a glare layer, you have a lot of control over how your final render looks in 3dsMax. If you’re working on photo-real work like architectural visualization or product rendering, this is exactly the kind of technique you need in your repertoire!

Also, I’m afraid I haven’t made enough progress on my side project to fully unveil it. However, I’m looking to create a tutorial collection website that will be the largest, most searchable 3dsMax tutorial database out there! How do I plan to do this? Well, you’ll find out! But the good news is that it’ll have minimal advertisements, ratings, and tons of healthy learning opportunities. More to follow as it happens.

Sub-Surface Scattering

Written October 27th, 2008
Categories: Effects, Materials / Shaders, Rendering / Compositing, Videos
9 comments

This is definitly the best Monday Movie yet. My tone is consistent, the video is clean and neat, and I barely had to do any audio editing at all. Eventually I might even get serious with these and start adding in watermarks and little intro “swoosh” logos or something!

But anyway. This Monday Movie is about how you should go about starting to learn Sub-Surface scattering in 3d studio max. It can seem daunting at first, but I show you how to properly set up a scene for testing, and where you should start when using the material. It’s a great primer!

Making of Set Out for Lover

Written June 18th, 2008
Categories: Articles, Maya, Offsite, Rendering / Compositing, Textures / Materials
No Comments »

“In the deep forest, there are some tree guys. They live happily, but some of them are interested in the world outside. So is Melody who is Jay’s Lover. She left for the mysterious world and told Jay that she would come back when sun shone in the dark forest. Several years later, sunshine lightened the whole forest. Jay set out to prepare a big surprise for Melody even if he didn’t know whether She would come back””

Making of The cursed Pirate

Written June 18th, 2008
Categories: Articles, Maya, Modeling, Offsite, Rendering / Compositing, Textures / Materials
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“Sometimes I got lost in the look of the character, but my friends and teachers gave me some great feedback that really helped to keep me focused and on track as to how the final look would be. A lot of time and effort was spent mainly in the idea and concept creation stages.”

Working with ICE

Written June 18th, 2008
Categories: Animation / Rigging, Effects, Offsite, Softimage XSI, Videos
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“Get a free look into the inner workings of ICE and production workflow in this video from the “Mastering the Art of ICE Volume I: Breaking the ICE” series. In this video, we will look at working with an ICE Tree and how to tweak and work with the new volume shaders in XSI 7, which can help us to create some amazing looking ICE renders and effects.”

Shading and Rendering of the Mini

Written June 18th, 2008
Categories: Articles, Maya, Offsite, Rendering / Compositing, Textures / Materials
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“This article focuses on shading and texturing the Mini Cooper, I’ll talk a little about rendering with Mental Ray but I think other people have covered that in more depth elsewhere.”

Making of Skullhead Mobster

Written June 18th, 2008
Categories: Articles, Lighting, Maya, Modeling, Offsite, Textures / Materials
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Hashdeep Borah walks us through the creation of the Skullhead Mobster.

Making of Beanpod Blooming

Written June 18th, 2008
Categories: Articles, Lighting, Maya, Modeling, Offsite, Rendering / Compositing, Textures / Materials
No Comments »

Wang Xiaoyu walks us through the creation of this piece going over tips for creating eyes and shaders

Maya DGS Shaders

Written June 18th, 2008
Categories: Articles, Maya, Offsite, Textures / Materials
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“When MentalRay users talk about ‘physical correctness’, in most of the cases the usage of DGS (diffuse, glossy, specular) shaders is discussed. Some people say you should use them at least as photon shaders, just because they’re fast and, yes, physically plausible. But how do they act differently than the Maya base shaders? If you ever used dgs shaders, you probably asked yourself if it was possible to ‘mimic’ the dgs behavior somehow – just because they are yet simple, but sometimes very hard to bear with (just think of the glossy reflection samples that cant be set – very annoying). What if we could tell a Maya base shader to act like it’s dgs companion?”