Shadows help place the CG elements in the world. Literally grounding it in reality. Rendering them is easy, but for more control we need to separate the shadow layer for compositing. Creating them in 3dsMax isn’t hard and here’s how to setup V-Ray to separate the necessary passes.
The correct setup for the using the VrayNormalMap in 3dsMax, isn’t hard but there are a couple of things to watch out for.
So when baking out normals for Vray textures I use the scan line renderer with the following settings.
I believe that Green Up is OpenGL style while Green down is DirectX
If you’re using the recommended linear workflow using by enabling Gamma/LUT Correction in the max preferences you’ll need to make sure the Normal map loads with the correct linear Gamma.
To stop 3dsmax applying a reverse 2.2 gamma to your normal map go into the image file dialog and set the gamma to: override 1.0
The image looks wrong in the preview but will be correct in the render.
People are also using a 3dsmax composite node to fix gamma issue. But the composite node is not supported in VRay RT.
A few work in progress shots of my sci-fi concept vehicle. Straight out of 3dsmax using VRAY. Not really meant to be seen this close hence the minimal detailing and texturing.
If you’ve lost this.
Do this
Once again its the sci-fi London 48hour short film competition. It gets bigger every year , and this time I almost managed to get some sleep.
I had a lot on over the weekend so couldn’t join the #TheCreepyGuys on location. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that I could get down to Modelling the DNA and Skeleton.
I was beginning to feel squeezed for time but fortunately my house mate Dan gave up his Sunday evening help out.
We spent a while looking at Jorge-Almeida’s work and some Oblivion UI’s. While they had weeks of design work compared to our hours. It gave us something to spring our ideas off.
Dan then moved on layouts in Adobe illustrator while I wrangled with the 3d elements and composite tests
With work the next day Dan went to sleep at midnight. But I kept tweaking the 3d elements until I got the final locked cut from Karel at 5am. That left me 4 hours for 6 shots on no sleep !
I liked the idea of a simple Blue colour palette to contrast with Red danger areas. I needed next to nothing render times to reach the morning deadline. After a couple of test I decided to use the Max Scanline render for the particles and Fusions OGL renderer for the skeleton.
I needed every minute of the 4 hours to drop all the elements into place and match Alix’s performance. But I got the final shot to Tom at about 8 in the morning, leaving him just enough time to render short and deliver it to the judges.
As ever there is loads more I would like to have done. I made some pretty cool particle tests to represent DNA sequences. We left a big space for them in the GUI. But alas there simply wasn’t time to add them.
It’s a joy to work with such a talented crowd. Hopefully I’ll see them all at the cinema for the final.
