V-Ray for 3ds Max Tutorial: How To Create a Sniper Robot


V-Ray for 3ds Max

In this production, I will explain how to create a sniper robot using the hard surface of 3ds Max, and include the texture and shader process. Hard surface modeling is also applicable to a variety of mechanical models, the main software used are 3ds Max, Photoshop, V-Ray and so on.

Basic model

There is a general idea before the production, you can use the basic functions of 3ds Max to make a rough shape with a simple BOX, and adjust the shape and proportion on this basis. Be sure to adjust all of them before you start adding details. The order of this step is very important.

Basic model after adjusting shape and scale

Once all the basic model shapes and proportions have been determined, you can add details to the large model on this basis. As for the more detailed places, you can adjust after the completion of the big block.


Now that the important parts of the model have been completed, you can add details to these locations. For example, cutting gaps, adding screws and things that are common on mechanical parts.

As shown in the image below, most of them use bevels, edge extrusion, chamfering, etc. The tangent at the edge must pay attention to the position of the line to achieve a smooth effect.

In this project, some 3ds Max TurboSmooth modifiers were used. TurboSmooth is used to make some smooth surfaces very easy to use, but also to keep the face on the model to a minimum, and can also effectively reduce the final rendering time, if you want the work more realistic and speed up the rendering speed, you can use a render farm, like Fox Render**farm**.

Making ammunition belt

This section is very simple, you can make a single model, then copy a few and group them into a group, and then use Path Deform Binding to transform. Here you can use the deformer to try to change the Rotation and Twist values to modify more shapes.


For UV, UV splitting can be done depending on the color of the model and the different materials. The model is divided into six textures，including body, outer body, internal parts and joints, wires, tubes, small pieces, details, screws and weapons.

Lighting and materials

First set a scene of HDRI lights, a fill light, a yellow fill light, a blue point light source, and then baked an AO map.


Make a texture in Photoshop:

  1. Draw a color layer for the theme
  2. Yellow details of the robot
  3. Use channels to increase rust details
  4. Make a peel on the robot paint

Finally, add some text and logo to the material, and finally use V-Ray to render.

Tutorial: V-Ray for 3ds Max Making Forest Park Restaurant


V-Ray for 3ds Max

The case study presented to you this time is based on a person's conceptual design - a restaurant that is intended to be built next to a waterfall and surrounded by vegetation. From design to final performance, it is all done by one person. The overall production idea is worth sharing with you. The software used is 3ds Max, V-Ray for 3ds Max, Photoshop.

1.Architectural modeling and material assignment

In the early stages of design, conceptual sketches can be drawn in the form of paper and pencil. According to the characteristics of the Tongas National Forest Park, combined with personal preferences, the general appearance of the base is restored and the general shape of the restaurant is designed. The 3ds Max was then used to complete the modeling of the restaurant, refining the details of each part of the restaurant from three dimensions.

Because this design does not require the display of interior details, some ready-to-use chair models can be used directly, without the need for exquisiteness. Together with the temporarily created table and luminaire model, it is placed inside the building, so that the interior has certain details related to the subject.

After the main body model is completed, the corresponding materials are given to each part. The structural part of the building is mainly black steel. The material is generally created by the method of making metal. However, in order to make the surface of the material more vivid, a texture of stainless steel is used as the mask, gloss map and bump map, the metal surface has a slight color change and reflection gloss changes.

The following is a node diagram of the material. In addition to the base material, the dirt effect is added to make the stain effect appear on the concave corner of the steel. Of course, this effect can be selected by adding PS in the later stage.

Since the main body of the building is far away from the camera, all aspects of the details can be appropriately reduced, especially the object that is occluded. Therefore, the rest of the restaurant model uses only three material balls, one is glass and the other is wood (for table) The same one), one is stainless steel. Stainless steel may be a more interesting material, but it is not clear in this scene, so it only gives a diffuse reflection and bump.

In the end, the complete building body was initially obtained.

2.Scene lighting

This step can be made according to personal habits. Here, lighting, modeling, and materials are synchronized. At the beginning of the modeling, the lighting is placed according to the design, because the lighting is an indispensable part of the design. Because it is a conceptual scene, the illumination does not have to be too limited to reality. It can be adjusted according to preferences. In order to highlight the existence of the main body of the building, you can use the shadow to block the less important places, and at the same time highlight the context of the scene and form a contrast between cold and warm. It even reduces the difficulty of the late fog.

The light source of the scene is mainly divided into three parts. The first is V-Ray sunlight, from the perspective of the camera, from left to right, and the sun is low.

The second is a dome dome lamp loaded with an HDR from Peter Guthrie at dusk, but the overall tone is cold.

The third part is the lighting in the building. The spherical light of the v-ray is placed directly inside the luminaire. Combined with the double-sided material properties of the luminaire, the lighting environment can be guaranteed while ensuring the visual effect of the luminaire itself.

Finally, four spotlights are used. Illuminate the bottom of the second floor to highlight the outline of the building's main body.

3.Environmental modeling and material assignment The next step is to start the environment modeling, first creating a large plane that covers the range seen by the camera and uses it as the ground around the building.

However, the surrounding area of the restaurant is not a flat ground, there is a river passing by, you can use the drawing function in the editable polygon to create the bump effect of the ground, and use the noise modifier to further add subtle height changes to the ground. At this point, create a plane, use it as a water surface, combined with the ground with high and low changes before, easily produce the effect of water. Of course, when brushing the terrain, you should consciously shape the riverbed instead of carving it at will. Use a similar approach to create more undulating relationships for the ground and get a preliminary environment.

The ground is almost done, and there is no difficulty in this step. Next is the cliff waterfall, you can first use the spline to hook out the plane of the cliff, then use the "clothing generator" modifier to generate the grid, and finally use the "replacement" modifier (placed the noise map) to generate the height difference Of course, use the soft selection to determine the area where the bump is to be generated before using the noise. In the upper part of the cliff, considering that the camera could not see her full picture, I only built a small part of the top of the cliff and then combined it with the model.

Use the plane to pull out a simple shape, then use the turbine to smooth the mesh, and finally use the noise modifier to give the model a bump change that simulates the rough effect of the rock surface. However, a cliff does not seem to be enough, so I copied a few more, and finally got the following effect, the environment has been basically built.

The environmental model has been roughly completed, and the corresponding materials are given to the various parts of the environment, including the dirt on the ground, the rocks behind the restaurant, and the rocks on the cliff. In order to reduce the workload, it is not intended to increase the details on the model, but to directly use the texture with sufficient information to achieve complex surface effects.

Real displacement Texture by Christoph Schindelar is a seamless map of 3D scanning with accurate diffuse, normal, gloss and displacement information to create realistic and reliable surface effects.

In order to show the high quality of the material, I made a few small tests. The following three materials are given to the scene, and the distribution is as follows.

4.Vegetation addition Here we use the itoo's grass model, convert it to a proxy, and use the advpainter for manual distribution.

5.Rendering and Post-Production

The scene is now almost processed, and finally the remaining material is filled, such as the water surface, and finally a complete scene. Raise the render parameters and add the render element zdepth (set the distance according to the scale of the scene) and change the output resolution to 2560×1440. Let's take a look at the changes from model to lighting to final rendering.

After rendering the basemap, put it into Photoshop to adjust it. Content like waterfalls and water fog, which is handled later in the post, is very advantageous for still frames. Because the color of the waterfall itself is not complicated, its characteristics are mainly reflected in the light effect of water vapor and the water body on both sides. At this time, you only need to use the polygon to simply pull out the waterfall, and process it into black and white, then use the color scale to remove the unnecessary parts, and finally repair it with a brush to get a pure waterfall "flowing body". Take one of the waterfalls as an example,

The only thing left is to polish. Adjust the overall color brightness and tendency, add a halo to the exposed area, add the lens vignetting effect, and the final result is born.

Article reference article shared by 3d artist Yu Dejie

V-Ray For Sketchup To Make A Rendering Imitate The Penda Style


v-ray for sketchup

This is a rendering that imitates the Penda style and is the first attempt to simulate a manual model with rendering. The style of Penda has always been very much liked and yearned by me. It is elegant and readable.

The following reference picture shows an indoor project from Penda.

The software used is SketchUp, V-Ray, Photoshop.

Step 1: Create a model

Firstly, look at the material of the reference model, here is composed of four materials, the bottom of the board, the floor plan, the placed character model. There is a rough plan to do before you do it, such as material or floor plan.

The original model used in SketchUp is now a work in the previous exercise, and the models on the side are scattered into random placements. Then there is the element in which to add the floor plan.

You can make the found design material into a png format in Photoshop, and then use this png into SketchUp to adjust it to the appropriate size. Place it on top of the board as follows,

Step 2: Material adjustment

The choice of material is actually very important. The color of the wood is dark and the color of the metal will affect the final rendering. Then you need to adjust the reflection, roughness, and reflection values of the material.

During the adjustment, the board uses very weak reflections and roughness. If it needs to be more realistic, you can add a embossed iron map to increase the detail of the wood grain. The character model used for decoration needs to pay attention to the subdivision and simulate the feeling of smooth plastic. And the focus is on the texture of the metal model, because the Penda's picture has a feeling of powder, so the metal is pink and purple, and Glossiness is connected to the gray map.

Step 3: Lighting and rendering

This part chose V-Ray to make lighting, and chose to turn off the skylight, and then played a large light source on the top of the model to simulate the light source, the color is white by default, and the subdivision is increased.

Then adjust the AO layer, the picture is as follows:

Step 4: Photoshop late adjustment

First copy a layer in soft light mode, the texture looks increased, and then adjust the contrast. And adding some dirt will make the model look more realistic. Finally, the periphery is blurred, the focus is simulated, and the final product is finished.

Although the final result is still far from the style of Penda, the overall process of rendering is the same.

Willys Jeep Production Analysis, A Real Photo-Level Rendering Tutorial

Willys Jeep Production Analysis, A Real Photo-Level Rendering Tutorial


Maya render farm

The first step in creation is a material collection, which requires careful observe and study of the structure of the car body. It is only after you understand the image and structure that you can start modeling, which will improve efficiency and prevent excessive modification.

The main software used was: 3ds Max, V-Ray

  1. Polygon modeling

After the conception, the production started. The first thing to start is the creation of the model. The model here is mainly based on the mechanical body, so it can be done with the polygon modeling tool in 3ds Max. Since there are no shortcuts, only basic modeling ability and patience are required. Of course, modeling takes a considerable part of the time.

  1. UV deployment:

Considering that the vehicle has a certain degree of damage and dirt, it is necessary to specifically paint the damaged paint and dirt at a specific position, which requires UV splitting of some models. The UV split is using 3ds Max's default Unwarp UVW tool. The UV of the car body, tires, ammunition box and fuel tank must be split, and the small parts can be used without UV removal. Only UVW Mapping can be used with appropriate mixed materials (textures). Here only the UV split of some key models is shown, as shown below.

However, some models such as: steering wheel, seat, armrest, car suspension system including sandbags, obstacles, stones do not need to be split, but with UVW Mapping with Composite texture or V**RayBlend Mtl material can be used, so for trivial small Objects can save a lot of time to remove UV and improv**e work efficiency.

There are also some models that are used with the V**RayBenldMal material in conjunction with the UV**W Mapping tool.

  1. The drawing of the map:

After the model UV is split, the texture map is drawn. The software used here is Mudbox2014. Mudbox is very powerful in drawing textures. The real-time model mapping makes the texture alignment and seam processing very simple and efficient. Very high. The display here takes the car body and the ammunition box as an example.

The main tool used in Mudbox is Projection, which maps textures, dirt, and LOGO to a UV-removed model. Since Projection can be projected with photos or processed images in PS, this can greatly increase the authenticity of the creation, so Mudbox's texture drawing is also widely used in next-generation game production and some film production.

After the drawing is completed, the texture is baked and output to the PS for further color correction and adjustment. In this example, the textures that I baked include: inherent color map, highlight map, and bump map.

The final effect of the car and small scene:

Since the ground is going to do some careful division, the ground UV is also removed and imported into Mudbox for texture processing.

According to the division of the texture (gravel land and grassland), the model of the ground is treated separately, that is, one side is the grass and the other side stone. The model of the stone is processed in 3ds Max, and the stone on the ground is brushed out by the default model drawing tool of 3ds Max.

The grass itself uses a proxy model, and the whole grass is planted using the 3ds Max plug-in Forest.

  1. Background elements

Since the idea is a hand-type of willys jeep, some of the hand-made tools are used as background elements. The main tools are airbrushes, air pumps, model knives and paint bottles, and these objects are very industrial. It can also respond to the car body, so use it as a background element. The paint bottles can be used in a variety of colors to increase the color of the background image, and the colorful colors used in the background will not be overwhelming. The photo only reflects the history of Willys Jeep, and also adds elements of the background image.

  1. Lighting and rendering

In order to have a strong sense of sunshine, V**RaySun is used here because VRSun is better and simpler to show true sunlight. Putting it on the front of the model has a meaning of "bright guidance". The warm and bright light on the grass can also form a contrast with the obstacles on the grav**el floor under the shadow of the back, the ammunition box and the sandbag. The specific light position layout is as follows:

The main parameters of V**Ray** specific parts are as follows:

  1. Post-production adjustment

Post-production used are DF and PS. The output Z channel can be used as a depth of field and fog effect. The specific effects are as follows:

Depth of field effect selection is synthesized in PS. Of course, it can be added in AE or DF according to personal preferences and habits. In PS, you can adjust the depth of field effect by adding "Z channel" to Alpha in the channel layer and then using "Filter Blur Lens Blur". Basic color correction and fog and glow are added in DF.


Even if the production of jeep is completed, the production process and ideas are expected to be helpful to everyone, thank you!

Author: Rui City

Teach You The Use Of Hdr Maps In VR

Teach You The Use Of Hdr Maps In VR


V-ray render farm

HDR is a high dynamic range texture, the full name is High Dynamic Range, in short, is the light beyond the ordinary light color and intensity. With the help of HDR, we can use color values beyond the normal range, so we can render more realistic 3D scenes. Generally, computers use 8bit (256) or 16bit (65536) levels to distinguish images when representing images. The brightness of the image, but this area hundreds or tens of thousands can not reproduce the real natural lighting conditions, beyond this range you need to use HDR map. Below are two contrasting renderings

The first picture is the picture with the HDR map added, skylight (HDR map) + reflection (HDR map) + refraction (HDR map) + VR surface light (off the effect of highlights, affecting reflection); the second picture is skylight The effect of the 1.0+VR surface light (which affects the high light and affects the reflection). HDR textures are better suited for use in open environments. When you want to represent a single object, or a group of objects, HDR maps perform well in scene illumination and refraction. However, indoor scenes and outdoor scenes are not suitable. The role of HDR maps is mainly used to achieve scene illumination and analog reflection refraction, so that objects behave more realistically. Let's take a look at how to use HDR maps: I created a simple scene with two glass cups, a metal teapot, a ceramic dish, and a metal spoon fork.

Settings in the render panel: default lighting: off, skylight: off

There is no light source in the scene, and the rendering is black.

We started to make the scene light up, turn the sky on, and render the image.

See, at this time the object of the scene does not show texture, below we open the reflection channel, click once, find VRHDR, and open the refraction channel, drag the VRHDR of the reflection channel to the refraction channel, and associate the copy.

Drag the HDR of the reflection channel onto the shader and copy it.

Edit the parameters of the HDR map on the shader

In this case, I adjusted two places. Everyone looked at what kind of effect they wanted and tried more. The rotation angle of the texture and the multiplier affect the rendering.

The picture at this time

You can also add HDR textures to the skylight channel to achieve the effect of lighting the scene, but usually the hdr color will affect the object itself (like the image below), so this requires us to adjust by changing the color of hdr.

Click in the light channel, find the RGB Tint, associate it to the shader, and then associate the hdr map to the RGBTint.

These three colors make the color of the texture black and white. Render the picture, you will see that this picture is brighter than the previous HDR when there is no HDR, the contrast is high, the color is positive.

Finally, we put a light on the side to make the picture layer richer.

The Production And Rendering Process Of Office Building' s Night Scene

The Production And Rendering Process Of Office Building' s Night Scene


V-ray render farm

For landscapes and architectural drawings, designers need to grasp the aspects of volume, texture and light efficiency. The following is a case model, although the scale is not very large, but the details are complete. Case collection Before you make a production, you can find some reference pictures of the effects. If we are going to make a night scene, then the reference picture is also a night view.

Model adjustment The original model has been built to the details of the scale, in order to make the model look more perfect, here added the glass frame part of the window frame, floor, and some railings and other handrails. Then, taking into account the scene, and adding some scenery buildings, floor lights and street light poles according to the original general situation of the site.

Light and material Referring to the building in the case, I first used a night scene HDRI to illuminate the scene, followed by interior lighting, outdoor entrance lighting, ground lighting (illuminated building exterior) and red atmosphere lighting. I only did a simple lighting test, because the intensity of the light may need to be adjusted after adding the material. In fact, I added the light and material synchronously. In terms of material, I chose two concrete materials made by Arroway for the wall and the entrance floor.

The rest of the railings, window frames, and glass are of course simply set up, and the textures are not mounted. The interior uses the dark glossy wood flooring material that Thea comes with.

After the initial setup of the lights and materials, it is necessary to start a long test rendering. Here are a few test renderings, which relate to the adjustment of the light environment and materials.

Mapping and channel Once the various parameters have been determined, the rendering begins. This time I used the BSD engine, because the Presto engine will give up some of the lights that are far away, occupy a small distance, have little impact on the picture, and are not easy to detect due to resource saving. However, these lights are considered to be more important. After choosing the right parameters, I waited patiently for more than 3 hours. Since BSD does not use the GPU for rendering, its algorithm is obviously not as good as Vray, and the speed is slower.

The following is a map and a channel map. Alpha\Material_ID\Object_ID\Depth will be used in the channel. Others such as Shadow\GI\Diffuse can also be checked to prevent use. Thea is different from Vray. Checking the channel map will significantly affect the final rendering speed, which will slow down the rendering speed by 10%~20%. Vray doesn't seem to slow down the rendering speed because of the checkmark.

Post-production process Since the normal pattern rendering is not used, the post work is slightly more cumbersome. First of all, the landscape building is replaced with photo material from CGTEXTURE, and the overall light and dark relationship is adjusted to make it harmonious. Adding plant scenes afterwards is also a long process. The reason is that you need to find a perspective relationship and a relationship between light and dark. The latter is the most time-consuming, and this process needs to be done in the reference case picture and in the process of continuous modification and balancing.

The method of adding characters and plants to the scene is no different, and it is also an individual activity. After the scenes are added, adjust their brightness and warmth again and thoroughly into the picture.

Ultimate Weapon: The Topaz Adjust filter adds a portion of exposure, detail and contrast to unify colors in one shade. After some minor adjustments, I got a picture.

I hope that you will gain something in this tutorial, especially for the built environment, space and light and shadow.

The Reason And Solution When Rendering Image Become Black in V-Ray For SketchUp



SketchUp render farm

When many people encounter **render**ing with **V**-**Ray** for SketchUp, the **render**ed image is all black or partially black. What is the reason? 
  1. There is a case where SketchUp's file storage mechanism is somewhat different from other software. It packs the model and texture in a SKP, so even if you don't copy the texture file, SketchUp can still recognize it, but V-Ray must need a texture path. So, when the computer or the path have been changed, the V-Ray texture map was actually wrong, so the diffuse texture Gamma correction was biased when the file was opened. How to solve the problem? We can delete all the data of V-Ray in the extension program, and then reset all the materials, lights, and rendering parameters. And to force the back of the model to be hidden. If it is still black, try again to adjust the background to white.
  1. There is also a situation where the sky is rendered black, which requires checking the following items

    1. Whether the background is on, whether the average color is black, whether SKY is on, and whether SUN1 is linked.

    2. Whether the default light source starts, reset the Option.

3.V-Ray for SketchUp is often prone to appear black in rendering glass because VR has highly reflective objects such as glass, mirror, stainless steel, indicating that the inherent color of the material (diffuse reflection) is itself the black color, plus nothing around the object, can naturally reflect the inherent color of the diffuse reflection. The solution is to place some detail around the object that can be reflected, or to lighten the color of the diffuse reflection. If the glass material is normal (check Fresnel, etc.), if you are using single-sided modeling, you can flip the surface, and the one side has front and back.

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