3dsmax Rendering Support Topic

Trulife8342 · Post by **Trulife8342** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:17 pm

Hey Veegie, Even though my render isnt the best or no where near, can I have your comments on it?

Veegie[Temp] · Post by **Veegie[Temp]** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:25 pm

Trulife8342 wrote:Hey Veegie, Even though my render isnt the best or no where near, can I have your comments on it?

Place a keylight in your scene.
HDR is great, but it hardly ever will do the job on its own.
Think of how a normal map is really pronounced.
It shows where light is hitting, and where it cannot hit.
When you introduce HDR as a sole source of illumination, you undermine that very pronounced area of illumination, and dull out the sharp black areas that would be depicted as the shadow. And in the end, you have a very very faded normal map that is nearly unnoticeable in some cases.
I would recommend placing an omni somewhere that matches the main area of illumination on the HDR. It will help bring out those normals, and make more defined shadows. When you completely depend on HDR when it comes to illumination on a model that depends so strongly on detail brought out by the normal map, you're really just undermining potential in the end.

Also note the fact that no Spartans have ever done any religious related activities in the books and/or games. But if he was to be consoling the other spartan, it would be done through private COM channels as described in the book many times over. Mostly right before they're going to lose a spartan. See: Sam in Fall of Reach.

The Spartan on the left has a very weird pose from the waist down. Nothing specific about it that I can point out. It just looks awkward. I would recommend acting out the scene in real life, and seeing how your body naturally reacts to properly support yourself in said situation.

Also, as appealing as two Spartans captured mid-scene on a floating white plane in the middle of space is. I'm going to recommend you put them in an environment. Whether it be elaborate or not. Custom or in-game. Please refrain from putting them on a floating white plane. Also, that doesn't mean place and tile a low resolution texture on a plane repeatedly. That does not count.

Trulife8342 · Post by **Trulife8342** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:43 pm

Veegie, awesome advice on te enviroment thing, But about the whole hdr, I didnt use any, I used Brazil's GI, a regular skylight with no maps, I know I almost always use hdr in my renders but I didnt in this one. But ill still use your advice on the lighting, And also this may sound weird but this render isnt really for halomods entirely, some kids I talk to during youth group (im in the process of being a youth pastor) wanted some kind of religious halo 2 scene and they have seen some of my other renders so thats why im making this. so im not trying to be halo correct, but still thanks for the heads up if I ever do a scene like that.

Tain7ed · Post by **Tain7ed** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 9:00 pm

Hey Trulife8342 nice render but the spartan on the left looks like the area around the knee's are being stretched just a little, but other than that looks great.

Pyroman · Post by **Pyroman** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:24 pm

Yea Tru I like the idea of the render but I think the left one needs alittle work. Especially on the legs. Just make him kneeling on one leg like the other one does. That should make it abit better. And of course, all that Veegie said above.

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:59 pm

Veegie wrote:
Jordan wrote:I'm sure Veegie will tell you that John was Buddhist and would never pray before fighting or something.
I'm sure you should stop trying to start ***.
Really...

I'm not trying to "start shit," I'm just stating the fact that you seem to know everything about the books and storyline.

Example:
"Also note the fact that no Spartans have ever done any religious related activities in the books and/or games. But if he was to be consoling the other spartan, it would be done through private COM channels as described in the book many times over. Mostly right before they're going to lose a spartan. See: Sam in Fall of Reach."

Please to be calming down.

Munsie · Post by **Munsie** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 6:34 pm

Veegie is smart, and can remember things from the books, so? If you take an interest in something you're bound to retain a lot of the knowledge.

~Munsie

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 6:52 pm

Munsie wrote:Veegie is smart, and can remember things from the books, so? If you take an interest in something you're bound to retain a lot of the knowledge.

~Munsie

Mind pointing out the part of my post where I bash or say anything negative about Veegie for me?
Thanks.

nikkun · Post by **nikkun** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:06 pm

Listen, I'm certain you get this a lot, but how did you get those models!?
I do not own an xbox and therefore am unable to extract them from halo 2, if that's the case....
Could some gracious soul direct me to a .obj file or some lovely resources?
A thousand thanks. Also a thousand apologies if this post is misplaced; I just really want an amazing spartan model.

darco9x2 · Post by **darco9x2** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:33 pm

sending an obj would be illegal, please do not ask for models.

nikkun · Post by **nikkun** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:45 pm

Riiight. no models. Well then is there ANY way of getting one of them thar spartans? Please enlighten me, clearly I'm no pro.

Munsie · Post by **Munsie** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 8:53 am

Jordan wrote:Mind pointing out the part of my post where I bash or say anything negative about Veegie for me?
Thanks.

I never claimed you did any bashing or flaming. Nor did I bash or flame you. I was simply stating Veegie takes an interest in the Halo books.

[/offtopic]

~Munsie

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:24 pm

nikkun: There's no way you can legally get those models unless you extract them yourself from your Halo 2 disc.

Mod Edit: Offtopic discussions end here. Veegie knows his Halo, end of story.

Veegie[Temp] · Post by **Veegie[Temp]** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:52 pm

nikkun wrote: Riiight. no models. Well then is there ANY way of getting one of them thar spartans? Please enlighten me, clearly I'm no pro.

Because a Spartan isn't a model?...
What the hell.

Trulife8342 · Post by **Trulife8342** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:07 pm

Well I've been trying to make my own enviroment and this is what I got.

AjemsuhgaoII · Post by **AjemsuhgaoII** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:09 pm

If you're going to have lighting like that, make a new material for your spartan. That looks like crap as it is.

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:55 pm

If you make an environment, don't use cubemaps for his visor.

A1M4TH3H3AD · Post by **A1M4TH3H3AD** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:35 pm

Ok i've been looking at the tuts and I realise that i did some things incorrectly, such as the bump map, but now on the tut every link is outdated, so does anyone have a link to the "masterchief diffuse mix amount" and also where did you guys get your dds plugin, because mine doesn't open the bumps (like everyone else has complained about at previous times)

Ty for the help

darco9x2 · Post by **darco9x2** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:43 pm

umm.... use entity for bump maps. it nows extracts perfect bumps. so you dont need dds for it.

Veegie[Temp] · Post by **Veegie[Temp]** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:51 pm

darco9x2 wrote:umm.... use entity for bump maps. it nows extracts perfect bumps. so you dont need dds for it.

It extracts to .dds.