One thing I have noticed, is that it’s an awful lot slower rendering using Mental Ray.

Whether that will get any quicker when I get it setup properly.

Cheers

Curtis

It won’t be quicker.  Mental Ray has a lot more to it than the scanline renderer.

Bruce Harfield - 09 October 2008 09:37 PM

In the installation folder for 3ds Max 2009, you should see a folder called “defaults”. Is there a sub-folder in there called “Dynamite.VSP”?

I think the location is here C:\Program Files\3am Solutions\Dynamite VSP 3\Modules\Defaults

I’m running DVSP version 3.6 and VIZ08 and the install on this platform is working fine.

Mark

Yeap you’re right, so do you need to tell Viz where these files are?

Cheers

Curtis

No you don’t. That is just a clean copy of the files - they are not used by VIZ. There should be a separate copy of the files installed into the VIZ defaults folder.

There is something I forgot to mention earlier though. The “Dynamite.VSP” folder might have been installed into your “Documents and Settings” folder because VIZ stores some configuration files there now, instead of in the main VIZ root folder.

I just need to run a few tests on VIZ 2008, and I’ll get back to you.

Also, Peter - don’t assume that Mental Ray will be slower than the Scanline Renderer. It’s all a question of using appropriate settings for Mental Ray to get the best out of it. It’s much more efficient at simulating daylight for instance, than the scanline renderer - but you have to be using Mental Ray components for sunlight, skylight, enviornment map, indirect illumination, exposure control to use it effectively. Sounds complicated, but DVSP 3.6 does a pretty good job of setting these things up for you automatically.

Bruce

OK I’m half way there, I’ve managed to view your tutorial and there’s a few things which aren’t quite working the same as the tutorial.

Exposure Control

I’m getting the option to select mr photographic exposure control.

Render Window

How do you get the window to show the additional tools at the top and bottom of the window?

Otherwise it seems to be working.

Curtis

Downloadable WMV versions of most of the tutorials are now up…

So, this is the correct path in which the files should have been installed - apologies for the earlier confusion. Is there a “Dynamite.VSP” folder in here:

C:\Documents and Settings\<your name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\VIZ\9 - 32bit\enu\defaults

Curtis Lee - 13 October 2008 08:26 PM

Bruce
Render Window

How do you get the window to show the additional tools at the top and bottom of the window?

Are you using 2008 or 2009 version ??...in my case in 3DS MAX 2008 render window doesn’t have that additional feature’s but in 3DS MAX 2009 it has.

Bruce Harfield - 13 October 2008 07:24 PM

There is something I forgot to mention earlier though. The “Dynamite.VSP” folder might have been installed into your “Documents and Settings” folder because VIZ stores some configuration files there now, instead of in the main VIZ root folder.

Yeah, that’s better.  I forgot about checking that location.

Bruce Harfield - 13 October 2008 07:24 PM

Also, Peter - don’t assume that Mental Ray will be slower than the Scanline Renderer. It’s all a question of using appropriate settings for Mental Ray to get the best out of it. It’s much more efficient at simulating daylight for instance, than the scanline renderer - but you have to be using Mental Ray components for sunlight, skylight, enviornment map, indirect illumination, exposure control to use it effectively. Sounds complicated, but DVSP 3.6 does a pretty good job of setting these things up for you automatically.

Yeah, my comment was a bit of a generalisation.

Curtis Lee - 13 October 2008 08:26 PM

How do you get the window to show the additional tools at the top and bottom of the window?

That was new functionality added to 3ds Max 2009. All those controls are accessible from other parts of the user interface in earlier releases though. It’s just convenient to see them there in the render window at the same time allowing easy adjustments to be made.

Bruce

Found them, you create a window in the actual view and then the render window only shows that area.

Unfortunately it doesn’t show the rest of the render (ie the old view) for comparison.

I actually type out on eof my messages wrong, I’m NOT getting the same exposure control settings as you where showing on the tutorial, the camera based settings.

It still seems to was out the colours though, especially the green. Probably something I’m doing wrong.

Cheers

Curtis

I am also having problems with the MR sky. I’m getting a blue background but can I have a sky map as with the default renderer?

Grant Ching - 21 January 2009 12:58 AM

I am also having problems with the MR sky. I’m getting a blue background but can I have a sky map as with the default renderer?

Same question here…I’ve tried this method:

Open “environment” tab…drag and drop “mr_physical” map to material editor slot…dig in into place where you can change bitmap for mr_sky and see what will happen…in my case sky has changed but this change was nearly noticeable…

Krzysztof - 22 January 2009 05:48 PM

Open “environment” tab…drag and drop “mr_physical” map to material editor slot…dig in into place where you can change bitmap for mr_sky and see what will happen…in my case sky has changed but this change was nearly noticeable…

Just a point of note.  That’s kinda trying to merge methods of adopted sky.  You’ll probably find that it doesn’t work so well because the mething of illumination in the scene is now different to using the scanline renderer so just dumping a diffuse map in won’t work as expected.  The mr_physical sky (as you’d probably know) is calculated based on several variables whereas using an image is ‘cheating’.

Maybe you guys want to try looking into HDR images for backgrounds and illumination?  Mind you, that will probably open it’s own can of worms