New Flexible Training Opportunities

I’m pleased to announce that my company, 4D Artists, Inc, and I are now formally providing individualized training and consulting in a flexible format designed to give you focused and timely information at a reasonable cost.  This training can be provided online via GoToWebinar/GoToTraining, live at our new facilities in Lake Villa Illinois, conveniently located just one hour from Milwaukee and O’Hare airports,  or training can be provided at your location.

mental ray Training with Jennifer

As you may know I am the author of the highly acclaimed new book “Mastering mental ray” (Wiley/Sybex April 2010 http://tinyurl.com/y94ase4) and an experienced 3ds Max Design/mental ray trainer the college level.   My courses include “3ds Max Level 1″, “3ds Max Advanced”, and “Architectural Illustration”.  All classes feature 3ds Max Design and mental ray.  My mental ray training is based on the thousands of hours devoted to the development of my book, and the tens of thousands of hours of experience gained over the past 19 years using 3D Studio/3ds Max.

Troubleshooting and Consulting

One of the best ways to get targeted training and solve your problems is with consulting on difficult projects.  There are few things as frustrating as needing to hit a deadline and to have your renderings not meet your expectations.   Working with a reseller is often expensive – over $200 an hour in many cases – and there are very few people that have the knowledge and expertise to assist with troubleshooting and training in mental ray.  Unless you pay for separate training you may not get the feedback you need to improve your work in the future.  We can take a look at your scenes (NDA is okay), work through the issues, and give you a summary and any training you desire to learn how to improve future scenes.

Revit, Inventor, Solid Works, and More

These days, whether you are unemployed or just looking to enhance your skills to help improve your value, gaining skills quickly is exceptionally important.  4D Artists can provide your connection to experienced instructors and practiced professionals that can help you to gain the skills you need.

Call Today to Schedule Time

Call 4D Artists today to schedule your training or consultation via GoTo or live.  847-546-3901 or via email at jenni@4da-inc.com

To say we had a great time would be an understatement.  It was our first time at SIGGRAPH so we had a lot to explore, and being ‘newbies’ to the event it was all a fascinating and unique experience for us.  On Sunday we flew in to LAX and spent some quality time exploring the Convention Center and looking at the poster gallery.  Each poster held a summary of the sessions being held during the week, and the technology on display at the convention.

Monday during the day was mostly spent in the Emerging Technologies area.  In this large hall it was one thing after another of cutting edge developments, the strange, and the interesting.  One of the first things we found was an electronic eye being developed by Disney’s engineering group.  It started out as an eyeball free-floating in a fish bowl which could be directed to look in a particular direction via electromagnetism, something to have in their haunted house.  This eventually turned into a large eyeball prototype consisting of a free-floating eye in a plastic sphere with coils arranged along the outside to control the orientation of the eyeball.  The really unique things about this is that they can also pull video from the floating eye!  The eye is now about the same size as a human eye and can be placed easily in robotic heads, and because it has a stationary outer sphere that encloses the floating eye it also has potential as a prosthetic eye for people.

There were a number of demonstrations going on including one about lenses and optics by the guy that designed the camera optics for the lunar missions for NASA.  Fascinating.  There were interactive articulated humanoid robots, terminator-like robotic arms that work from a video image of a human arm/hand and could (remotely) pick up and set down items from a table, albeit slightly shakily.  Some things in the gallery were art, or art as proof-of-concept for ideas, and often times the simplicity of the display masked the difficult technology and years of research needed to get to that point.  Groups from around the world – Japan and Germany in particular – made the trip to show the world what they were up to.  I won’t go into all the things that were there, but it took most of the day to get through and was fascinating.

We coincidentally ended up behind Ludwig von Reiche and Barry Ruff of mental images while in line for lunch, and got to meet them both and chat briefly about the book.    As Ludwig put it, it is one of the great things about SIGGRAPH; you never know who you are going to meet.

Monday afternoon was the Autodesk Education Summit at the new Marriott LA Live, and they had three speakers including Chicago’s own Perry Horovas of Tribeca Flashpoint.  All the talks were exceptional, and unfortunately we didn’t have any time after this to mingle as we needed to get to the mental images event immediately afterwards.

The invitation only mental images event, also at the new Marriott LA Live, and that was a lot of fun.  I got to meet Zap Andersson in-person finally, and he is, of course, a really nice guy.  I didn’t get much opportunity to talk with him as the place was packed beyond capacity, I ended up mingling a lot on my way to drop off business cards for a raffle, and there was an endless stream of interesting people to meet and talk with.  I got to meet Bart Gawboy, the mi Director of Training and overall mr guru, but again didn’t get much time to chat.  Zap and Bart were in high demand, I’m sure, and the place was packed.  There were several tables where it looked like they were going to do demonstrations, but that was impossible due to the crowd and the noise.  In mingling I got to meet Alexander Keller, mi’s Chief Scientist, and Juri Abramov, the Director of Software Development, and got to chat for a while with them.  Juri was in a deep discussion with Ivan or Rainmaker Entertainment (Vancouver) and discussing the advantages, disadvantages and workflows of mental ray and Renderman.  Ivan was critical of mental ray and felt that – compared with Renderman (Rman actually) –  it lacked essential tools for production use.  The main difference between Pixar and mental images is that Pixar also produces animation and they build their tools to work in a production environment whereas mental images does not have a production studio.

Once I made it back to the other end of the room near Zap and Ryan I found Ryan hanging out with and getting his picture taken with a group of people I didn’t know.  It turns out it was Rolf Herkin and friends.  Rolf is the CEO and CTO of mental images, and one of the people in the group saw the book on the table next to Ryan and had Ryan join their group.   Rolf and many others had no idea that I had written a book and we all talked for quite a while about the book, along with the writing and publishing process.

After mingling some more there was a raffle (we didn’t win anything) and then I got a chance to talk with Rolf and Ludwig together.  Ludwig mentioned how difficult it has been to start mr User’s Groups anywhere but LA, and where they have existed briefly elsewhere there has been only a couple/few people involved.  I told him of my experiences in the Chicago area  how the Max user’s are very interested, and we have had two annual “mental ray Seminars” that had between 60 and 80 live attendees along with online attendees.  So, perhaps, there are some opportunities to get some things moving in a more mi-sponsored way for the mr Seminars and groups.

Somewhere in there I got an invitation to come to Berlin, and offers for a lot of support for my efforts with mental ray and iray.  Having never been beyond the US and a little piece of Canada, going to Europe would be exceptionally cool.  Gotta get that passport now.  :)

The mi/mr event was very fun and a lot of interesting conversation, and certainly a highlight of the week.

After the mi event Ryan and I went to the CG Architect gathering at a bar near the hotel.  I got to meet Jeff Mottle in-person, and we also got introduced to the two Brians with 3DATS.  I’ll be taking over Pete Draper’s mental ray class next week as he is in India working and won’t be able to do the training.  Mark Gerhard had considered doing the training, but is now part of the TurboSquid team (congrats Mark!).  I’m excited for the opportunity.

Again, it was nice to put names to faces and to meet the other players in the new CG School in Miami. The first book by Brian Smith of 3DATS was inspirational to me in that it was written in a style I could connect with, and focused on the essential tools and practical techniques, and in many ways I kept those things in mind as I developed my book.

Tuesday I had a video shoot for Sybex, which will appear on Amazon.com and their web site, and that went very well I’m told.  Next I did an appearance at the Sybex booth to demo and answer questions to anyone that was interested.  I got to meet Chip Weatherman of HNTB, a fellow Beta Tester and a reviewer of the book.  Chip said that the book has been an invaluable resource and had helped them out time after time.  Comments like that are what I appreciate the most, to know that the book has helped someone with their work.  Eddie Perlberg stopped by to take a picture, and I have to make sure I get a copy of that.

We spent a couple hours looking through the first section of the convention floor.  Ryan found some trick Photoshop tools that solved a number of problems he was having and we bought that right away.  We had to run to a 3ds Max session, and Ryan bugged out of there early to play with his new toys (he had a project due Thursday, too).

Wednesday I went to the first NVIDIA session on iray and cloud computing, presented by Alexander Keller and Michael Kaplan of mental images.  It was very interesting to learn about the how and why of GPU-accelerated raytracing and some of what is going on with the workings of iray in particular.  I hope the PowerPoint or other similar documents will be available at some point.  The iray demo was excellent, of course, and there was a lot of horsepower behind what they were doing.  It was amazing how fast it got to a resolved image.

The remainder of Wednesday was spend going from booth to booth (stopping if interesting) and seeing what they were showing.  I met a lot of interesting folks, picked up a lot of material, and gave away a few books to key people (courtesy of me and Sybex).  I spent a lot of time at Autodesk and NVIDIA/mental images and meeting people and getting demos, or watching as many of the presenters at Autodesk as I could.  I figure those will be on The Area at some point, eh?

One highlight at the show was William Shatner and Dick Van Dyke appearing at the NewTek booth.  Dick was an absolute delight, and just what you would expect; ear-to-ear grin, outgoing, and funny at every moment.  He has been a user of 3d software (Lightwave) for over 20 years, and active in user’s groups and the like.  A fan and a hobbyist.  Bill was returning a favor to the Lightwave people for help with www.myouterspace.com, and had no clue what was going on.  Both were funny on stage and very outgoing, but Bill looked unapproachable as he walked past me twice to/from the stage.  He only came up to my shoulder, too (which isn’t that hard).  Dick was very approachable and I got to thank him as he went by.  Dick truly beams joy, and loves the crowd as much as they love him. They showed videos of him in various shows on the screen behind them, like Chitty Chitty and The Dick VD Show, and the crowd would let out a big applause.  He’d look back and laugh, and then joke about not having the legs for that anymore, but you got the sense he’d be up there dancing and singing if he could.  He was fascinated by all the technology, and told a story about his friend Walt Disney and how he would have just loved every bit of what what was at the show.  Dick talked about the early ‘special effects’ days and they had these sulfur lamps to light the background so they could then composite backgrounds, animated creatures, or whatever.  The event was recorded, and I’m guessing it will show up on the NewTek.com site at some point.

I got to meet Louis Marcoux and chat with him for a while and catch the “3ds Max Tips and Tricks” which was very cool.  Then the day was done.  There was a two-hour gap between the end of the show and a party we were going to so I crashed at the hotel, out like a light.  I woke up too late to really get a cab and make it anywhere, and added to the fact we had a very early flight and were exhausted, decided to call it a show.

A fun and fascinating week that I definitely will try to work into my schedule every year that I possibly can.  Next year is Vancouver!

For a single user on a single machine this may not be an issue, beyond the fact that every time you update the Revit file via the File Link, or re-import the FBX, new files are created. In one recent scene I ended up with numerous copies of the HDR sky bitmap from Revit within the Slate editor, saved over and over again with a new name.   All combined, I now have around five thousand jpg, png and exr bitmaps in my Temp folder, and this from just a few relatively modest Revit FBX scenes.   This functional change also places into the Temp folder the preview images for the individual materials as files called “_ADSK(B679D47).png (for instance), and this is a big part of the five thousand files.

As a work-around for network rendering I’m using my SmartSync Pro software (www.smartsync.com) on my machines to synchronize my Temp folder with a “Net Maps” folder in a shared directory on my server.  Adding that path to my project MXP file (see Chapter 1) allows the remote machines to render without issues.

For users running 3ds Max/Design 2010 you can download the latest FBX plugin from Autodesk at http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775855

Initial tests with importing a Revit 2011 FBX file into 3ds Max/Design 2010 shows the geometry looks fine, but there are no Autodesk or ProMaterials materials whatsoever, and all objects have a flat-gray Standard material.

Jenni

The Autodesk materials, despite being functionally very similar to ProMaterials, are missing some important features, specifically the Performance Tuning options, Round Corners and Ambient Occlusion:

ProMaterials settings missing in Autodesk material

With the new Material/Map Browser you can also gret groups and nested groups to hold your libraries and to keep things organized.  Here is how I have my libraries organized at this point:

My Groups and Libraries

ProMaterials are still useable in 2011 if a scene already contains them, however you can not directly create a new ProMaterial in a scene.  However, you can add a new ProMaterial from a material library.  This file http://www.mastering-mentalray.com/mental_ray/ProMaterials.zip includes a small material library that includes some blank default ProMaterials, one from each category.  Simply open the library in the Material/Map Browser and drag them into a sample sphere or SME view.  If you have previous versions of 3ds Max Design you can also use all of the “Autodesk.Mat.ProMaterials…” libraries that ship with the program.

So, despite the ProMaterials currently missing and some essential features missing from the new Autodesk Materials, you can still maximize your image quality and speed by using the legacy ProMaterials in your scenes.  As an added bonus, these will also “Save as 2010″ correctly and not result in a “missing material” error like an Autodesk material.

Another tip from my friend Eddie Perlberg at Autodesk is to take the Autodesk Material and use the “Material to Shader”  shader between it and a Diffuse Color map input of an Arch & Design material.  This way you have access to the simplified UI of the Autodesk material, access to the wide variety of materials available in the Autodesk Material Library, and can still add Round Corners and Ambient Occlusion to the material from the Arch & Design.

Lastly, you can edit the ‘include’ files found in the folder C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2011\mentalimages\shaders_standard\mentalray\include\V2.   These are the files that define the “ProMaterials Version 2″, and in each material is included the section that defines the user interface:

# “hidden”

Since the hash-mark causes the rest of the line to be ignored be certain that the word “hidden” is on a line separate from other settings, and separate from the close-parenthesis – some files you edit may be all on one line or formatted different than shown above.

You can download edited files Here.   Be sure to back-up your files before making any changes! You may need to change the security permissions on the folder in order to edit or overwrite files (right-click the folder and choose Properties, Security tab, and add Full Control to the User’s group).

The easiest and most organized approach, IMHO, is to use the ProMaterials material library file provided at the start of this post so that the list of available materials in the Materials>>mental ray category in Material/Map Browser doesn’t get too long, and you don’t need to change any 3ds Max/Design files or security permissions.

Jenni

The book was an incredible amount of work, and all together was in production for over a year.  Most of the hard production was in the last 7 months, and on most days I worked from the time I got up in the morning until I couldn’t keep awake at night.  In addition to the book I was teaching two classes in the spring and fall, along with other 3d production work.

Writing a book about rendering was, quite frankly, much more time consuming than I imagined at the onset.  It is one thing to write about a feature or how to assemble boxes into a building, and it is another things to talk about the techniques of rendering, and to work through the many different possibilities for all the settings to generate concise examples with the desired results.  It isn’t more difficult, necessarily, but certainly time consuming.  I had things rendering all the time it seemed, and worked continuously on multiple machines in order to be able to test-render scenes and continue to write and build models.  The Light Lab used in much of the book was produced by my son and business partner Ryan from a photograph of a spa, and gave some opportunities to examine lighting and other mental ray features in a straightforward scene.

Mark Gerhard was my Technical Editor for the book.  He initially pitched the book to Sybex based on a presentation George Matos and I gave, the first “mental ray Seminar” at Flashpoint Academy in spring of last year.  Much thanks goes to Mark for pitching the book and being a good mentor/Tech Editor throughout the development of the book.  He certainly is the Max guru, and a good friend.

I’m glad the book has shipped, and look forward to writing more and interacting with the readers.  Let me know if you have question on the book, and let me know if I got anything wrong!  :)

Jenni

This is a free event sponsored by Autodesk, Moraine Valley Community College, 4D Artists, and Hagerman.  Additional details and sponsors will be announced as the event gets closer.  If you are interested in providing door prizes, please let me know via email:  jenni at mastering-mentalray.com.

Registration details will follow, and registration is required for the live event.  Hagerman has generously offered to provide GoToMeeting access to attendees worldwide.

The mr Seminar will be based on my book “Mastering mental ray” and we are planning on covering many highlights from the book. The meeting is tentatively scheduled to start at 8am for breakfast and networking, free lunch from 11:30 to 1, and then more seminar from 1pm to 4pm.  Additional networking and socializing time ends at 5pm sharp.

Watch for more details!

1: You can now access mental ray via string options in MAXScript.  I’ll have an article talking about that in the near future, probably on the site as Bonus material.

2: Rays in Glass/Glazing will now pass through to the environment or a solid object rather than returning black.  Typically, if your Refraction settings in mental ray or for that material were too low, glass objects would turn black.  This is no longer the case.  You do need to have enough refractions so your objects still look correct – too low and the color or refractions will not be correct – but at least your rendering will be relatively okay rather than completely ruined.

3: iray is disabled at the moment.  I have no inside information, but I trust that this is a feature that will appear either as a subscription benefit or certainly if/when there is a 2012 version of Max.

4: Irradiance Particles and Importons now take advantage of Final Gather for improved results. See latest ctrl.ghost plugin page:  http://www.mastering-mentalray.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52:ctrlghost-plugins&catid=42:ctimpip&Itemid=65

5: Autodesk has added a few ‘wrapper’ shaders for mi shaders, eliminating the need to edit files to access the shaders:

• mib_blackbody is accessible as “Kelvin Temperature Color” shader,
• mia_lens_bokeh is accessible as the “Depth of Field/Bokeh” lens shader,
• mip_rayswitch_advanced is now accessible as “Utility Color Override / Ray Type Switcher”
• mia_envblur is the ”Environment Blur” shader.

6: MetaSL shaders are accessible in the new Slate material editor, and you can also export your materials to the MetaSL XML format.  The MetaSL shadersthat are exposed are:

• Component Falloff
• Component Reflection
• Conversion Color to Float
• Conversion Float to Color
• Illumination Phong
• Math Color Add
• Math Color Mix
• Math Color Multiply
• Normals Bumpmap
• Normals Make Normal, and
• Texture Lookup 2d.

Autodesk also cites performance and stability improvements in what they call “mental ray 2011″, which is mental ray 3.8.

Jenni

http://www.mastering-mentalray.com/mental_ray/TOC.pdf

Jenni

However I can summarize a few things:

You can adjust the yellow of the render with the Whitepoint setting in the mr Photographic Exposure control. For incandescent lighting use something between 2800 and 3300 Kelvin to make the yellowish light appear white. The default Whitepoint of 6500K is an outdoor daylight setting. Alternately you can set the color temperature of the lights to the D65 reference color and leave the mr Photographic exposure control at the default. For the Blackbody shader just set the color temp to 6500.  See Chapter 2 “Light, Shadow, and Exposure” for more information.

Combining FG and GI is usually the best and fastest indirect illumination solution. You can use a lower FG setting with GI than when using FG alone, in my experience, and since FG Diffuse Bounces are not calculated when using GI the FG pass is very fast. GI can cause its own problems with light leakage, though, but every scene is different.  See Chapters 5 and 6, “Indirect Illumination and Final Gather” and “Global Illumination and Caustics”.

For render setting, the Image Precision sliders in the Rendered Frame Window do not also adjust the Spatial Contrast setting. You may get better images and faster render times by using Samples Per Pixel of Min/Max 1 and 16 and reducing the RGB value of Spatial Contrast to .02, perhaps. This will force additional sample subdivision and the use of the Max setting more often. Some scenes may need 1 and 64, some 1/4 and 4, but experimentation on your particular scene is important.  See Chapters 1 and 4, “Essentials” and “Rendering” for more information on these settings.

For lights, setting the Far Attenuation value to the maximum effective distance for that light can greatly increase rendering speed. For instance if the light’s intensity at 15 meters is minimal, then set the Far Attenuation to Start of 15m and End of 20m. For many scenes this is the the most significant improvement is speed you can make. Rendering your scene with just that one light (w/o Attenuation) can give you an idea if its area of influence with your current exposure settings.  See Chapter 2 “Light, Shadow, and Exposure” for more information.

Materials can also be a great source of rendertime woes.  Ambient Occlusion forces multiple rays to be shot for every visible sample of a surface to determine the occlusion, and this can take a long time.  Use AO where it makes an impact, and only when you have the time.

Another material issue is reflection levels; simply changing a ProMaterials Wall Paint (or Autodesk Wall Paint) from Flat to Satin turns it into a reflective surface and can greatly increase render time.  In ProMaterials and Arch & Design change the reflections level to 1 if you need simple reflectivity; most of the time you don’t need or want more than 1.  For Autodesk materials you do not have a setting per-material, however you can try reducing the overall reflection level in the Render Frame Window.

Jenni