For pre-2014 you would need to have revealed hidden functionality such as IBL which I won’t be covering here.
We’ll be working in Max 2015 here, but the Mental Ray settings will be valid for Max 2014 as well. We likely could reduce it down to even 512×512 and still get decent detail in the lighting. The reason we make a reduced version for lighting is that more detail in the lighting can create more noise which is undesirable. We will use the 5K HDRI for our lighting and the 15K file for Reflections. Be sure to Save As rather than overwrite the 15K file. The Delorean model can be downloaded from the kind folks at īefore getting into Max and setting up our scene we’ll also want to throw the HDRI into Photoshop, hit ALT-I and change the resolution to 5000 Pixels wide.
For this Tutorial we’ll be using HDRI Pack #3 from the folks at SMCARS.NET I’m not posting files directly here so you will want to go over to their site and download the pack. The plate I’ve chosen is IMG_7375 and we’ll use the full 15K Spherical HDRI seen below.
The Plate is your background image and the Spherical HDRI will be used for lighting and reflections. There are numerous places to grab some free Spherical HDRIs, the trick is finding a resource that also provides plate images shot at the same location so there is complete continuity between plate and IBL. Material Library File for my Delorean Materials Acquiring the Plate, Spherical HDRI Images and Carįirst task is to find a decent plate image and Spherical HDRI to work with. ( SMCARS.NET)ĭownload My Final Render + Passes and After Effects File So let’s get started! Resources you’ll need: By doing this you have a reliable starting point for creating photo-real renders. The idea is to make the CG sit nicely into the plate with proper lighting, reflections and shadows.
Also working a CG render into a photographic plate will reveal anything that looks off with your model, exposure and materials. It allows you to focus on the photographic aspects of rendering before worrying about complex light placement, color etc. In my opinion this is the first kind of rendering exercise new CG artists should take on. The goal here is to get you creating reasonably “Photo-Real” renders as quickly and simply as possible using only a Plate image (background photo) along with a Spherical HDRI for an IBL (Image Based Lighting) setup. We’ll be rendering this cool exterior shot of the always classy ‘81 Delorean. Anyway it’s a long one, but should be a good time! I go step by step so you should be able to produce very similar results, though you can also download my final 4K render and After Effects comp if you just want to skip the scene setup in Max. It can be, but this info is equally useful to seasoned artists. Also, though I call this an “Intro” this doesn’t mean this tutorial is specifically for beginners. After years of promising a Mental Ray tutorial I’m finally getting around to it! Ironically I am doing most of my work with Vray now, but Mental Ray is still a great engine! I think it’s important to learn to push the limits of the tools built into 3DS Max before jumping to 3rd party render engines and plug-ins.