Create a Cool Looking Neon Sign Effect using 3ds Max and VRay
Tutorial Details
- Software: 3ds Max 9 and up
- Difficulty: Beginner/ Intermediate
- Techniques Covered: Modeling, shader setup, lighting, and rendering
- Completion Time: 30 min
- Software/ Hardware Requirements: Intel dual core of higher; recent (GeForce 8 level) graphics card
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
In this tutorial you will learn a cool technique on how to achieve a neon sign effect. I’ll show you how to model the neons from a font and then simulate the way a neon structure is built to get a realistic effect. Finally, I will demonstrate how to properly set up the materials, lights and some render settings to be rendered with Vray with using alpha channels.
Step 1
Ok, first write down your text, choose your type ( mine is “ Neona “ ), and convert it to an editable spline.
Step 2
Now erase the vertices and segments you need so it only a single line remains.
Step 3
Do the same to all the letters of the sign.
Step 4
Now bend each line terminal backward. You may want to add some vertices to give you more control.
Step 5
You should have something that looks similar to this.
Step 6
Now we have to give the lines a “tube” appearance. You can do this 2 ways: You can create a circular shape and loft it with the lines as your path, or your you can simply select the letters/ lines ( one at a time ), go the modifiers panel, and in the rendering tab select “show in viewport” and “ show in renderer”. Much easier.
Step 7
Give it a thickness of 0.3. Don’t worry, it has to be thin. I will explain why later. Now, change the sides to a number you think you think looks smooth enough. Be careful though, as more sides will increase the render times significantly.
.
Step 8
Do the same with all the other letters, and you’re almost done with the modeling part.
Step 9
Now duplicate all of the letters 2 times. Each copy will work as a layer of the neon light, and each layer will have its own material. This will create a more believable final effect.
Step 10
The middle section has to be thicker than the left section, and the right thicker than the middle section. This will work like an onion skin. Give the middle section a thickness of 0.7, and the right section a thickness of 0.9.
Step 11
Now lets add the materials. We’ll start with the thinner section. We have to create a light material because this section will be our main light source.
Step 12
In the materials panel, simply select “self illumination” and choose a bright color. I’ll choose blue ( R:0 G:188 B:255 ).
For the ambient color choose the same color but a bit darker ( mine is R: 0 G:106 B:251 ).
Step 13
Now click on the standard button, select “VRayMtlWrapper”, and keep the old material as a submaterial. After this, increase the “generate GI value to 1.3”. We do this is because it’s easier to control the light generated from the geometry without interfering with the self illumination color in the event that the material needs some tweaks. If you want to have more interferance of the light in the scene just increase the “Generate GI” value.
Step 14
Now that the Main Light material is created, let’s create the material that will be the most responsible for the color of the neon, as well as its round appearance. Simply copy the material you just created, then change its colors to a more saturated tone. Mine is (R:0, G:141, B:255) for self illumination, and the ambient color is (R:0, G:24, B:255).
Step 15
Now change the Self Illumination Opacity to around 35 so the Main light can stand out from inside the geometry that will have the material you just created.
Step 16
Now to create a glass material so for nice reflections. First get a Vray material, and change the diffuse color to black, the reflections to white, and check “fresnel reflections” but change the value to 0.2. This is done so the reflections are more noticeable and realistic. Change the refraction color to a light gray color (R:161, G:161, B:161) and leave the rest at the defaults.
Step 17
Add a falloff map to the refraction slot, and change the black color to a dark blue color if you prefer ( R:14, G:0, B:64). This will darken the edges of the glass giving it a more rounded effect.
Step 18
Now for the final material. Get a new Vray material, name it “background”, change the diffuse color to a dark gray (R:44, G:44, B:44), and the reflection channel to ( R:17, G:17, B:17). Back in the “MtlWrapper” properties, check “matte surface”, “shadows”, and “Affect alpha”. Change the “Alpha Contribution” to -1.0 so it will render the alpha channel properly. We do this so you can insert the neons into another background in photoshop and do any kind of tweaks you like to the image individually.
Step 19
Now select the thinnest neons and apply the light material (first material), do the same to the middle neons with the second material, and the thickest neons with the 3rd material.
Step 20
Place the tubes inside of each other like so.
Step 21
Finally, lets create the lights and scene for the render. First create a plain box (this will be the wall), place it in the back of the neons, and apply it the “background” material to it.
Step 22
Next, create a Vray light and place it on top of the neons. Under its properties, give it a value of 1.
Step 23
Duplicate the light three times. This is so the neons will have something to reflect.
Step 24
Hit F10 to go to the render set up. I used the following settings for my render.
Note: Do not use GI environment because it will illuminate the scene, and your environment needs to be dark for the neons to stand out.
These are the main settings i used. Nothing special about it, and the rest is left at default. Use your own tweaks as you like.
Step 25
Choose the best view, hit Render, and you should come up with something like this.
Step 26
Save your image and be happy;) I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial!
Don’t miss more CG tutorials and guides, published daily – subscribe to Cgtuts+ by RSS.
Enjoyed this Post?
Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!
By Miguel Ramos
Join our newsletter!
Create a Tutorial, Get Paid!
Have something to teach the world? Want to earn money doing it? Tutorials, screencasts, and articles published here on Cgtuts+ are largely contributed by readers just like you! We'll pay you great money for good content. Find Out More
Awesome!
BTW: What’s your windows theme name?
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/4500/capturebl.jpg
Thanks :D
the visual style is called BASE, there is for win vista and win7 ;)
BTW: i added your site to my bookmarks :)
Great look man. I was thinking about doing a tutorial on this for Maxwell, great minds think alike I guess. =)
You do that! I’d love to see how you’d do the effect.
Interesting method on using V-ray as the render output. I think i need more reference about V-ray.
Thanks for the tutorial anyway :)
Whats wrong with the homepage admin ? all the articles and stuff are jumbled up ! its just crazy
I didn’t see it when it was messed up, but it seems to be working ok now. Are you still experiencing the same anomaly?
80 Hemispheric Subdivs? Thats insane bro,
General Rule of thumb is not to go over 50, unless of course your computer is hooked up
but then again you are using a -4 to -3 ratio
Just a suggestions,
I love Vray btw….
for Irri map settings to get a good quality “test” render you should always have
-4 -4 with 20 Hsph.
for a test render
then the trick is to use incremental add to current map under the mode settings to save out your Irri Map cache once you crank up the settings…this will increasingly add great detail and lower render times indefinitely, since now the processor doesn’t have to re-calc, photons anymore….
also, brute force is good when your lazy, lol…
but light cache in conjunction with irri map can go far…..
nice tut tho…..
Yeah man you’re right, i usually work with that kind of method in using “incremental add to current map” for this tut honestly i forgot to use that :P but thanks for your suggestions man ;)
looks to me like the the tut of joel lelievre
http://www.intrinsia.net/?p=223
what do you say about that Ramos?
I’ll answer for Miguel…..not even close to the same technique for several reasons.
1.) Miguel’s technique uses 3 layers of geometry (one for illumination, one translucency, and one for reflection) where Joel only uses one Shader for illumination.
2.) Miguel’s tutorial teaches how to create the geometry of the sign, and spends most of the time discussing how to set up the materials, while Joel’s tut does not show any modeling at all, and spends most of the time discussing the minutia of Vray render settings and render workflow.
Just because Joel made a tut on a VRay Neon sign doesn’t mean that he owns the patent on Vray tutorials or on Neon signs as a subject, and as long as the techniques being taught are different enough (which they obviously are), then Miguel has every right to create this tutorial.
Thanks Kaleb, i saw that tutorial and for some reason i created this, in fact i had to find out how to create this because this was primarily made for a client who asked me to create this kind of effect and i couldn’t find nothing online that teaches how to do this kind of stuff. then i thought it was cool to share this but it looks like somebody was ofended…
And J-wizard: I saw joel’s tutorial back in 2008, and if his effect was enough to create what i was looking for do you thing i’d create a tutorial for the exactly same effect? …
Why, because they both show you how to do neon shaders ?!
If I did a tutorial but used a VrayLightMtl instead of a wrapped self-illuminated standard material would you say that I copied from both of them ? There are only so many ways you can achieve that look, you know. Besides, Ramos’ tutorial also showed how to get the glass thickness to show. If I wouldn’t have known Joel’s tutorial for a longer time, I’d say it was the other way around.
I personally think it is a very helpful tutorial, and I wouldn’t be so quick to troll it.
nice tutorial Miguel :b
how did you bend your spline on step 4? I did it my own way, but I think it gives a lot more work than yours. Any help would be great :D
btw are you from PT?
Hey Bruno! Obrigado, Yap sou portugues :P
I’ll write in English so everyone can understand, you make the “base” points and then for more roundness you add more points (in this case one) to bend it nicer and smoother. it works pretty much like the vector pen in illustrator.
Abraço ;)
hi,
nice tut, I have a question..
why do you use standard material for the neon and translucency layer and not vrayLightmat and vraymat?
there is a way to edit GI whit out using vraymatwrapper, but probably you use this mat to edit it only one time for mat type or color.
patro
i think it would not have the same effect as the v ray ligtmat i think it would get to the same point,. but you can do it if you prefer, it’s just a matter of render time, i think those materials are more fast to render than vray’s. maybe i’m wrong i don’t know.
First of all, thanks for another great tutorial.
But I got some questions.
1) I don’t have that Text Type NEONA, where can I get it ?
2) I did everything just like Miguel did. The Text, the lights. But the render took almost 2 hours to finish. I have a good PC also. Core 2 Duo. 2 GB RAM. GeForce 8600 GT. Is the render that heavy or I did something wrong ?
Thank You.
Thanks. The Neona font can be found at myfonts.com
as response to the 2nd question, probably both, you can put lower the Hemispheric Subdivisions, or you can change the Gi engine to brute force or light cache. these are my suggestions ;)
Hi maybe this is a stupid question but i’m having problems at step 13, i press the standard button but i don’t see the VRayMtlWrapper. i’m using 3dsmax 2010, maybe it has a different name or something, i hope someone else knows how to find it, it is included in 3dsmax right, not a separate plugin?
So yes, stupid question, it is a separate plugin.
I downloaded 3dsmax 2009+vray, because i couldn’t find vray for max 2010 64-bit, if anayone knows where to find it please tell me.
As i still couldn’t find the “VRayMtlWrapper” in max 2009 i’m giving up untill i can get my hands on vray for 2010.
Too bad, cause i really like the final product you showed.
did you enabled VRay renderer on the “assign renderer” tab? there is a version for max 2010 google it. thanks for the comment
thanks a alot, its awesome.. i have added ur site to my bookmark page
yar this is great i like it…
Hello! Please help with one question. How to increase glowing brighness?
Hello! Pls help with one question. How to increase glow brighness?
In the main material you can increase the GI amount, and you can change the color a bit brighter in the self illumination slot of the “mid Section” material. hope it works for you ;)
Can any one upload the Scene file coz im having problems..im not getting this effect even though i follow the same settings….
I am using 3ds Max 2010 with Vray 1.54
Please help
thanks alot for this tutorials
Hi
Great tutorial! I have one question thats bugging me… How would you make the glow effect the alpha channel? When i bring the image into Photoshop and select the alpha it only selects the neon tubes and the glow isn’t slected.
Any help would be great, Cheers.