G.I Rendering Techniques in 3Ds Max
Tutorial Details
- Software: 3Ds Max
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Completion Time: 1-2 hours
- Scene File: GI_Test_Scene.zip
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Model presentation is a crucial step for every artist when building their portfolio. In this tutorial, Ben Tate takes us through a few techniques for creating a global illumination or “clay” render using 3Ds Max and it’s 3 common render engines – the scanline renderer, Mental Ray and finally V-Ray. He’ll also look at implementing additional lights, adding color variation, removing noise, and how to add image based lighting using HDRI images.
Video 1
Download
Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
Video 2
Download
Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
Video 3
Download
Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
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 Ben Tate
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
Heh, I was just searching for 3D Max rendering tutorials and thought “I wonder if CGtuts have done one?”. This must have been added in the last few hours. Nice!
Just it!!!…. I beginner in rendering, thanks bro.
Love Tate tuts.
Any plans on making an Architectural visualization tut sometime? (Interior and Exterior) I’d prefer Vray since I’ve played around with Mental Ray quite awhile now.
Here’s a interior one:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/realistically-light-and-render-interior-scenes-using-3ds-max-and-vray/
Just search ‘vray’ for others
Yeah, I was just hoping someone would make a video. Everywhere I look it’s always just a lot of reading, which I don’t like much.
Thanks!!!! I needed this course.
Thanks Ben
Always look forward to Tutes by yourself and Chris, some of the best around in my opinion.
Keep doing what you guys do for as long as you are able.
Many thanks
Midge
as usual, a must see tutorial, the tates did it again, more of this good work……
Ps how about a good tutorial on xref objects, i cant find any…
Mark
Pretty valuable stuff. I have to reference this info every couple of months. One of those things I quickly forget how to do.
Very nice! Never knew what HDRI images were used for before this…
whats your hardware specs ? – im trying to do this on an amature personal computer with 4gb ram and quadcore 2.5ghz – but it totally stops when i put in vraylights …
and what hardware would you prefere for an amature setup ? with a low budget
Hey man,
I’m surprised to hear that the Vray lights are giving you a problem! I’m not really sure why that’s happening, your specs should be far more then you need to use vray lights, and they far exceed my current setup as well!
I’m actually using a machine that’s close to 5 years old and I haven’t upgraded any of the hardware at all. By today’s standards it’s pretty out of date and under powered to say the least! Here’s my specs:
By the way, it’s a pre-built HP from Staples. At the time it cost me around $2000 without the monitor (which was another $480 :)
- Pentium D 920 (Duel-core) 2.80 GHz (32bit)
- 2GB’s of RAM (ouch)
- Nvidia Geforce 6200SE Turbocache (pre-installed, worth about $60 when it was new!)
- Windows 98 Media Centre Edition SP3
- Samsung 19′ Monitor (4:3 aspect) (Max Res: 1280×1024)
With the current prices of hardware you can get a pretty good setup for a decent price. The pre-built machines from HP or Dell are pretty cheap and should be a good starting point if you’re not looking to build a machine from scratch. I’ve had three pre-built HP’s and have never really had any problems with them. Of course you’ll have to deal with the pre-installed crap that comes with them, but you can get rid of that pretty easily.
I don’t know what kind of budget you have, but if you’re looking for a computer that will be good for a few years, I’d recommend getting one with an Intel i7 (64bit) and at least 8 -12Gb’s of RAM. If it is pre-built, you’ll probably want to upgrade the video card(s) to something better, like an Nvidia GTX or a higher-end Radeon card. A setup like that should be good for awhile!
Cheers
I actually have the same problem with VRay, and I’m using a super-powerful, recently-built computer. I just downloaded the demo from their website, so I’m not sure if that would be the issue, with it maybe somehow being different from the retail version, but I’ve reinstalled it plenty of times and it takes about 20 minutes for me to render something that took the Tates about 40 seconds. There must be something wrong with it, just wish I could figure out what.
I’ve recently read an article that states that the demo versions of VRay are actually programmed/designed to either take extremely long to render an image (no matter how basic the scene is) and that the demo versions have other limitations also set in place(such as a maximum reso of something like 1024×768 etc)… Im not sure how true the article was but this might explain why your renders take such a long time.
Uhh man uhh how many uhh times does uhh this uhh guy say uhh “uhh” xD
Awesome Tutorial none nonetheless :D
As many as he wants. Any other questions?
Thanks a lot dear……!
Hey thx 4 the tut,
but i have a littl prob. with the scanline renderer, i put the same settings, but my render is much to bright
why ? the red is light red and the rest of the sceen really bright too
Hey,
Do you have any kind of gamma correction on? If you do, then you’ll get an over bright render using the settings in the tutorial. You can check the gamma settings by going to the Customize menu > Preferences and clicking on the “Gamma and LUT” tab. By default the “Enable Gamma/LUT Correction” box should be UN-checked and the gamma should be set at 1.8. Under Bitmap Files, input and output gamma should be set to 1.0. These are the default settings for 3ds Max.
If you do have gamma correction enabled and set to something like 2.2, you’ll get a much brighter render. Try changing the gamma to 1.8, then uncheck the “enable gamma/LUT correction” box. Also make sure the boxes under “Material and Colors” are both unchecked as well. I didn’t have any gamma correction enabled when I recorded the tutorial, so if you have everything set at the default values you should get a similar render to mine :)
Hope this helps
cheers!
ahh THX !!!
now it works
thx a lot man
i have gamma 2.2 that was the prob
Thank you very much for this tutorial!
I’ve been looking for this :)
Great tutorial Ben. I enjoyed very much.
Thanks
Nice tut my friend this is the more understandable tut that i seen.
Another in the vray part you talk about a studio lighting rig tutorial. can you ask me were can find it please?.
Thanks.
Thanks! The studio lighting tutorial I mentioned is one by my brother Chris. You can download it from his website at the following link.
http://www.christateonline.com/Tutorials/Studio_Lighting.html
Cheers!
Thanks A Lot
Thank you Ben! Now I can make my renders look more pro.
Ben Tate
THANK YOU,,YOU DID SUCH A GREAT JOB, AND THE VIDS ARE VERY VERY CLEAR.
wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow nice :)
My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!
Great tutorial Ben, I didn’t know you could get GI with the scanline render, thats awesome :p
I went through a Gnomon Workshop DVD focusing specifically on Vray lighting however the one thing I didn’t get right was a studio lighting rig. I went through your brothers studio lighting tutorial and keep up the good work.
Great tutorial, Ben and Chris are my favs when it comes to watching tutorials, but one question,
How do you exclude HDRI background from the final VRay render but so it still affects the scene.
I’m trying to use some Vray rendered text in a motion tracked footage so I need some alpha. Everything looks great just can’t get rid of HDRI in the final render =\ please help
Hey Alexander
Thanks man, I’m glad to hear that you like both mine and Chris’s Tuts :)
As to your question… You want to render text with HDRI lighting, but need to remove the background plane and also prevent the HDRI from showing up in the background of your render, but you still want to calculate the bouncing light. Do I have that right?
If so, The first thing you’ll need to do is make the background plane invisible by right clicking on it and going to “object properties”. Then uncheck “visible to camera”. That will remove the plane from the render, but will still calculate it.
Next go into the vray render settings and under the “Vray Environment” tab, make sure your HDRI image is loaded into the “GI environment (skylight) Override” map box. This will use the HDRI to light your scene.
Next go to “Rendering>Environment” or press “8″ on your keyboard. Under “Background” make sure there is NO map loaded into the “Environment Map” box. It should say “None” on it. (If you do have the HDRI loaded into this map box, you’ll see it in the render.) Remove it by right clicking on the box and go to “Clear”. Uncheck the “Use map” box as well and you should be good to go! With this setup you’ll get a proper alpha channel for the text :)
Here’s a few screen caps as well
http://www.bentateonline.com/Images/Remove_HDRI.jpg
Hope this helps!
cheers,
Ben
Lot’s of clicking, guessing that’s Chris in the background.
By the way, awesome tutorial. This has been uber helpful. BTW, why do people use Vray? Does it offer more than Mental Ray? (I am a bit of a newb, but thus far MR has been pretty epic and I’ve only scratched the surface of it)
Thanks for putting time into making this, I love the Tates.
Hey John,
Thanks for the comments! and yes, that is Chris clicking in the background. We have our monitor’s back to back so unfortunately my microphone picks up a lot of his mouse clicks, as well as my own. My mouse is super loud and although I try to remove the clicks from the videos before out-putting them. Most of them can still be heard in the final videos. I think I’ll see if I can upgrade to a better mic, something that has better noise cancellation:) The one I’m currently using seems to pick up every mouse click, lip smack and nose whistle I make. It also seems to make my voice sound very rough and uneven (although I have smoked for 14 years, so that might have something to do with it :)
As for your question about renderers. A lot of people use VRay because they feel it gives the most realistic results, especially for things like reflections, refractions and shadows. It offers many, many tweakable options as well as shaders, materials and lights. Of course the same can be said for Mentalray. MR also includes many pre-made shaders and materials. (More then Vray does). At one point MR was a separate renderer from Max, like vray is now. Autodesk bought it a few years back and decided to include it with every version of 3ds max.
Regardless of the renderer, it really only comes down to what settings you’re using. It you have a good setup, good lighting and materials. Then MR can look way better then Vray, or vice-versa. The final output, regardless of the renderer, really only comes down to it’s setup. If you’ve seen any of Blur Studios awesome game cinematics, then you have a good idea of what MentrayRay is capable of :)
If you’re happy with MR, then I’d say stick with it. There’s no reason to switch to Vray if you’re getting what you want out of Mentalray. Plus you’ll save yourself over a thousand dollars, not having to buy that Vray license!
Cheers!
Thanks!!! this really explains a lot!
ive lean alot from ben tate in last year i but iseriously need to practice more. could be my teacher in college lol please ur the best teacher i ever had in years no lies i learn fast from you. A CAR TUTORAL FROM YOU WOULD BE INSANE! +1 for a car tutoral :)
+1
This is the first time I’ve come across this site, and I love it! It is by far one of the best ones I’ve seen, and I have been surfing through hundreds of tutorial sites in the past 3 years.
Keep up the great work!
good tutorial.. but anoying accent.. uhhhh aaaaa aaaaaa… !
Next time try make your sound recording with Lower db, then speak with higher volume, you voice sounds awful.
very nice im a total noob with this stuff.. now used 4 days to get into 3dmax and just seems somany ways to do the same thing:D this is so far the bes.. however i get nice results from scanline ..but when tried with mentalray i lost much of the shadows on the ground.. dunno what happened, but the scanline looks so much better that im doing something wrong 4sure
Hey Chris, Thanks a bunches! You’ve done a great job in teaching the basics. I’ve learned a lot from you more than I have from my instructors at school (they suck). I’m on my last semester and I feel like I’ve wasted my time and money there. You my friend have given me hopes again. KEEP ROCKIN’
thumbs up, cheers for this
I very much appreciate your efforts in these fantastic tutorials. I’ve certainly learned alot as many others have. It’s very much appreciated!
excellent!! thank you
Hello
First, thanks for the GREAT tuts you guys deliver (means you and Chris :D)
Now i have a question. I have vray and and i just have black render when i turn on global illumination. Rendering works fine when there is no global illumination but when i turn it on i just get black render. Any idea why is this happening?
Congratulations Ben and God bless you.
As usual you are the best. And thanks God you are now co-editor too.
I´ve told you once how much you help people all over the world. Being a teacher is a mission, and you are doing it quite well. Being a co-editor is part of a returning for the good job you´ve done. This is justice. God´s one.
I´m very happy for your success.
Keep the good job, they are like seeds in your career
Again. THANK YOU FOR TEACHING US
Herval
Very nice tutorial Ben! Thank you very much and please keep up the good work. Professionals like me cannot do a full – time course at any Design Institute due to time constraints. (I am a civil engineer who devotes half his time at site work, a quarter in office work and designing, and very less in studying new concepts.) And at the same time, we have to keep on ‘upgrading’ ourselves. It is books and tutorials like this which actually help. Thanks again.
I have a problem with vray part of tutorial. After I delete the lights and start render with GI and irradiance map 3dsmax2010 renders a black image. Before I’ve turned off GI + IrMap it rendered me something. My version of Vray is 1.5 SP4.
First of all thanks a lot for such heap of helps . But Dear Ben , can you let me know how to not let the GI Of the Background which we apply on our Environment tab to throw its GI on our 3D Scene. As i was applying a Landscape Background in Environment with a 3D house to be rendered and merge in it. But the Background is giving a lot of GI which is really making my scene crazy….
Amazing Tutorial . Thanks a million , Ben .
Thanks, very useful tutorial, I’m trying to do this, but my materials do not look realistic, recommend, please, tutorials of making vray materials. Good luck!
Ok a little bit late here but a very good tut thx a lot did help me a lot. Now for a tricky question : how do you render the background plane ( as in it is in the rendering image ) but dosent render in the alpha channel ?
i’m rendering some stationary stuff, the plane i do want to keep in the image but i what to control if that’s needed the color of the graphics on the other objects is have in my scene in photoshop. so yeah there you have it my ultimate question :P .
oo and just wanted to add that now i am working around this with 2 renders ( one with the plane and one without the plane and after i stitch them together in ps and/or do a flat render so no graphics in the textures just simple white or what color i need and apply the graphics in ps after ) ok these are almost 99% of the time very good methods for me, but if i want to integrate the graphics into the image so lets say i want them to catch some of the hdri light or other ” ambient ” light so that its more realistic but want to have also a smooth control of them ( graphics ) after the render ( ex: all the lights in the scene are perfect but it messed with the color of the graphics ). i’m not sure if it is possible but no harm done by asking :P