Create Gorgeous Realtime Renders of your Game Art using the Marmoset Toolbag

Create Gorgeous Realtime Renders of your Game Art using the Marmoset Toolbag

on Apr 20th 2010 with 18 comments
Tutorial Details

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

If you are trying to get a job in the video game industry, it will always be a huge plus if you can show your work the way it will look inside an actual video game. In this tutorial, you will learn how to properly import your models into the viewer of the Marmoset Toolbag (video game engine) from
8 Monkey Labs.

The entire process of exporting the model, as well as a 360° animation, from 3ds Max or Maya, and then importing it into the Toolbag so you can make a render for your reel, will be thoroughly explained. Have fun!

Note – This tutorial requires either 3D Studio Max or Maya and your own 3d model (with texture maps.)

Full Video

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Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

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Hi, my name is Fred Franco. I'm 27 years old and I was born in Brazil, but at the moment I am studying in Germany. Like many other 3d artists, my passion for 3d started while playing computer games, and now I'm transforming my hobby into my work. My main focus is on modeling, although I also love to texture and animate. I am experienced at 3ds Max, Maya and Photoshop.  

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  • http://www.webguide4u.com WebGuide4u

    I still didn’t get what you are trying to say. Will need to watch the video ?

    • http://kaleb-3d.com Kaleb Aylsworth

      If you want to learn anything from the tutorial, you will of course need to watch the video….

      • freeseedboxx

        kaleb, sorry to disturb you but i couldn’t contact u somewhere else, in ur tutorial idea submission page its said that not all unapproved ideas ‘ll be contacted stating so
        how long exactly do i wait till i should assume that my idea was not accepted and i wasn’t replied to?
        and BTW i think you guys should at least have an auto message that should be forwarded to people who are not accepted.

      • http://kaleb-3d.com Kaleb Aylsworth

        How long ago did you submit your tutorial concept? We receive dozens of submissions a week, and there is only one moderator (me), so with all of the other responsibilities of managing a website such as this (correspondence with authors, reviewing submissions, moderating comments, editing and uploading tutorials and videos etc), it can sometimes take a week or two before you receive a response.

        That being said, we do have a standard response that we give to authors whose tutorials are not accepted, and if it is accepted you would be notified with a specific reply. If you have received no reply at all, it simply means that your concept has not made it to the top of the pile yet.

        Cheers,

        Kaleb

  • http://www.death.gr/ Teo

    Excellent tutorial and fantastic results! I was planning to make an interactive application with Ogre 3D, but this looks just as good and will take half the time and effort to create. Thanks for this tutorial.

    • Fred

      Hi Teo,
      I’m glad you liked the tutorial! This is a really powerfull tool with an uncomplicated interface and as far as I know is being used by many people lately, specially for previewing puposes.
      Good luck on your project! :-)

  • leo

    Does anyone know another program? I can’t get the Marmoset Toolbag too run properly :(

    • Fred

      Hi, why can’t you run the program?
      In any case you may also want to try UDK (Unreal Development Kit), which is also a free (with some restrictions) and very powerfull too, but it’s much more complicated and you’ll probably need some time to learn how it works.

      • Leo M.

        It says my computer doesn’t meet the minimum requirements to run Darkest of Days :P

    • http://fladurs.co.cc Gustavo Valdez

      Unfortunately if you can’t run Marmoset, you can’t run Unreal 3 either.

    • Fred

      Hey, I tried to run Marmoset on a PC with a Quadro graphic card and I got the same error as you but someway I could run the program but with some weird bugs, shadown problems and so on, since Marmoset it’s not compatible with quadro cards.
      Anyways the best thing to do in your case would be: Buy a better PC! :-)

  • LosPescados

    Hi, why is marmoset better to render than simply doing it into max with the Xoliul shader?
    You can simply animate it in max then and you also can change the light settings in max?

    • Fred

      Yes, you’re right, you can also use Xoliul and check out for the results (which are also very nice) inside 3ds Max, but what Xoliul does is only a simulation. When you import one model in a game engine you can see the results in a real game environment. I’ve heard that in Marmoset models will look sharper than in Xoliul. You know it’s more precisely and in any case I prefer the results in Marmo, I guess they look even nicer than in Xoliul.

      Both are very good tools but like I said in Marmoset is a game engine and Xoliul is only a dx-shader, that’s the main difference. So having your stuff in Marmoset is like having your stuff in the closest way that they will look like in a game.

      • LosPescados

        Thanks for clearing that out, I’ll have a deeper look at the marmoset shader then
        because now until now I didn’t see much of difference.
        -Tom

      • Laurens Corijn

        Just a note from me;
        there is no real difference in terms of how a viewer like Marmoset or Xnormal or even a real game-engine like Unreal works, compared to the 3DS max viewport with a shader.
        They’re all just interactive DirectX applications that use the same code library (DirectX 9.0), but the exact implementation and actual purpose of the application could differ. That doesn’t mean that they work differently at the core, in how they get your graphics card to present 3D models on to the screen.

        The big difference between them is that the actual shader of marmoset only does IBL (Image Based Lighting) for specular and lighting, while my shader uses point lights by default. Marmoset also has post-shaders running by default. You can do all these things with my shader too, it might just be a bit more difficult or some more work to set up (as opposed to some extra work for ex- and importing for Marmoset) .

        How good the final result looks really depends on the artist using the tools.

  • freeseedboxx

    ok, thnx for clearing that out bro :)

  • deutschlandv

    thanks guy I very like this tutorial!!

  • http://www.article-elf.com/ forex robot

    Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!