Topic awaiting preservation: Global Illumination material/setup?

I'm using 3D Max to render a scene with fake GI using a domelight, so I'm savvy about the lighting setup. But the effect I'm trying to achieve and the effect I'm getting are two different things.

I want something like the second render of the car on this page: http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/gi/

But I have no idea how to setup the material/plane/whatever. I'm using a default max material with a white diffuse applied to a plane, but it keeps rendering as gray...


"Nothin' like a pro-stabbin' from a pro." -Weadah

Domelight sky thingie?
The first thing that comes to mind is that Light Tracer is turned off.
Render > Advanced or something.
At least, that's my guess.

If you (we) don't get this soon, care to post some caps of your dialogs with settings?

edit:
I read a little closer and you are not using a skylight thingie. You are using an array of lights in a dome.
Personally, I think you are better off using skylight.
If you insist on faking it, try upping the multiplier on the lights.
Also, I think you can control exposure from Render > Environment. I've never played with it, but I'm sure exposure can brighten things up.


[This message has been edited by warjournal (edited 04-06-2004).]

Skylight/Light tracer/real GI really eats up render time - especially with raytraced materials :/

I was hoping for a faster, "cheaper" alternative, but I have yet to find one.

"Nothin' like a pro-stabbin' from a pro." -Weadah

Sounds like you need to read my edit a little bit closer. Ha! Or maybe I'm being an idiot again.

The fastest GI that I have ever done was done with Pixie, a RenderMan compliant renderer. You do one pass for irradience, the irradience gets cached, then the cache is recycled in a second pass. Man, blazingly fast compared to anything I have done in Max. Literally jaw-dropping.

The only problem is a workflow from Max to Pixie. By the time you learn enough RM to use Pixie, learn Pixie's deal, get things from Max to Pixie, you may as well just use regular GI in Max. That is, unless you plan on doing tons of GI stuff, in which case it might be worth a shot.

i've seen a number of different tutes using a "cheap" solution that creates a dome of lights that sort of simulate gi, not perfect but a lot quicker rendering. i'm sure there's one for max if you check around.

chris


KAIROSinteractive

I've got a couple of the scripts - e-light and hdridomelight.

I've figured out my problems.

"Nothin' like a pro-stabbin' from a pro." -Weadah