Also...
On that site he has some nice tuts I looked over a few and some I have mentioned and some I have not but use the same techniques.
A Study In Greens, Variety in Your Colors
Banging Up Your Geometry (tho I usually do not change the geometry to much IE rarely requires it)
Rounding The Edges, Chamfers And Fillets
Mapping Complex Shapes Using Multiple Map Channels
Reducing Memory Usage To Render A Memory Hungry Scene

No, I just had some problems with scatter (mostly because I don’t know much about it), like scatter seemed to work well only with certain shapes, and if pflow wouldn’t be the solution, I’ll still have an idea what it is after going through the tut.


I'll do all of them, even if some technics would be useless in IE. As you can see, there are tons of “buttons” in max I am not aware of.

heh you are not alone. it is a huge program

SK, if you had time to try the reactor... I wonder why this happens.
Not vital , just curious.
I've tried:
1. Do the reactor inside the IE scene (with camera), using scene’s plane to create RBCollection –>.
Shadows are right.
[attachment=3574:rubbleareashadowR.png]
2. Do the reactor in a separate file –> “Group” the rocks–> merge with the scene (only the “Group”, no plane, no RBColection ) –>Shadows are not right.
[attachment=3575:rubbleareashadowG.png]
3. Do the reactor in a separate file –> merge selected rocks (no “Group”) with the scene –>Shadows are really not right.
[attachment=3577:rubblear...owbadNoG.png]

Because I never set up a camera or lights on my own, at first I thought that rocks are blocking the camera!

merging would not effect the lighting or shadows at all (besides creating new shadows for the new items) unless you also merged in some new lights. what might have happened you added the light in to the reactor.

to check if you have too many lights
right-click in a VP and select unhide all
then click 'select by name' button
then select all
go to on the main toolbar choose 'open'
then click 'select by name' now only choose lights

is there more than 1 target per light? are there more than 2 lights? only one light should be casting a shadow.

Checked, this is not it, will investigate further.

About particle flow:
I am happy with it, though works a little bit slow.
[attachment=3578:04areapflowrender.png]
The problem with scatter is that it doesn’t mind pivots at all :
Can anything be done about it ?(what am I missing?)
[attachment=3579:01branchscatter.png]
Pflw does. (but displays only half of the objects and renders all ???)
[attachment=3580:02branch...owscreen.png] [attachment=3581:03branch...owrender.png]
Same thing happens with pivots when scatter used on the plane.
Is it possible to clone the plane –> make it absolutely transparent–>scatter on it–>move it in the right place? Tried this with glass material , it does the trick, but of course shadows are all screwed.
[attachment=3582:05areasc...erscreen.png]

are you using opacity (alpha) maps because that will mess the shadows every time.
if so you have to Fake Shadows or turn off 'cast shadows' in the objects properties [select object, right click select properties]. unless you use advanced raytrace shadows which, is a real expensive (very long render times) way to cast shadows.

try F10 and go to the Common tab and select 2 sided if that works un-check it and do the same but in the materials.

I am not sure what it is you are trying to accomplish (trying to make rocks or trees or...), what is the plane used for and did you mean semi-transparent because absolutely transparent is invisible.

the one time I used scatter I wanted to move some things, so I used element instead of vert, edge, or poly. in the selection rollout.
mainly I tend to stay away from the auto reproducers. except for array and the like. which I see you do not have displayed.
to see: customize -> customize user interface -> toolbars tab -> where it says axis constraints pull down and select 'Extras' then uncheck hide.

Right, forgot about array, it will work best

I want it to be invisible to be able to see through it. Is it possible to create such material?

yep just dial down the opacity from 100 to 0 in the ME on whatever material you ae using on it
or go to the objects properties and un-click renderable.
but either way you might have to turn off cast shadows

Some new tuts
http://www.bauervision.com/L_Animation.html

you/we should get a new topic for good tutorials or 2 one for 3d one for 2d if needed.
that way they will be easier to find.

My first rig!

[attachment=3620:rig.png]

[attachment=3619:LastGoodRig.rar]

well cool, but my mobo died again! so I cant check out the max file.
what are the rings?

This is how the spine moves
By this tutorial.

What is mobo?

ah. so can it walk?
mobo= mother board
asus is going to rma (return/try to fix) both boards.

Sure it can, (ugly), but beautifully!
I would've posted an animation file, not sure about the extention BWL will be able to digest (for the world to see)

Trying indoor areas

[attachment=3643:02Indoors30.png]

Hey cool, looks good. Has a working mirror too does that have a carving in the chair?
Would not mind grabbing those flowers.

A bit of critique; seems like the walls are a bit short. The lighting might need changing to an omni (s) looks like you are still using the ies sun

Forgot to reply to last post: I opened it up in 3ds and had fun moving the legs around, kind of funny at times. Seems to work, nice job!

Yes, but chair and bed are from files Leahnkain gave me

Flowers included:
[attachment=3644:Indoors_..._trial02.rar]

Walls are short , was making it on the fly, will make walls in proportion to doors as in outside areas

Lighting never tried to change or create evar...
Will make some lamps first, then actual lights
SK, maybe you have a setup file for indoors?

No, but I made a torch/sconce using 2 lights one casting shadows the other not. red casting yellow not.
I could send it to you when I get home.
the thing you have to look out for is attenuation and make sure that you have the 'use' check boxes checked. if you have the 'show' check box checked it will show the attenuation even if you do not have the light selected.
then there is a light limiter called decay you can use none, inverse (for weak decay), or inverse square for a stronger effect.
Lastly try not to take the multiplier past 1.0 the light starts to look odd (at least that is what i have been told).

Some Info

Yes, please

I just made a new scene with a general light and a 2 light torch. I used scale on the light too to add some extra effect and control where the light actually falls. change the attenuation controls to see what they do.

I would recommend you to stay away from the 2 light system as your primary light source on a large indoor areas, it will require a lot of computations especially if they are all (or half) casting shadows

HERD, very good work, but to be a perfect one it needs a few touches:

- like Sir-Kill said, it needs to be a bit more detailed. There are plenty of free chair and bed models on the internet, you just need to texture them, for example try this web http://www.archibase.net/gdl

- increase number of planks on the floor, they are too big comparing to the rest of the room

- use Omni Lights instead of the lights you are using atm (IE sun I guess). You can use more than one omni light, just think about the shadows (many tryings)

- soften shadow edges using Area shadow type or Shadow Map type

- made the bed and the chair a bit smaller

Yes, it all will be fixed , hopefully
Thank you, guys for all the pointers
Don't really want to borrow premade things - in order to learn more modelling etc. and try to develop some kind of style.
Q: Do you think there are sources of light behind these windows, or is it just a drawn picture (like background put in 3D)?
1-2-3 Are these Omni lights?
[attachment=3646:AR0605.png]

you can tell that they are fake since the windows have a divider (2 panes of glass per window) and the light that is cast has no divider.
but you cant render real volumemetric light in an orthographic projection (since it needs depth for volume).
you can easily fake that light tho by making a plane and lowering the opacity and maybe adding some self illumination.

so in other words drawn in 3d

they are probably spheres with self illumination with omni lights for the rest of the objects. the spheres might not be casting a shadow however. (on the object properties un-check cast shadows). it could be the base that the sphere is resting on. you have have to play around with different things to get the look you want.

[attachment=3647:03IndoorsLight03.png]

And I said "Let there be light", and there was light! I saw that the light was not so good, but for the first try good enough
Can't figure out how to make actual bright light bulb inside the lamp.
Don't understand near attenuation at all.

you dont really have to worry about near. (short answer)

think of a real life light bulb.
near light is brighter and more focused, the attenuation just tells where to start calculating the bright and where to finish.
the far is the light you can see all over the room.

the room looks much better !!
it has a warm feel to it. really good job.

as far as making a bulb, there was not bulbs back then but you make the same as the globe/shade you have now (tho Id use a falloff on the opacity) but increase the self illumination to near 100 (but see what looks best)

shadows look good too not too hard and not too blocky.

I looked at the 3ds file. and a bit of criticism: you should really look in to either not using turbo smooth on everything and use a smooth instead (located in the pulldown on the modifiers tab to the right) this will smooth out the normals and not increase the poly count
or
when you model keep the segments much, much lower then use the turbo smooth.

I usually only use the turbo on natural objects not man made objects.

Guilty, but I use turbosmooth only for speed, because it's just a trial, not the real thing. Bad habit settling in though.
I started to go through tut which explains smoothing groups etc, but comp stopped working and required adobe video player was only on-line.
Will get back to it.

Tried fire effect - can't see anything. In my version of Max the original matlib file is missing, is this why it doesn't work?

I never used smoothing groups I jsut put in a check in the box and see if 30 gets it if not up to 46% if not then I might add more polys/edges.

what is fire effect? in the effects tab? I do not have 3ds open right now.
Edit: ah yes that is what I thought it was. but why would you need that in this circumstance?

I thouhgt of making a fireplace.

ahh, then something like that would be needed
there is afterburn and fumeFX too.

[attachment=3648:01Indoors05fplace.png]

What kind of light supposed to be used for fireplace and grill, omni of something else?
Should it be in the middle of the flame?
Will BG animatoin light overlap it, so it's not needed at all?

I am mostly going to defer this one to Val. I placed 2 light system in the firebox and one outside for mine, yeah just omni lights.

[attachment=3649:01Indoor...fplace01.png]

Fire with particle flow (little problem with size and position)

nice

For grills, fireplaces etc. I used to use colored omni light with high multiplier and small attenuations...

Ok, thanks, will try.
My progress so far
[attachment=3652:IND_02_25.png]

good stuff

I took another look at the last 3ds file you posted. 2 things caught my eye: one was that your specular level seems a bit high I try to use something at about 10-15 for most items, keeping the glossiness at 10 as well. and the other thing is that you don't seem to use bump maps at all. using bumps can solve you specular problem.

glass, water, and highly polished wood could be placed in the 60+ specular levels. these things seem to take on a plastic look anyways.

now that is out of the way, the area is kicking it has an inviting feel to it, it is not too bright, a good selection of items in it, and not too crowded.

Yes, textures are pretty bad, gotta get used to the new lighting process - when render with shadows (very slow), everything changes.
Will use bump and blended maps to make objects look older etc., can't decide on intensity of lights yet (multiply should be 1 - 1,5 maximum or shadows will be too sharp?...)
And again, in BG everything seems to be so detailed, even small items, will practice on LoD too, need samples of good work - people, share your non-classified creations

Use Shadow Map as shadow type for the fastest render. And don´t worry about the sharp shadow edges - if you decrease shadow map dimensions, edges will remain soft...

Here are few examples from my earlier work:

[attachment=3653:Art01.jpg]

[attachment=3654:Art02.jpg]

[attachment=3655:Art03.jpg]

Wow! Thanks, now I know what to aspire to

I thought your texturing was nice.
using bmp, large textures, compiled with high poly models and textures that are not a power of 2 will slow things down as well.
your textures do not have to be any larger than what they are shown in your final render they could be even smaller with blending and bumping.
bump maps will also slow render times, but the trade off is worth it.
with lighting I try to stay away from lights more than 1.0

one thing about shadows if you have shadow Dens. (density) less than 1.0 the light will not be stopped by your objects (such as a lamp on a table) and you will get light where there should be shadow. On the same note, planes or objects w/o a back poly will also not stop light as well.

sharpness of shadows depends on the settings in the' shadow map parameters' rollout. the only setting I know is to set 'bias' to 0. the 'size' to something around 2000 or greater and 'sample range' to 3-7 (4 usually works).

EDIT: Nice stuff VAL

Thanks

found a better use than a 2 light system.
you can use projector map under the Advanced effects rollout. set any map you want but I used a gradient map and set the colors from dark red, orange-yellow, to yellow-white. I also changed the gradient type from linear to radial.

Interesting tut in 3dtotal.com ---> Beginners --->

"Wired Lights - Video Tutorial" by Michael Bauer

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/wi...ed_lights01.asp

I watched the tut. it might have some uses someday. thanks
I added a link to the tut please try to do that if ya' can

I just stared to learn 3dmax and decided to model something simply from BG to make learning more interesting. So I picked an object from BG and tried to re-create it while familiarizing with 3dmax. At one point I discovered that there's an option to make some picture as background for a viewport, so I made a quick screenshot of my object and attached it as background to perspective (or, actually, ortographic) viewport to use as a guide for tuning my model's proportions.

So far it all looked as a great idea but I found out that I can't set up perspective viewport's point of view exactly as it is in area screenshot, i.e. x45 y0 z45, which is necessary to align my model with it's original picture. I could set up camera with these parameters, but I couldn't model in camera view mode, just watch. I could come up with something close to these parameters by wildly twisting this ViewCube thingy for a minute, but this process is long and unreliable. So, is there any way to set up exact numeric parameters for perspective viewport's point of view like it could be done for camera and then either save this point of view or assign it as "home" for Viewcube?