pixel/ab/log » tutorial

Expanded metal with normal maps (VRayNormalMap)

admin — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:28:46 +0000

Last year, Peter posted an interesting article on how to make nice looking expanded metal with displacement maps (this technique is covered here on my blog or here on BBB3 blog)

That reminded me an old project of doing this material only with opacity & normal map and after some research, it [...]

Masks : Essential tools for your CG workflow 1/2

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:17:38 +0000

update 1-oct-2009/ thanks to Peter, I’ve learned that Multimatte workd by default with object IDs. The topic has then be corrected/completed

update 27-oct-2009/ added some info on the “Affect channel : All channels” option of a material

When it come to archviz rendering, one of [...]

Displacement and Gamma issues with V-Ray

admin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:10:40 +0000

This might intrest thos who work in Linear color mapping with a gamma curve (like the so called Linear Workflow LWF with 2.2 gamma correction). I recently bumped into an annoying side effect of putting an input gamma for bitmap files other than 1.0 in Max : Diplacement maps gets corrected aswell…

But [...]

Nir Sullam’s “Creating Hedges Using PARRAY”

admin — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:16:39 +0000

Update 08-2009 : Sorry but this one seems to be offline now :(

Nice tutorial from Nir Sullam about making hedges with particle leaves…

Fog Bias parameter test in Vray Material

admin — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:34:18 +0000

I did notice this new parameter since the 1.5 Service Pack 1, and decided to make some test. Actually, this parameter does exactly what I need… but it’s quite hard to explain and an image will be clearer than thousands of word :

Let’s say that it quickens the darkening of the [...]

Tutorial/Making of Vincent Van Duysen Tower in Beirut

admin — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:22:32 +0000

I had some request on how this tower image was done so here is a small making of this particular project. Even if VRay is not really required for this tutorial, it will be explained with some of this wonderful render engine functions.

Basically the skin [...]

Tutorial / Random object visibility in 3dsmax with MaterialByElement & Opacity

admin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:31:00 +0000

Zip file with illustrations & max 7.0 files can be downloaded here.

This simple 3dsmax technique is quite useful when you have to trigger the visibility of numerous objects. Instead of deleting “randomly” some elements, you apply randomly materials that are visible… or not. This is a very simple flexible method, and it works [...]

Tutorial / Creating V-Ray displacement maps from hi poly tiling geometry

admin — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 09:02:00 +0000

UPDATE : Zip file with illustrations & max 7.0 files can be downloaded here.

This tutorial is about making a displacement map out of complex geometry that can be then applied to any object, no matter his curvature (with the VRayDisplacementMod for example) to recover the hi poly look of [...]