I made these surgical instruments and rendered with a HDR environment, the thing in the foreground has ProMat Metal Chrome applied, It renders OK locally, but with DBR I get odd buckets that look different. It DBRs OK if I change it to Stainless (which it should be anyway) or an A&D mat. Not looking for a solution, that’s obvious, just thought I’d mention it.
First pic is local render, the second DBR, no other change.

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One of my coworkers is experiencing something similar.  I’m not sure if he’s using Promats or Arch & Design, but a few buckets when rendering DBR were not coming out the same as the others.  So this is not an isolated case, and is worth looking into deeper.

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May be worth checking what materials he’s using. I’ve been trying things out, one thing that stopped it was turning off Use mental ray map manager, I know this has been responsible for some tiling problems. Another thing that makes me think it’s a map thing is if you look at my second pic, the reflection of geometry looks OK on a bad bucket, but the reflected env map is off.

Turns out my coworker was doing some testing with Ink & Paint.  He had it nested in an Arch & Design map slot using the Material as Shader.  Once he removed that, he hasn’t had the problem.  But I know I’ve encountered it in a previous project, but didn’t have time to really troubleshoot it much.  In that case (and most cases) I was using the mrPhysical Sky as the environment.

I just checked that file, and the offending material WAS a Promat (Glazing).  Map Manager was not being used, however.

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So much for pro mats, my first impression of them I wasn’t keen ‘cos I was happy with A&D, but I thought I would give them a fair try. Whenever I try using them I always end up switching back to A&D.

EDIT: Ink&Paint with A&D? That’s a wierd combination.

Possibly trying to get a ‘toon’ like effect using the ink portion of the Ink ‘n Paint, but still keeping the A&D material for the look.  i’ve tried all sorts of different things trying to get that ‘toon’ look with varying results.  Sometimes the Contour Shading just doesnt give you the look you want.

-jerry

Not sure if this would have any effect on the rendering, but are you using a final gather map?

Samab 23 October 2008 03:39 PM

So much for pro mats, my first impression of them I wasn’t keen ‘cos I was happy with A&D, but I thought I would give them a fair try. Whenever I try using them I always end up switching back to A&D.

EDIT: Ink&Paint with A&D? That’s a wierd combination.

I’m not entirely impressed with the Promats.  They have their uses, but making images look great isn’t one of them.  :(

And yes, we were exploring non-photorealistic rendering options. :)

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I think the ProMats were developed more for the basic users that want quick turn around on their materials without having to delve into the A&D shaders.  The ProMats also are used for the import/export from Revit to Max so that way the user doesn’t have to reapply all their materials again in Max.  You get more control and sometimes better results using the A&D because of that control.  I’m probably repeating things most of you know though.  :)

I saw a neat trick using the new Composite material.  If you Use the A&D material and make it a Composite (keep the original material as your base material) and then in the first slot you could use a standard material and just make that render as a wire.  i’ve gotten some ok results with that.  A lot of it depends on your mesh though.  And not trying to hijack the thread either.  :)

Not sure if this would have any effect on the rendering, but are you using a final gather map?

No, there’s no FG map. I didn’t mention I’m using “Arch Env Blur” on the environment map, I know it’s not officially supported yet, but it’s great for smooth but fast glossy environ reflections (on A&D not Promats, they don’t have the single sample option).
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.co...ems-miaenvblur-gloss.html
This isn’t really a big deal for me, since I’ll probably go with A&D in the end and I rarely use DBR for final renders, I just do an ordinary BB sequence, I use DBR for a speed boost when working on stuff and want a quick render to see if thing look right. I’m still at the modelling stage with this project, so just wanted throw on a quick material and see if thing render smoothly with metalic surfaces.

Possibly trying to get a ‘toon’ like effect using the ink portion of the Ink ‘n Paint, but still keeping the A&D material for the look. i’ve tried all sorts of different things trying to get that ‘toon’ look with varying results. Sometimes the Contour Shading just doesnt give you the look you want.

Have you tried that Gooch Shader?
http://www.sharecg.com/v/537/plu...f33e31fbd29186de0eaa868d5
It gives a combination of soft and hard-edge shading for a toon look, but not the easiest shader to use.

Have you tried that Gooch Shader?

Isn’t it for Maya?  Do they have a version for Max?

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
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