Rendering objects in a solid/wire mix (3dmax)

In this tutorial you will learn how to render an object to an image with both the solid and the wireframe render, without using PhotoShop or anything else than 3D Studio Max. Key terms include wire, Opacity map, Push modifier and Lattice modifier. This tutorial is aimed at the beginner, but should be interesting for the more advanced 3D artists as well. Although this tutorial is based on 3D Studio Max, the same techniques apply to many other 3D products.

Note: Click on the thumbnail in each step for a larger screenshot that includes the viewports and the relevant portion of the user interface.

	Step 1

This is not a modeling tutorial, so you need to add an object to your scene yourself. This can be anything from simple sphere to a detailed character. I used part of the nut from our logo. For good results, the model needs to be textured or have some basic material(s) assigned to it.

	Step 2

Select the object and press CTRL-V to clone it. In the Clone Options dialog, select Copy, change the name to Clone, and press OK. (You won't be able to see the clone yet.)

	Step 3

Select the clone (this happens automatically when you clone an object), and add a Push modifier with a Push Value of 0.30 (or more, or less, depending on the geometry of the model, you should fine tune this setting in step 7).

	Step 4

This step is optional. If you use an object with a MeshSmooth modifier, or if the model is an Editable Poly with NURMS Subdivision enabled, lower down the Iterations value. For example, if the original object has an Iterations value of 1, set the Iterations value of the clone to 0.

	Step 5

Press the M key to open the Material Editor (or select Material Editor from the Rendering menu), select an available slot and rename the material to Wire. Change the Diffuse color to the color you want to use for the wire frame. Drag the material to the outer object in the scene to assign it, or click the Assign Material to Selection button while the outer object is selected.

	Step 6

Enable the Wire option for the material as shown in the screen shot. Scroll down a bit in the Material Editor and open the Extended parameters roll-out. Change the wireframe thickness to 0.3 (try other values after rendering to check which works best for your model).

	Step 7

Now press F9 or F10 to render and check out the results. If the wireframe goes inside the solid model on certain spots, you should increase the Push value of the Push modifier on the clone. If there is (too much) space between the solid and the wireframe model, decrease the Push value.

	Step 8

This is another optional step for those using a smoothed model. If the clone has less Iterations it might not follow the solid model close enough to look good. You can solve this, for most models, by adding a Relax modifier to the clone. You will probably have to increase the Push value a bit more if you do use a Relax modifier.

	Step 9

You probably noticed examples on the web of objects rendered solid with only a portion of the wireframe fading away. This can be done within 3D Studio Max, without using an image editor. Select the Wire material in the Material Editor, and click the empty square button after Opacity. Select Gradient from the list and click OK.

	Step 10

The Opacity map needs a black (transparent) and a white portion (visible). Gray will result in semi-transparent. Instead of using a Gradient map, you can also use a Checker, Falloff, or any other kind of map/texture that has black and white parts. Set the 2nd color of the Gradient map to nearly black. Render again (F9 or F10) and notice part of the wireframe fading away. (You may need to change the settings of the opacity map, ie. tiling or rotating it.) I've also included a second render in the screenshot with a tiled Checker map as the Opacity map.

	Step 11

Now let's use a whole different approach to create a wireframe-like object: the Lattice modifier. First select the Wire material in the Material Editor and disable the Wire option. Remove the Opacity map (by dragging an empty map to it). Select the clone object and apply a Lattice modifier with the values as displayed in the screenshot (or values that apply better to your model).

	Step 12

Render again and check out the results. You may need to increase the Push Value of the Push modifier to get the balls at the junctions to lean on the inner original model.

	Step 13

Instead of showing the both edges and the balls, you can also choose to display only the balls at the junctions by selecting the Joints Only from Vertices option in the Lattice modifier settings, or show only the edges by selecting the Struts Only from Edges option in the Lattice modifier settings

	Step 14

You can use the same Opactiy map method as we used earlier to make the wireframe fade away.

Creating Realistic Glass (3D max tute)

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a realistic glass material and turn our chess pawn into a realistic glass object. Key terms include reflection, refraction, opacity, and fall-off. This tutorial is aimed at the beginner, but since there are several ways to create glass, it might be interesting for everyone else as well. Although this tutorial is based on 3D Studio Max, the same settings apply to many other 3D products. Note: Click on the thumbnail in each step for a larger screenshot that includes the viewports and the relevant portion of the user interface.

Step 1 Because this tutorial covers only how to create the glass material you need to add an object to your scene yourself. This can be anything from the simple pawn we use (download it here) to the sophisticated high detail models you create. ;)

Step 2 Press the M key to open the Material Editor (or select Material Editor from the Rendering menu) and rename the first material to Glass. Drag the material to your object in the scene to assign it.

Step 3 Set the Ambient and Diffuse color of the material to black. And set the Specular Level to 275 and Glossiness to 45.

Step 4 Click on the blank square button after Opacity and add a Falloff map. Set the Falloff Type to Fresnel (click here for an additional screen shot). Go up one level, back to the Glass material, by choosing Glass from the drop down menu (where it says Map #3, see the additional screen shot.)

Step 5 Now that the main Glass material is select again, scroll down in the Material Editor and add a new Raytrace map in the Refraction slot. Set the Refraction level to 80.

Step 6 To make the reflections and the colors smooth, instead of grainy, you will have to enable Supersampling for the Glass material (just above the Maps rollout. Enable the option Enable Sampler and choose a method from the list. In most cases the Max 2.5 Star will do just fine, but if your machine can handle it, you can try others that may give better results.

Step 7 You can press F9 now to do a quick render, but it won't look much like glass yet. First you will need to make some changes to your scene, the environment. Remember that glass is almost entirely transparent and can be seen only because of the reflections of light and objects in its surroundings. Let's start with adding a ground plane. Assign it a wood material from the Material Library (we used the default Wood_Ashen). Make sure the plane is large as shown in the screen shot.

Step 8 Next, let's makes some changes to the environment as the glass will need something to reflect. You can add object and a sky and such yourself, but for the sake of this tutorials an environment map will do. From the Rendering menu, select Environment (or press 8). Click the big empty button below Environment Map and select Background_Mountains (or any other background) from the Mtl Library.

Step 9 If you render your scene again, you will see it will look very different and really "glass-like". However, there are ways to make it more realistic. You could start by enabling the 2-Sided option for the Glass material. This will allow us to see the inside of the model. Click the thumb on the right for more info. Render again, and notice the difference, if any. The results won't always look good, depending on the model.

Step 10 Let's try another trick I like to use to make the glass more realistic, although it will make the glass object a hollow object (which is fine for many glass objects and often even desired). Select your object and press CTRL-V (select Copy and click OK) to clone it. Apply a Push modifier to the clone and set the push value to -0.5 (try other values after rendering to check which works best for your model).

Step 11 In the Material Editor make a copy of the Glass material and name it Glass Int. Make sure the option 2-Sided is enabled for the Glass Int material but disabled for the Glass material. Assign the Glass Int material to the clone and make sure the original Glass material is assigned to the outside model.

Step 12 Render again (F9 or F10) and notice the difference. You should end up with something similar as shown on the right. The actual result will depend mostly on the geometry of your model and its environment. Try out different background and check out the results. This concludes my glass material tutorial. Thanks for reading!

Creating gold, silver, and copper materials (3D Max)

In this tutorial you will learn how to create gold, silver, and copper material. Key terms include reflection, specular, index of refraction, fresnel, and fall-off. This tutorial is aimed at both beginners and professionals. Although this tutorial is based on 3D Studio Max, the same settings (such as the RGB color values) apply to many other 3D products. In my search for gold material and other metals such as silver and copper, I noticed there are a lot of different opinions on how to create them. There is probably some truth in most of them, but since many of those opinions conflict, they can't all be right. I'm not saying I'm right either, I'm probably not actually because there is always room for improvement. I've read several boring papers and done about 40 test renders (that takes about two eternities on my PC) before I got acceptable results. Let's just say that the examples below work for me and with or without a little tweaking they might work for you too. If you don't feel like going thru all the steps in this tutorial, you can download a matlib (.mat) file for 3D Studio Max thru a link at the bottom of this tutorial. Note: Click on the thumbnail in each step for a larger screenshot that includes the viewports and the relevant portion of the user interface....

Step 1 Create a new sphere and place it in the center of the Perspective viewport with Radius 30 and Segments 40 On the Left viewport, move up the sphere as shown in the screenshot. Open the Material Editor (select from Rendering menu or press M key) and assign the first material to the sphere and rename the material to Gold 24k.

Step 2 In the Material Editor click the Standard button (next to the name Gold 24K) and select Raytrace from the list. Change the Shading type to Blinn.

Step 3 Set the Diffuse color to RGB 70,40,0.

Step 4 Set the Specular color to RGB 255,240,215. Set the Specular Level to 100 (for now)* and Glossiness to 65. *In a completed scene with lighting and other objects in the environment you probably want to set the Specular Level to 0 and have an object that emits light create the specular reflections in the gold object.

Step 5 Click on the empty square button next to the Reflection color, select Falloff from the list and click OK.

Step 6 Set the second color (click the white box) to RGB 255,200,100. Set the Falloff Type to Fresnel, and set the Index of Refraction value to 15.

Step 7 Press the Background button to display the colored checkerboard and get a better idea of how it will look in a scene.

Step 8 Now click the Go to Parent button and scroll down to the SuperSampling section of the material. Enable the Enable Sampler option and choose Max 2.5 Star or if you have a fast computer choose Hammersley.

Step 9 Next, let's makes some changes to the environment as the gold won't look good in just a black environment. It needs something like another object to reflect. Select Environment from the Rendering menu and set the Background Color to white. Close the Environment dialog box.

Step 10 Add a ground Plane on the Top viewport with Length: 1000 and Width: 1000.

Step 11 Open the Material Editor again and select the material below Gold 24K and rename it from 7 - Default to GroundPlane. Click the small empty quare button next to the Diffuse color, select Checker from the list, and click OK.

Step 12 Set the Tiling to 9 for both the U and the V. Set the W Angle to 45. Assign the material to the plane object you jsut created (Plane01). You can do this by dragging the material to Plane01 in a viewport, or by clicking the Assign Material to Selection button in the Material Editor. Click the Show Map in Viewport button to display the material in the viewport.

Step 13 Rotate the Perspective viewport and zoom in on the ball as shown in the screen shot. Press F9 or F10 to render the Perspective viewport and check out the results. We used the default lighting setup in this render, but if you do add lights yourself, and you want to make it more realistic, lower down the Refrection value to a minimum of 40 (on the Maps rollout section of the Gold 24K material in the Material Editor).

Step 14 Silver looks similar to gold, so we can change the Gold 24K material to a silver material quite easily. Open the Material Editor and drag and copy the Gold 24K material to the material next to it and change its name to Silver. Change the Diffuse color to RGB 197,198,200.

Step 15 Set the Specular color to white (RGB 255,255,255). Set the Specular Level to 90 and the Glossiness to 50.

Step 16 Scroll down in the Material Editor and open the Maps section. Change the Reflect level to 70 and click the Map #X (Falloff) button.

Step 17 Change the second color of the Falloff map to RGB 228,229,231 and change the Index of Refraction value to 10. Assign the material to the sphere object by dragging the material to Sphere01 in a viewport, or by selecting the Sphere and clicking the Assign Material to Selection button in the Material Editor.

Step 18 Press F9 or F10 to render the Perspective viewport and check out the results.

Step 19 Now for the last metal in this tutorial: copper. Copper is kinda brown/orange and is less reflective than gold and copper. Open the Material Editor and copy the Silver material to the material next to it, and rename it to Copper. Change the Diffuse color to RGB 225,87,51.

Step 20 Set the Specular color to white (RGB 255,214,196). Set the Specular Level to 80 and the Glossiness to 40.

Step 21 Scroll down in the Material Editor and open the Maps section. Change the Reflect level to 40 and click the Map #X (Falloff) button.

Step 22 Change the second color of the Falloff map to RGB RGB 255,214,196 and change the Index of Refraction value to 7. Assign the material to the sphere object by dragging the material to Sphere01 in a viewport, or by selecting the Sphere and clicking the Assign Material to Selection button in the Material Editor.

Step 23 Press F9 or F10 to render the Perspective viewport and check out the results. As I mentioned in the introduction, the materials may need a little tweaking to fit your purpose. Try playing around with the reflection values for example. And if you want to make it more realistic, add a scratch map. You can download a matlib file with the gold, silver, and copper material from this tutorial here.