3D Studio Max BAT Version 2 Released !!

[nofunk 1,933]

OK, two things...

1. I'm getting the following errors when I render:

MSG  0.0  error: Shadow generator "Area Shadows" on light "nitelite_Direct01" is unsupported (mental ray only supports raytraced and shadow maps). Using raytraced shadows.

API  0.0  warn   302029: while defining light "nitelite_Direct01|Light": light has no light shader

MSG  0.0  warn : Displacement is ON and set to view-dependent, but the view being rendered is orthographic. View-dependent displacement does not work with orthographic views.

RCFG 0.2  warn   542002: angle between normal and geometry normal > 90 degrees

What do these mean?

2. Jasoncw and I were working with 3ds max the other week, and on his system, his viewport grids subdivide as he zooms in and his snaps automatically snap to the grid lines, no matter how small the scale is. In my scenes, I've gotten the grid to continually subdivide, but snap to grids still will only snap to every 1m, whereas his will snap to 1m, then 0.1m, then 0.01m, and so on. Does anybody know how to get mine to do that as well? We both have 3ds max 8 and we both have our Grid Spacing set to 1.0m.

Thanks!

[SimFox 801]

1. exactly what it says - Mental Ray doesn't support area shadows. If you want to get area shadows with MR you have to use it's own MR Area Lights and set shadow to ray-traced shadow.

2. this one I can't say right away. But check the light and see how different it is from the rest...

3. That is a case. but problem is hat MR sometimes mistakes something else for being a displacement. If this is a case and you don't use displacements then just try to restart MAX and see if that solves problem.

4. not sure, but do you use any environmental maps? for instance for reflection or may be for lighting as well?? Those set to anything but screen will not work because of orthographic cameras used in rig. And scree is utterly useless.

About snaps...

rechecks your settings the problem is somewhere there. If SNAP to grid turn on then it would snap to any grid points no matter of the scale -if it is a grip point it will snap to it. post here screenshot of your SNAPS tab

[nofunk 1,933]

Thanks SimFox. I'll go through your notes on the lights and get back to you.

Here are my snap settings currently. Please forgive me if I'm missing something really obvious here -- I'm still relatively new at 3ds max.

[SimFox 801]

hm... all the settings are correct... I'm at a loss to be honest, it should work.

[fabfab 4]

Hi again!

I'm stuck on the nitelite_ problem with 3dsmax8...

The last time I used the prefix on lights, everything worked pretty well (on the RG comm center found on the STEX)... Shadows were done using a combination of area shadows and adv. raytrace and everything worked very good (even with the omnis).

At my current project I did exactly the same, but MAX delivers an error 2 right after hitting the export button. I tried deleting all the lights - and voila, everything works great.

So I deleted them again without setting up any new - success.

I tested to set them up, without assigning them as nitelite_s - success.

So I get my lightlights to be rendered in day-view.. haha

The error occurs even with 1 assigned nitelite_ :/

I'd be happy if anyone who found a solution to that issue before would post it...

xx

[ILL Tonkso 1,236]

I have some news to tell. I tried lighting my night windows by shining a great big spotlight on them (exluded everything else) and rendering that way. It works. Things are rendering. I am also playing around with cooler night schemes now too.

[fabfab 4]

Yea, I have thought of that, as well!

Along with SimFox's Self-Illuminating Nightmaterials this would be a solution for the missing Nightwindows (and even looks better with a falloff that allows more variety on lighting-levels)...

I rendered my model that caused the problems i described above, using some night-materials that illuminate. I'm not sure if it works, but I'll have a try ingame now...

[SimFox 801]

Fab Fab:

Error code 2 you say?? Never heard of this one..

BTW could you give all the relevant details:

1. version of MAX
2. type of lights used: default, photometric (which), other
3. type of shadow assigned to the light (to each type)
4. rendering engine used (Scanline, Mental Ray, other)
5. rendering setup ( AA, Indirect Illumination)
6. were any night Windows used with any preffix/suffix (nite/night ect.)
7. was Night Library used
8. any other settings differing from absolute default in max

 

Ultimately you can send the file to me and I can see if I'll have same problem with it you did...

 

Ill:

that is definitely one way of replacing night windows. I always suspected them to be the source of all problems in the script. You should see the chunk of it dedicated to their set-up! I just can not get my head around that so much effort is spent on so little return.

But still, although a working solution I would suggest to use Night Library instead and here are reasons why:

1. Appropriateness of the material to be illuminated. Say you have glass planes in your windows. would you shine a dedicated night light on them there result would be very much sub-par. Glass, properly set, can not really be illuminated with lights. It is transparent and reflective, but it reflects not the light source itself. Well, this is very cumbersome and complex field but for simplicity right here and right now let's assume it doesn't reflect the lights proper. So for the day and night views look good you would anyway have to set up some sort of material replacement scheme, or keep use same textured fake glass Jason does use. It is an option, and he is very good at producing those imitation textures, but they with all their greatness still luck crucial glass properties. They could easily fool you at one view and when in either shadow OR open light but not when you see the transition.
2. Number of lights to set. Well that does depend on the number of parallel planes your windows are placed on. To give same degree of lighting light would have to hit the surface an same angle. Because of this the light to be used for such a solution, strictly speaking, should be a directional light, not spot. In Spot not two rays are traveling at the same direction, in Directional, as name suggest all rays travel at same direction. So Imagine situation where you have windows on 4 sides of the building then you would need 4 directional lights. What if your building isn’t of a simple box shape? What if it has some NOT right corners, say at 45 or 30 degrees, or what-ever in any plane. Then you would see this positioning affecting illumination levels and that wouldn't look good. So ultimately you would have to set as many lights as you have normals in your windows setup. In the end it may get very complicated tracking all the lights and planes, determining what is included and excluded where etc…  Add to this reason #1 and this will makes for a really compelling case to look elsewhere.

 

 

 

Night Libraries:

Advantages are plenty!

1. placement independent
2. can use as many night materials as you please and this wouldn’t bog down you scene (unless you se some crazy procedurals dozens stages deep)
3. many possibilities on choosing self-illumination type. Depending on the render used and on were you to use Indirect illumination or not you have several options. I think I should right about this separately as this would definitely need some illustrations suffice to say that you can go from very close imitation of old and not so good NightWindows ( but still better as these would be UWV mapped and follow the direction you desire as opposed as being flat inlay) to using Object based Illumination/Material based Illumination giving you proper soft lighting with virtually free superb area shadows without actually using any of actual area shadows and ANY light s at ALL!!
4. Great control over the look of your windows. All the tools used for texturing and map procession are at your disposal.

 

Disadvantages… well can’t really think at any. Ok, generally the lighting should be appropriate to the situation – placing 1 light inside the room for night lighting the window is same as trying to light your room with a single unshaded incandescent clear bulb. Would you do it? Do you see it done often? The sharp harsh light and shadows it produce aren’t really right are they? Yet ah-so-many think that is somehow superior solution and too boon are using spots for this purpose.  Spots should do what they are supposed to do like illuminating façade of the building etc… Here they are no doubt superior to the Material/object based lighting!

To be used for really light source night materials have to be used with some rendering engine that does calculates bounced light. This one is the reason why this wouldn’t work in GMAX and with basic SCANLINE in MAX itself. But if you use MAX there is hardly a reason to stick with  that old thing at all…I will leave all the extra rendering solution like V-Ray, Fry Render, Final Render, Maxwell etc out of this no matter how good they may be but still those are extras, but you, by default, have Mental ray. The issue with it is that functionality and speed would differ depending on you version, but still at any stage it would be solution superior to the ScanLine. I know it may look daunting at first, but do try it! Do some tutorials at least those that come with Max itself, look online! Although not so plentiful as ones for V-ray – the darling of the architectural/interior design community, Mental Ray still have some adepts in MAX circles. Here is couple of links to explore:

MentalBoutMax  (http://www.mentalboutmax.co.uk)

 

 

BlueCherry by 3d Total  (http://www.3dtotal.com/services/pluggins/bluecherry_shop.asp)

 

Mental Sun and Sky tutorial by Evermotion (http://evermotion.org/index.php?unfold_exclusive=141&unfold=exclusive)

 

So with Mental ray enabling Final Gather (one way of calculating Indirect Illumination will turn any object with self-illuminating material on it into the real light source! With all the shadows appropriately soft and light distribution fallowing laws of physics closer then with basic lights left at their default settings.

Anyway it is your artistic and technical choice what to use. Only purpose of the text above is to give you options to consider! Decision is yours. If you have any questions or ideas of the tutorial let me know.

[fabfab 4]

1. version of MAX
2. type of lights used: default, photometric (which), other
3. type of shadow assigned to the light (to each type)
4. rendering engine used (Scanline, Mental Ray, other)
5. rendering setup ( AA, Indirect Illumination)
6. were any night Windows used with any preffix/suffix (nite/night ect.)
7. was Night Library used
8. any other settings differing from absolute default in max

> 1: 3DSM 8
> 2: default
> 3: several combinations, but only 2 types - Area and Adv. RT
> 4: At that time i tried Scanline, but MR failed, as well
> 5: AA default setting but disabled for maps
> 6: No NightWindows (due to max8-bug), but nitelite_Lights
> 7: No Night Library, I don't know how to set up one (though I really want to! )
> 8: Nothing special I could think of, except a envi-map (jpeg of some sky/clouds) and several materials I set up (but nothing too odd, just some bump-maps, raytracing materials and/or facettes enabled)

---

Meanwhile I finished 1 render with default scanline which yielded in a color-checkerboard-like building. I merged the model without any lights to a clean scene and am now rendering with MR-Renderer (still in progress) just to check if the model is corrupt.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge on skies and lighting! I got your Sky-Setup from the STEX and will try using it on the next project.

But still I couldn't find a thread which explains how to actually set up any Night Library and how to work with it. Would you mind explaining how to do that?
Do I need to add materials with a nite_ prefix and assign them to clones of my geometry? Or whats the deal about that?

Thanks again, mate!

[SimFox 801]

You have to check MAX help to see which type of shadows work with which rendering engine. For instance Mental Ray will not work with either area or Advanced Ray-traced shadows. However this shouldn't crash the export those not supporte would be simply ignored.

Didi you try to do normal "preview" render and not a full export?

Ok I'll do a tutorial on night libraries.

It should be done in a day or so...

[fabfab 4]

Yea, I know about the special shadows and lighttypes for MR.

Just off topic: I found out that I need to completely disable Area Shadows in Rendering-Settings to boost the Rendering-Time to 1/3 with MR (other shadows applied, of course)..! I guess I have to thank you for sharing your knowledge in the Forces Of Light-Thread, without it i had never found out...

Normal Preview Render in all Zooms and user-perspective worked fine.

Sample:

I went on exporting that thingie using MR-Renderer without any lights except the BAT-LightRig at all and here's the result:

I still have no clue what was the reason for the error, but I keep getting it.

Now I will set up the new Rig using Sky/Sun. I assume that this has nothing to do with my issue, but it will look fantastic on future projects, i guess

edit

Oh and i forgot:

A Night-Library Tutorial would be fantastic..! Thanks so much!

[siso43 13]

great work, and i think it will famous your work

[Mascri 0]

Why a manager of this tread deleted my post ?

Please teach the reason.

I had a question "How to use Preview in 3DSmax wit BatforMaxV2"

If the answer is already sent, please show the place. 

I am sorry that I misunderstand.

Thank you for move my post to fit place.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

You posted it the right place.  Both places are the right place, right now.

In a few weeks, this thread will be locked, and the other thread will be the only thread.  This is because the "BAT - Open Discussion" and the "BAT - Workshop" will be merged together.

I moved your post, and I moved my post, because our posts were new questions, and can be easily separated from this thread.  The rest of the posts are parts of conversations, which would be hard to move.

I am sorry for the confusion.  I was going to post this message earlier, but I had to leave my computer for a few hours.  I have just gotten back from college, and I have not set up my own computer yet.  When I set up my computer, I will take screen shots from 3ds Max to teach you what to do.

So everyone, continue the current conversations.  If anyone has a new question, please post it in the other thread (in the BAT - Open Discussion).

[nofunk 1,933]

All right, I'm sure this has been covered before, but I've paged through over half of this thread and haven't come across it, so I'm going to ask. I've tried to export in 3DS MAX 8 a few times now, and every time it locks up at 24% done. I'm not getting any error messages, and it doesn't appear as though the program is locking up (it doesn't say "Not Responding" in the Task Manager) but it is clearly getting stuck. Any ideas?

P.S. SimFox, thanks for the help above. I've gotten past the lighting errors, but still haven't gotten the snaps to work properly. Oh well: you win some, you lose some.

[toxicpiano 125]

[edit] NM, problem was fixed.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

opps, I forgot this was still open.

Everyone, post your 3ds Max issues in the new 3ds Max - Troubleshooting thread in the BAT - Open Discussion.