3D MAX & You

Jarrod Crossley

Rubbin Racer!
So your looking at producing your own renders, You've got one of the many version of 3d max and your wondering whats next.

Well here is some of the ins and outs :

First off you'll need Spluterfish's Brazil you can download the demo vresion known as Rio from there site here:- SplutterFish, LLC: Home

Next you'll need the 3D max car scenes for Race07 and those are availble via:- Portal - raceskinning you'll have to register there.

So now you have evrything you need to get started. All you need to do now is load up a scene and go right?

Wrong due to the fact these scenes where made with a differant version of MAX and a full version of Brazil, Youlll have to make some alterations to get it to look the way you want.


So you load your scene and it looks like this:

Terrible isn't it well first off we need to set up are renderer so on the top menu bar find "Rendering" and from the drop down find "Render Setup" click on that and you'll get a menu:

Now due to the fact we are using Rio we are restricted to image size (1024x511 max) so for now select 640x480. Now on the same menu scroll down tp were it says "Assign Renderer" This is where we are going to be telling it to use Brazil Rio. So click on the three little dots:

and from the drop down menu select Brazil:
 
Hit ok and where it says material editor you'll see a little padlock click on that:

Now you can close that menu for now its time to play with the material editor. To bring up the material editor hit "M" on your keyboard and the material editor will appear. Now its time to look at the material Spheres you'll notice most of them are labled and its pritty easy to work out what they are for. But you may notice some "Missing Materials" Once you have found the material Sphere for the body (Chassis) look at the materials theres a good chance theres one or two missing materials, With this tutorial I have loaded the SEAT Leon and as you can see there is only one missing material.
Click on the box that says "Missing Material":

Becuase its missing we have to replace it so again from we hit the "Missing Material" button:

As soon as you hitt the button you'll be presented with a big list this is where we have to select the material, I went for Raytraced because I found with a few alterations I can get the look I want:
 
Stright away youll notice from the preview window the car material has changed. But it not going to react to light and shading the way i want so first things first lets alter how it "Reflects" light, So click on the swatch next to "Relect":

Again as soon as you click on the swatch a new box will appear we I want to change the value and I found that 32 is about right for the body:

Once you hit Ok your back to the Material Editor now its time to start altering the material some more so look for "Specular Highlight" and lets chage the "Specular Level" and The "Glossiness", change the level to "280" and the gloss to "80":

Stright away youll notice a differance and we haven't add the texture yet.
 
But now It time to add some "MAPS" click the "+" on maps and look for "Diffuse" and click on the "NONE":

Again you'll be presented with a big list and from the list select "Bitmap":

As soon as you hit OK it time to start navigating your way to the body texture (I would surgest using the one from the scene for now):

Once you hit open you'll be taken back to the material. Just make sure that the "Bitmap Parameters" are showing the route to your texture and hit the "Goto Perant" icon:
 
Once back at the Parent we need to alter the "Reflect" so change the value from "100" to "20" and again hit the "NONE":

Again the list find "Falloff" and hit ok:

once youv'e done that we need to change the type off falloff so click on the drop down box for "Falloff Type" and from the list select "Fresnel":

Again hit the "Go to Perant":
 
Now its time to alter the "Glossiness" again change the vlue from "100" to "30" and hit the "NONE" button:

From the list select "Raytraced" if its not showing tick the Show "Incompatable" also note it may be greyed out:

"goto Parent":

Now it time so see whats happend so it time to click on the "Show Standard Map in Viewport":

And as if by magic you get this:
 
Right you can for now close the "Material Editor" its time to add the ground, so head over to where is says "Standard Primatives" and hit the drop down box:

From the dropdown find and select "Brazil2 Primatives":

once you've done that from the Primatives you need to select "BZPlane":

Now move over to the top view with your mouse and its a case of drag and drop:

 
Now it time to add some more boxes these are going to be light / Refeltive boxes. So head over to the "Brazil2 Primatives" drop down box and from the list select "Standard Primatives":

Now from the "Standard Primatives" we want a "box" so select "box":

angain in top view drag out the box but rember this time your draging out the length, with and then the height:
 
Now using the rotate tool select the inner circle to rotate the box:

and rotate to around 25 degrees or there abouts:

Now grab the "Select Tool":

Select the box and then right click on the box and from the list select "Obkect Properites":

from the window chage the setting thus and hit "OK":
 
Again grab the "select tool":

and agin select the box and then from the menu bar select "EDIT" and from the menu select "Clone":

From the popup box select "Copy" and hit "OK":

Grab the "Move Tool" and agin in "Front View" move the box to the right:

Now grab the "Rotate tool":

and using the inner circle:

Rotate the box so it 45 to 50 degrees the opposite of the first box:
 
Now its time to make some new materials so hit "M" on your keyboard and find an empty matreial sphere and click on the "Standard" button:

from the list select "Brazil2 Advanced Material" and hit "OK":

Again find the "Reflectivity" Swatch and click on it:

this time change the value to "128" and hit "OK":

Now left click and drag that material to the "BzPlane:

 
Again find and empty material sphere and again hit the "Standard":

and from the list select "Brazil2 Utility Material" and hit "OK":

again "Discard" old material:

Once you've done that you need to change the "Colour" click on the "None":

and from the list select "output":
 

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