3ds Max Renders = Not Awesome

[Ascott]

The Car Paint tutorial video leads you to believe that rendering DirectX files are a snap. But, its not true if you add a Texture_lookup_2d node. It just renders grey, why?
I have read the forum's on this topic and find no useful solution, the answers range from "it works for me" to "If you want this to work you need to compile a dll".

Now the Max Viewport works exactly as stated and IS awesome, but for rendering there is a disappointing lack of clarity.

Question 1: Does it really work and I just forgot to flick a switch in Mentalray? if so please explain.

Question 2: It doesn’t work? If so please state this clearly so others don’t was there time.

Question 3: Do you have a clear plan and time line to fix this? If so please state it here so I and others can explain to our managers why the product we just spent money on is not usable for renders.



Alex.

[ruediger]

I agree that the way of getting a shader into 3ds Max via the DirectX shader node is not the most straight-forward solution.

From what I've read about your texture trouble, you must ensure a few things to have mental ray retreive the texture as well:

You must connect a state-> texture_coordinate2d node to the UV input of the texture lookup 2d node.
Also, you need to expose the texture itself to the interface of the Phenomenon, otherwise mental ray won't find it (even though it's being displayed in the viewport).

I attached an example to this post that should work out of the box.

If you feel tired of always having to attach a state texture_coordinate2d node, try creating a Phenomenon that wraps the texture lookup node and the texture_coordinate_2d node, only exposing the texture as interface parameter.
You can add this Phenomenon to your "commonly_used" folder in mental mill under the name max_texture_lookup_2d, for example.

Best Regards,
Ruediger

[Ascott]

Thank you for the example Ruediger, your shader renders for me. I spent the morning steping through my shader to figure out what caused a fatal error in max after adding the coordinate node....

It turns out that the Texture_lookup_2d_alpha phenomenon was the cause of the crash. I removed the alpha component and was able to render in MR.
But the normal map that works in the viewport did not appear in the render.

Beyond the normal map, the other problem is connecting a Conversion_color_to_floats to the diffuse and adding the alpha to the output renamed (transparency). This gives me alpha in the viewport (which I need) but it causes the MR render to ignore the model. (At this point no alpha in the render is not a problem I care about I only need it in the viewport.)

My shader is a cut down version of a max standard shader.

Diffuse (texture)+(Alpha)
Normal (texture)
Spec_Mask (texture)
Spec_shinnines (value)

Alex