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3D
ART68.3dsk

Illustration: Darren Brooker Email: [e] darren.brooker@terra.es

March 2002
7/2/02
11:58 am
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3D Skills
Photorealism in
3ds max
Photorealism is an important skill in 3D design.
We show you the key techniques…
s there some way to make
I an object in max look like
something other than plastic?”
This quip, posted on the
Discreet support Website some time ago,
has since become legend. It raises the
significant question of how to avoid the
stereotypical, artificial CG look. The
synthetic aesthetic championed and
made mainstream by the likes of Pixar
might suit Buzz Lightyear, but for many
applications this look is not right.
For CG work that aims to blend
seamlessly with a live-action plate, or for
architectural visualisation and product
design, the skills of photorealism play a
key role. Knowing how to make metal and
3D
wood look real relies on an understanding
of materials and rendering – skills that
are critical to any scene’s success.
But you just have to look at
photography’s wide gamut of visual
possibilities to realise that photorealism
doesn’t necessarily have to be perceived
as real. It needs to be perceived as
something that imitates one of this
medium’s qualities. This tutorial, involving
the rendering of a table at breakfast time,
involves several fundamental techniques
in 3ds max, which you should then be able
to take and apply elsewhere.
CD files
You’ll find all the files you require on the cover
CD, inside the folder Tutorial\3dskills. Artwork
and expertise supplied by Darren Brooker,
award-winning freelance animator currently
working at Cosgrove Hall Digital,
[e] darren.brooker@terra.es,
[w] www.big-face.com.
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3D

Part 1: Model behaviour

Like most projects, our scene begins with some modelling work. First, locate Tutorial\3dskills on the CD…

Symmetry
Though simple symmetrical
objects are the easiest to model,
they are often the most tricky
when working towards
photorealistic results. Take a tea
cup from your kitchen and
examine how many variations
there are in terms of its glaze,
shape and colour. Noise is a
useful tool, giving perfectly
symmetrical objects that little bit
of variation that adds another Open Pt1.max from the folder named maxfiles
3 To distort the object a little, add a Noise
modifier and check the Fractal box, changing
layer of realism to the illusion. 1
(in Tutorial\3dskills). Using the Line tool, draw 2 After altering these handles to produce a good the X and Z Strength to 0.01m. Using the
smooth line, add a Lathe modifier, checking the
out the profile of a saucer in the Front viewport, Weld Core box and specifying 36 segments. Hit the techniques in the previous steps, model an egg cup
using the plate for comparisons, making sure to add Y Direction button, then in the Align section press like the one pictured and position it on your plate.
enough detail around the curved edges. In Vertex the Max button and you have your basic saucer. Now Clone a copy of this and scale it up by 150 per
Sub-Object mode, work around the curve’s vertices Add a MeshSmooth modifier, changing the Render cent, placing it slightly off centre on the saucer and
individually, changing those that need to be curved Values settings in the Subdivision Amount roll-out to renaming it Cup. Change the Noise modifier’s Seed
to Bézier by right-clicking them. 1 and 1.0. value so it looks different to the egg cup.

Add a Noise modifier as before, this time

4 For the handle, create a cylinder of 36 Sides
and Segments, with Height and Radius set to
0.01m and 0.005m respectively. Apply a Bend
modifier and give this an Angle value of –275,
checking the Limit Effect box and moving the
spinners until you get a basic handle shape. Now
select a Scale tool, and at the bottom edge of the
screen enter 80 in the X field.
5 applying the effect to X, Y and Z axes. Move
and Rotate this handle into position, and in the
Hierarchy panel press Affect Pivot Only, then use
the Align function to match the pivot to that of the
cup. You can now rotate it easily around the cup.
Place it around the back where its rough modelling
won’t matter.
6 For the egg, create a sphere of 32 segments.
Add an Edit Mesh modifier, select the top
vertex and set Soft Selection to fade off approaching
the middle row of vertices. Move this selection
upwards until the egg looks right. Add a
MeshSmooth modifier, as before, then place this in
the egg cup using the Transform and Scale tools.

Part 2: Basic lighting

To show off our work to the best degree, we’ll start by generating a quick
three-point lighting scheme…

Three-point
lighting
The convention of three-point
lighting is one that is firmly
established in cinematography,
and has become the main
foundation for lighting in CG,
too. One of the principal reasons
for this is that the technique
helps emphasise the 3D nature
of your subject, using light as a
modelling tool.

1 Open Pt2.max from the cover CD. Place a
Target Spot acting as a key light, slightly to the
right of the camera, pointing along the table at the
breakfast objects. Give the light a Multiplier value of
0.75 and a slight yellow tint, setting its Hotspot and
Fall-off to 45 and 60. Make sure its shadows are
turned on, up the Shadow Map value to 1024 and
change the Sample Range to 8.0.
Place another Target Spot to the camera’s left,
2 acting as a Fill. Give this the same values,
though with no shadows and a Multiplier of 0.1.
Turn off the light’s Specular component and give it a
light blue tint. This should just open up the shadows
slightly, while keeping some contrast. Another
Target Spot should be placed, acting as a back light.
3 This should be given a slight red tint and a
Multiplier of 0.1. Right-click a viewport label
and choose your backlight from the Views list.
Now bring down the Hotspot and Fall-off values
to tightly enclose the table. When rendering, you
should see a marked difference between this
lighting set-up and max’s default lighting. Good
lighting is vital for material design.

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Part 3: Material world
The key to photorealism lies in the detailed textures, and the ceramic glazes
are typically challenging…

SuperSampling
Within 3ds max, SuperSampling
is one of several anti-aliasing
techniques that the software
performs. Textures, shadows,
highlights, raytraced reflections
and refractions all have their
own preliminary anti-aliasing
strategies. SuperSampling is an
optional additional step that
provides a best guess colour for
each rendered pixel, performing
an additional anti-aliasing pass on
the material. The SuperSampler’s
output is then passed on to the
renderer, which performs a final Open Pt3.max from the cover CD. For our
anti-aliasing pass.
1 2 Within a new layer, apply the Render>Clouds 3 In 3ds max, in a new material slot, change the
diffuse egg cup texture, start with a 1024x512- filter with the Foreground and Background Diffuse colour to the previous cream colour
pixel file in Photoshop and fill the background with colours reset to black and white. Give this layer an and alter the Specular Level, Glossiness and Soften
Raytracing a very light cream, around R:243, G:239, B:221. Opacity value of 25 per cent and set the layer’s values to 30, 50 and 0.6 respectively. Place the base
Create some light blue stripes in a new layer, then blending mode to Overlay. In another new layer, texture in the Diffuse channel and at the top of the
When you’re first designing
using the Randomise button, apply different Wave paint some dark discolouration along the bottom material, then in the Bump channel choose a Noise
materials that have raytraced
filters to each of these lines to give them a hand- edge and some white wear along the top before map, with Fractal noise of Size 0.2 and a Low value
components, turn off any anti-
painted feel. saving a JPEG copy. of 0.675.
aliasing options in the
renderer’s global options, which
will make the initial design
decisions quicker. Also, max’s
global setting for its raytrace
depth defaults to a maximum of
9, which is overkill for most
scenes. Calculate how much
depth is actually needed in
your scene and reduce this
value appropriately (2 or 3 will
usually suffice).

4 Now click the button labelled Noise and
change the map type to Gradient, electing to
keep the old map when prompted. This will make
the bumpiness fade off towards the bottom of the
egg cup. Keep the values as they appear by default,
but change the Colour 2 Position to 0.2, then go
back to the top of the material and give the Bump a
value of 10.
Now drag an Instance of this to a blank slot in
5 the Material editor. Back at the top level of
your egg cup material, hit the button marked
Standard and change the map type to Shellac,
keeping the old material. Specify a Colour Blend of
35, rename this material Eggcup and within the
Shellac material choose an Anisotropic shader,
turning on SuperSampling.
Set the Specular Level, Glossiness and
6 Anisotropy to 40, 55 and 0 and change the
Ambient, Diffuse and Specular colour swatches to
three shades of grey – R:35, G:35, B:35, R:138,
G:138, B:138, and R: 229, G: 229, B:229
respectively. Now drag an Instance of the Bump
material you copied to another slot into this
material’s Bump channel.

Now drag a copy of the Mug material and

7 In the reflection slot, choose a Fall-off map and
change its type to Towards/Away. This will
make the reflections appear more strongly on the
sides of the egg cup than the front, much more
realistic an effect than uniform reflectivity. Give the
white swatch a mid-grey colour and put a Raytrace
map in the top channel of the two labelled None.
8 Drag a copy of this material into a blank slot
and apply the new version to the mug. Rename
them both Eggcup and Mug. Within either of this
Mug material’s Noise maps, change the Size to 0.15;
it doesn’t matter which, because they are instanced
copies and both will change. At a level above,
change the Colour 2 Position to 0.4.
9 apply it to the saucer and handle objects,
renaming it appropriately. Within either of this
material’s Noise maps, change the Size to 0.2 and at
the level above, change the Colour 2 Position to 0.7
and the Gradient Type to Radial, which will make
the bumpiness fade from the outside edge of the
saucer towards the centre.

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Part 4: Volumetric lighting

To give a sense of realism to the final image, we’ll add an atmospheric lighting effect…

Lighting
Most people find that starting
with the dominant key light is the
best approach when building up
complex lighting scenarios.
However, once this has been
established, it’s often a good
idea to turn this off and work
through the lighting from the
subtlest towards those with the
most influence. This way, the
influence of even the smallest
lights is not lost among the more Open Pt4.max from the cover CD. First, you
1 Set the Multiplier to 1.0, ensure Cast Shadows
3 Set the two colour swatches to a light grey of
powerful sources. need to create a Target Spotlight. Don’t worry 2 is turned off and uncheck the Specular
about its position, just place it and use the Align tool about R:225, G:225, B:225 and a very dark
to move it into the middle of your cup, with its component. Now, down in the bottom roll-out of blue-grey (around R:35, G:50, B:55), then check the
target object straight above. Set the Hotspot to 0.5 this light (the one labelled Atmosphere & Effects) hit Use Attenuation Colour box. Change the Density to
and the Fall-off to fit inside your cup (about 25 the Add button. Select Volume Light from the 10.0 and the Attenuation Multiplier to 0.0, setting
should do it). Give this light a pure white colour and resulting dialog and OK this, then press the Setup the Filter Shadows setting to Low for test renders –
rename it SpotSteam. button to jump directly to the Environment dialog. but change it for final print-resolution output.

4 To create the smoke pattern within the volume
light, turn Noise on and set its Amount to 0.9,
changing its Type to Turbulence. Its Noise Threshold
High and Low values should be set to 0.5 and 0.2,
while its Uniformity should be set to 0.0. Finally, set
the Size to 5. Render, and when you’re happy with
the results, up the Filter Shadows setting and turn
off the effect.
5 To have our previous lights behave realistically,
we need to give them some decay. Real-world
illumination behaves according to the Inverse
Square Law, and this form of decay is available to us
in 3ds max. Set the Start value for the key light to
begin just beyond the cup in the Right viewport.
Repeat this for the fill and back lights.
To further reinforce the back lighting, within
6 the Shellac materials, place a Fall-off map
within the Self-Illumination channels, changing the
Fall-off type to Fresnel. Set the Self-Illumination
amount to around 35 until you just get a subtle
back-lit effect. Do this at both the material’s levels,
and in the Eggshell material, though with a slightly
stronger level: around 50.

Part 5: Rendered senseless

When rendering something as detailed as a large photorealistic image, it’s
important to get the final render settings just right…

Anti-aliasing filters
Within 3ds max, there are 11
different basic filters that form
the last step in anti-aliasing
during the final render. They
work at the sub-pixel level
and enable you to sharpen or
soften your final output,
depending on which filter you
select. For still, high-resolution
renders, especially for print
output, the anti-aliasing filter
should be one that sharpens the
image, making it as detailed and When rendering for a print-resolution image, To calculate the size of the rendered image
clear as possible.
1 it’s important that the right anti-aliasing filter is
2 required, you need to work backwards. For Within Rendering>Environment, turn on the
used to keep as much detail as possible. The instance, the main image at the start of this article is
3 Volume Light that we created earlier for the
Catmull-Rom filter – named after Edward Catmull, 295mmx225mm, at 300dpi. The easiest way to steam. Set the Output Size to the dimensions
one of the co-founders of Pixar – is a good bet, as it work out the size of the image required is to create a required, ensure that Disable All Samplers is
sharpens the object textures themselves, as well as new image of this size and resolution in Photoshop unchecked. Save your work one last time before
the edges of the objects. Turn this on within the and see how big this is in pixels: in this case you hit the Render button and go take a well-
main Render dialog. 3484x2657. deserved break. ca

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