Modelling
Modelling is basically a process where you use all available tools and options to recreate an object or a character using a technique with which you are familiar or is the most useful for this purpose. If we are talking about techniques you can be sure that there a lot of them which you can use for a certain object but usually is only one the „right“ one. It’s not about that you somehow create the object or character, it’s about you do it right. Every mistake, every triangle and every bump on your mesh would be visible if you will not start your modelling process with the right technique or you will close eyes on every failure you did to the model.
- Study the references– if you are going to model something according blueprints, study also the real world object to know all the details and to predict the next step by modelling.
- Editable poly– use always „Editable poly“ as your modelling way
- What object to start– think about the primitive you want to start from
- Use new tools– every time Autodesk release a new version of 3ds max they also place there some new features, learn them and use them for your purpose. One of the features you can use are the „Graphite modelling tools“
- Keep a clean geometry– There are three possibilities how your polygon can look; triangle, quad and n-gon. Both triangles and n-gons can cause your troubles by applying smoothing modifiers or any modification which will bend the mesh. Try to keep your polys always as quads
- Use snap – if you are in need to rotate in a certain angel or you have an symmetric model you can use the snap tools for rotating in a step you choose
Lightning
One of the most important parts by rendering is the lightning. Here not only depends which lights you choose but also what configuration you set-up for the scene. If you want to push your renders to realistic you need to master this part of rendering. You need to understand also the fact that every scene will probably need a different set-up and parameters with which you can achieve the best render and this of course in halt a lot of test renders before you can be sure that this are the right one. I will focus on MentalRay and not at any third party renderer but this don’t mean that you can’t use this also for them.
- Photometric lights vs. Standard lights – by default you can choose from two lights in 3ds max; Photometric lights and Standard lights. The Photometric lights are physically accurate and you should grab these first but remember to render something physically right you need to have the model also in real-world scale. Of course you can use also a combination of Photometric lights and Standard lights.
- Raytraced shadows – by both lights you can choose from different set-up for the shadows the light will cast. In real world the shadows have not sharp edges and are semi-transparent. A very quick way how to achieve this with Photometric lights is to choose Raytraced shadows from the configuration of the light.
- Exposure – rendering with MentalRay allows you to use some tools similar by taking a photo with a camera. You can change and adjust the exposure of the render and so control the highlights and shadows in a deeper way than just with the lights and render set-up.
