Visual Graphics Design Module

3ds Max window

1. Application buttonThe Application menu that appears when you click the Application button
provides file-management commands.

2. Quick Access toolbarprovides buttons for commonly used commands for managing your scene
files.
3. InfoCentergives you access to information about 3ds Max and other Autodesk products.
4. Menu BarThe menu bar is located directly under the main window’s title bar. The title of each
menu indicates the purpose of the commands on the menu. Each menu uses standard Microsoft
Windows conventions.

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5. Main toolbarThe main toolbar provides quick access to tools and dialogs for many of the most
common tasks in3ds Max.

6. Command panel tabsThe command panel comprises six user-interface panels that give you
access to most of the modeling features of 3ds Max, as well as some animation features, display
choices, and miscellaneous utilities. Only one panel is visible at a time. To display a different panel,
you click its tab at the top of the command panel.

These are the panels:

 Create panel
Contains controls for creating objects: geometry, cameras, lights, and so on.

 Modify panel
Contains controls for applying modifiers to objects and editing editable objects such as meshes
and patches.

 Hierarchy panel
Contains controls for managing links in a hierarchy, joints, and inverse kinematics.

 Motion panel
Contains controls for animation controllers and trajectories.

 Display panel
Contains controls that let you hide and unhide objects, along with other display options

 Utilities panel
Contains miscellaneous utility programs.

7. Object categories (Create panel)The Create panel provides the controls for creating objects.
This is the first step in building a new scene in 3ds Max. Most likely, you will continue to add
objects throughout an entire project. For example, when it is time to render a scene you might
need to add more lights.
8. RolloutA rollout is an area on command panels and dialogs that you can expand (roll out) or
collapse (roll in) to manage screen space. In the preceding illustration, the Keyboard Entry rollout
is collapsed, as indicated by the downward-pointing arrows (or + sign), and the Parameters rollout

is expanded, as indicated by the upward-pointing arrows (or − sign).

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9. Viewport navigation controlsAt the right end of the status bar are the buttons that control the
display and navigation of the viewports.

Some of the buttons change for camera and light viewports. The Field Of View button changes for
Perspective viewports.

The navigation controls depend on the active viewport. Perspective, orthographic, camera, and
light viewports all have specialized controls. The term “orthographic” refers to User viewports as
well as viewports like Top, Front, and so on. The Zoom Extents All flyout and Maximize Viewport
Toggle, available in all viewports, are included with the Perspective and orthographic viewport
controls.

10. Animation playback controlsand 11. Animation keying controls

The main animation controls are found at the bottom of the program window, between the status
bar and the viewport navigation controls, along with the time controls for animation playback
within viewports.
12. Prompt line and status bar controlsThe 3ds Max window contains an area at the bottom for
prompt and status information about your scene and the active command. The coordinate display
area lets you type transform values, and on the left, a two-line interface provides a shortcut to the
MAXScript Listener.
13. MAXScript mini-listenerThe MAXScript Mini Listener is a single-line view of the contents of
the MAXScript Listener window. You can type directly into the white area of the Mini Listener, and
the command executes in the viewports.

Example: To create a sphere using the Mini Listener:

1. Click the tag bar at the left end of the status bar, and drag it to the right to expand the Mini
Listener.

2. In the Scripter (white, lower) line, type sphere radius: 50 and press Enter.
A sphere appears in the viewports.

14. Track barThe track bar provides a timeline showing the frame numbers (or appropriate display
units). It provides a quick alternative to Track View for moving, copying, and deleting keys, and
changing key properties. Select an object to view its animation keys on the track bar. The track bar
also displays keys for multiple selected objects.
15. Time sliderThe time slider works in conjunction with the track bar to allow you to view and
edit your animation. The slider itself shows the current frame and lets you move to any frame in
the active time segment by dragging. Right-clicking the slider bar opens the Create Key dialog,
which lets you create transform keys without keyframing.
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16. ViewportsYou can choose different views to display in these four viewports as well as different
layouts from the Viewport Label Menus.

17. Modeling ribbonThe Graphite Modeling Tools set, also called the modeling ribbon, gives you
everything you need for editing polygon objects. Its interface provides tools specific to the
modeling task, and reduces onscreen clutter by showing only necessary settings.

The ribbon contains all standard Edit/Editable Poly tools as well as additional tools for creating,
selecting, and editing geometry. Also, you can customize the ribbon however you like.

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Activity
Creating realistic Table Cloth with 3ds max

How to create a realistic table cloth by using cloth modifier.

Cloth modifier is really useful while simulating the motion of
cloth. We will make use of cloth modifier to create a table cloth.

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1. Insert a box in Standard Primitives

2. Insert a plane in Standard Primitives

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3. Right Click Smooth + Highlights then Select Edged Faces

4. Change the value of Length and Width Segment Example 60

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5.

6. Click plane and Go to Modifier List select Cloth

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7. Click Object Properties

Click this button

8. follow the procedure

1. Click Add Object…
2. Click Cloth

4. Click Plane01

3. Select Silk

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9. Click Box01 then add

Select Box01

Click Add Button

10.Click Collision Object and Click OK button

Click Collision Object

Click OK button

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11.Click Simulate

Click
Simulate
button
wait until
finish…

12.Final Output

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What is Mental ray

The mental ray renderer is optimized to use multiple processors and to take
advantage of incremental changes for efficient rendering of animations. Unlike the
default 3ds Max renderer, which renders scan lines from the top of the image
downward, the mental ray renderer renders rectangular blocks called buckets.

How do I get mental ray in 3ds Max?

To use the mental ray renderer:
1. Choose Rendering menu Render Setup. 3ds Max opens the Render Setup
dialog.
2. On the Common panel, open the Assign Renderer rollout, then click the “...”
button for the Production renderer. ...
3. On the Choose Renderer dialog, highlight mental ray Renderer and then click
OK.

mental ray Renderer

Jun 15 2017In-Product View

Applies to 3ds Max 2017

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Add to Collection

The mental ray ® renderer from NVIDIA ® is a general-purpose renderer that can
generate physically correct simulations of lighting effects, including ray-traced
reflections and refractions, caustics, and global illumination.

Note: mental ray and NVIDIA are registered trademarks, and photon map is a
trademark of NVIDIA Corporation.

Scene rendered with the scanline renderer

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Same scene rendered with the mental ray renderer

The second rendering, done with the mental ray renderer, shows caustics cast by
refraction through the martini glass. Caustics are also visible in the reflection on the
cocktail shaker.

Note: For a discussion of using the mental ray renderer, especially with architectural
models, see this white paper.

The mental ray renderer in 3ds Max supports the mental ray version 2 (mi2) and
version 3 (mi3) formats. It does not support the mental ray version 1 (mi1) format.

Differences Between the mental ray Renderer and the Default Scanline Renderer

Compared to the default 3ds Max scanline renderer, the mental ray renderer
relieves you of the need to simulate complex lighting effects "by hand" or by
generating a radiosity solution. The mental ray renderer is optimized to use multiple
processors and to take advantage of incremental changes for efficient rendering of
animations.

Unlike the default 3ds Max renderer, which renders scanlines from the top of the
image downward, the mental ray renderer renders rectangular blocks
called buckets. The order in which the buckets are rendered can vary, depending on
the method you choose. By default, mental ray uses the Hilbert method, which picks
the next bucket to render based on the cost of switching to the next one. Because
objects can be discarded from the memory to render other objects, it’s important to
avoid having to reload the same object multiple times. This is especially important
when you have enabled placeholder objects (see the Processing panel Translator
Options rollout).

If you use distributed rendering to render a scene, it might be hard to understand the
logic behind the rendering order. In this case, the order has been optimized to avoid
sending lots of data over the network. Each CPU is assigned a bucket as the bucket
becomes available, so different buckets can appear in the rendered image at
different times. See the Renderer panel Sampling Quality rollout.

Note: The mental ray renderer can also be run in a standalone fashion, using a
command-line interface based on the mi2 or mi3 scene description format. This is
described in the manual mental ray Programming, which is written for programmers
writing custom shaders.

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Procedures

To use the mental ray renderer:

1. Choose Rendering menu Render Setup. The Render Setup dialog opens.
2. On the Common panel, open the Assign Renderer rollout, and then click the “...” button
for the Production renderer.

The Choose Renderer dialog opens.

3. On the Choose Renderer dialog, highlight mental ray Renderer and then click OK.
Tip: After you make the mental ray renderer the active production renderer, you
can make the mental ray renderer the default renderer for all new scenes by
clicking Save As Defaults. This is a convenient way to avoid extra setup time.

Now the Render Setup dialog contains the mental ray controls. You can choose to
render the scene with the built-in mental ray renderer, or simply to translate the
scene and save it in an MI file that you can render later, perhaps on a different
system. Controls for choosing whether to render, save to an MI file, or both, are on
the Translator Options rollout.

Topics in this section

 Rendering with the mental ray Renderer

To use the mental ray translator and renderer, you must first choose mental ray as the
production renderer, as described the "Procedures" section below. Once you have
chosen mental ray rendering, the Render Setup dialog displays panels and rollouts that
control the mental ray renderer.
 Getting Good Results with mental ray Rendering
Although the mental ray renderer is relatively easy to use once you’ve set it up
correctly, there are several "gotchas" that you might encounter immediately, especially
if you’re primarily accustomed to the 3ds Max scanline renderer and its workflow. For
example, see 3ds Max Materials in mental ray Renderings. Following are some basic
rules of thumb for using mental ray in 3ds Max:
 3ds Max Materials in mental ray Renderings
For the most part, the mental ray renderer treats 3ds Max maps and materials the same
way the default scanline renderer does. The exceptions are listed below. In general, if
the mental ray renderer does not recognize a map or material, it renders it as opaque
black.
 Enhancements to Standard Features
The primary interface to the mental ray renderer consists of rollouts on the Render

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Setup dialog. To choose the mental ray renderer, use the Assign Renderer rollout, as
described in this procedure.
 mental ray File Formats
The mental ray renderer uses several file formats to save information.
 mental ray Concepts
These topics describe what the mental ray renderer can do, and explain how it
accomplishes these effects. For more technical detail about mental ray capabilities, see
the mental ray Reference, available from Help menu Additional Help, and the
books Programming mental ray and Rendering with mental ray, both by Thomas
Driemeyer.
 mental ray Renderer Interface
Topics in this section cover the Render Setup dialog panels that are specific to mental
ray rendering.

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